“AI” – or
Appreciative Inquiry – is emerging as the most recognized name describing
the powerful new paradigm for strength-based organization change.
In this exciting and interactive session
David Cooperrider, originator of AI and thought leader in the area of leading
change, will build on a classic statement made years ago by Peter Drucker when
he said, “The task of leadership is to create an alignment of strengths in
ways that make the system’s weaknesses irrelevant.”
Could it be, asks Cooperrider, that
leading change is all about strengths? Why would strength connected to strength
create change? What would it mean to create an entire change methodology, not
on the search for the problematic and the broken, but on the discovery and
magnification of strengths? We know that strengths perform, but how about the
idea that strengths transform?
Drawing on breakthrough research in
positive psychology and the study of the power of the positive on extraordinary
organizations, not just positive thinking but positive questions, positive
emotions, and the power of language in every leadership conversation, David
Cooperrider presents new tools and approaches for the elevation and extension
of strengths. Appreciative Inquiry is exciting and applicable, says
Cooperrider, to today’s most complex change agendas — from groups and
organizations, to families and to our personal lives.
In this session, participants will learn
about Appreciative Inquiry’s “4-D” cycle of change: Moving from
discovery and dream to design and destination; the treasures embedded in the
art of asking questions that inspire; and the logic of strength-based change as
a way to build coalitions and collaborative networks across boundaries through
the use of the large group AI Summit method.
Of special interest will be the practical
tools and the applications of Appreciative Inquiry at the highest levels of the
United Nations, United States Navy and the Office of Research and Development
at the EPA, as well as the powerful stories and film clips of AI in action in
companies like Yellow-Roadway, Sherwin Williams, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters
and many more.
Be prepared to be surprised, challenged
and inspired. This session promises to change the concept of change. As one
senior executive said recently: “This strength-based approach is exciting,
has implications for everything we do as an organization, literally everything
we do — from planning to managing people and change — but I just wish
I had heard these ideas when I was raising my children…thank you for this
work.”
• ECQ I:
Leading Change
• ECQ III: Results
Driven
• ECQ V: Building
Coalitions/Communications
The International Trade Center
1300 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Atrium
Hall
Washington, DC 20004
Metro: Orange and
Blue Lines, Federal Triangle
Station
