Appreciative Inquiry

David Cooperrider’s Keynote Speech at the Fourth World Conference in Positive Psychology

In his keynote speech David Cooperrider tells the story of how a question initiated by the Dalai Lama to Richard Blum in Jerusalem led to a series of high-level interfaith conferences. The Appreciative Inquiry dialogues led many apprehensive religious leaders to an epiphany that Cooperrider calls “the surprise of friendship.” These conferences coincided with Bishop William Swing’s inspiration to create a United Religions Initiative. David Cooperrider introduced Bishop Swing and Canon Charles Gibbs to Dee W. Hock, the founder of VISA [see the links in Resources and the Related Quotes to get the whole story].

–David Cooperrider [Keynote Speech at the Fourth World Conference in Positive Psychology]. 

Mirror Flourishing*: Appreciative Inquiry and the Designing of Positive Institutions

Building on his next book with colleague Lindsey Godwin, Cooperrider explored the idea of positive institutions:
What is a positive institution? In previous articles Lindsey Godwin and I have defined positive institutions, theoretically, by building upon the conceptual lens of the positive psychology of human strengths. Can we design and work with institutions not as clients but as “the change agents” to magnify our highest human strengths outward into the world as a force for world benefit? How about designing institutions for magnifying the human character strength of wisdom into the world? Or the human strengths of courage, social intelligence, love, sense of humanity, or curiosity and love of learning? Instead of running away from big institutions shouldn’t we all be running toward them–if our goal is to build a better world in our society of organizations? Positive institutions are, as we define them, “organizations and structured practices in culture or society that serve to elevate and develop our highest human strengths, combine and magnify those strengths, and refract our highest strengths outward in world benefiting ways leading, ultimately, to a world of full-spectrum flourishing. (Cooperrider and Godwin, 2014)”

–David Cooperrider [Keynote Speech at the Fourth World Conference in Positive Psychology]. 

*[Mirror Flourishing = Living for the sake of others.]–kd

A Quote from Alex Steffen

“So here we are. We need, in the next twenty-two years or so, to do something never before done. We need to consciously re-design the entire material basis of our civilization. The model we replace it with must be drastically more ecologically sustainable, offer large increases in prosperity to everyone on the planet, and not only function in areas of chaos and corruption, but also help transform them. That alone is a task of historic magnitude, but there is an additional complication: we only get one shot… fail to act boldly enough and we may fail completely.”

–Alex Steffen [World Changing].

Introduction to Audrey Choi’s Talk

Now, for the logical stretch–how about the $290 trillion dollars in our global capital markets. Just as tankers leave big wakes in the ocean, might global capital markets, as an institution, become one of the most positive forces for good on the planet? And how might we make it so?
Can global capital markets become the institutional catalysts for positive social elevation of human strengths? According to Morgan Stanley investment expert Audrey Choi, individuals own almost half of all global capital, giving them (us!) the power to make a difference by investing in companies that champion social values and sustainability.
“We have more opportunity today than ever before to make choices,” she says. “So change your perspective. Invest in the change you want to see in the world.” [And watch Audrey Choi’s articulate video in Resources.]

–Cooperrider and Godwin–Mirror Flourishing: Appreciative Inquiry and the Designing of Positive Institutions – David Cooperrider, PhD.

David Cooperrider, PhD, Peter F. Drucker Distinguished Fellow

Peter F. Drucker (1909-2005) had a career as a writer, consultant and teacher spanning more than six decades. Cooperrider is fond of discussions he recalls having with Drucker, whom he regards as one of the greatest thinkers of the past century. Cooperrider says Drucker advised him that the essence of leadership “is to create an alignment of strengths in ways that make a system’s weaknesses irrelevant.”

“Too often our shell-shocked bureaucracies and negative political systems drain our energy, deplete our resources, and focus our collective attention on the worst, not the best, in life,” Cooperrider says. “But strengths-based organizations and societies are different — they’ve learned that human systems excel only through dedicated inquiry and positive public dialogue into our collective strengths, never by simply fixing weaknesses.”

–David Cooperrider [David Cooperrider website, Peter Drucker].