Ulteriori informazioni
Informationen zum Autor David L. Cooperrider is Professor and Chairman of the Department of Organizational Behavior at the Weatherhead School of Management, Case Western Reserve University. He is the author or coauthor of nine books. His 1987 article Appreciative Inquiry Into Organizational Life (with Suresh Srivastva) introduced the concept of Appreciative Inquiry. Diana Whitney is President of Corporation for Positive Change, the leading consulting firm practicing Appreciative Inquiry internationally, and a Distinguished Consulting Faculty at Saybrook Graduate School and Research Center. She has authored or edited eleven books. Whitney and Cooperrider are cofounders of the Corporation for Positive Change (www.positivechange.org) and The Taos Institute (www.taosinstitute.net). Klappentext Originally part of Berrett-Koehler Communication's "Collaborating for Change" series, this short introduction to Appreciative Inquiry is the best way for organisations to be introduced to AI by the originators and leaders of the movement itself. Now with a new introduction and updated with revisions throughout, Appreciative Inquiry offers an approach that works because it acknowledges the prevailing attitudes toward change. It offers a fresh view based on the possibility of a more desirable future, experience with the whole system and activities that signal "something different is happening this time." That difference systematically taps the potential of human beings to make themselves, their organisations and their communities more adaptive and more effective. This approach is based on solid, proven principles for unleashing people's creativity, knowledge and spirit toward a common purpose. Leseprobe Appreciative Intelligence: The Missing Link A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees. —William Blake (1790) When the Hubble Space Telescope was launched in 1990, the general public, as well as scientists in the aerospace field, held high hopes. The world waited expectantly for discoveries and answers to riddles of the universe that would be revealed by the telescope’s views of space. But blurry images caused by a flawed mirror sent those hopes crashing down to earth. Congress demanded an explanation for the failure. The project and its creators became the butt of late-night television jokes. Stress was high among NASA engineers, as were health problems. “It was traumatic,” said Charlie Pellerin, the former director of NASA’s astrophysics division, who oversaw the launch of the Hubble. Nobody could see how to fix the problem, which many seemed afraid even to address. Well, nobody except Pellerin. He not only had the initial insight to solve the problem but also found the funding and the resources to repair the telescope, for which he received NASA’s Outstanding Leadership Medal. The ultimate reward was that over the next decade, the telescope provided spectacular images and important discoveries of stars, galaxies, and other cosmic phenomena. 2 What was behind Pellerin’s success? There were dozens of other people at NASA with high IQ and world-class technical knowledge—they were, after all, rocket scientists. They could perform the same analysis, use the same logic, and wield the same models and mathematical formulas. So what gave Pellerin the insight to help the telescope get a metaphorical pair of eyeglasses? What made him persist until the telescope was fixed when others felt overwhelmed by the challenge? Pellerin possessed something more than the others did: Appreciative Intelligence. While he lived with the same conditions and circumstances as everyone else, his mind perceived reality very differently than others did. He reframed the situation as a project that was not yet finished, not as a completed product that had failed. He saw the potential for a positive future situation—a working space telesc...