Over two decades ago David Cooperrider and Suresh Srivastva brought Appreciative Inquiry into organizational life. It shifted our attention from organizational life as “a problem-to-be-solved”, to “a universe-of-strengths”. One decade later Gallup unveiled the results of its landmark research study amongst 1.5 million people worldwide. The research confirmed the basic AI principle: a person, an organization or a larger system will excel only by knowing and amplifying strengths, never by fixing weaknesses.

Since then many people and organizations around the world have shifted their attention to strengths-based practices and leadership. This has led to breathtaking results and breakthroughs. The community of people applying AI at all levels or organizational and social life is growing continuously. Not limited by sector or continent. AI is a true global innovation. AI is changing the way that we look at change.

David L. Cooperrider is the Fairmount Minerals Professor of Entrepreneurship at the Weatherhead School of Management, Case Western Reserve University. Professor Cooperrider is past President of the National Academy of Management’s OD Division and has lectured and taught at Harvard, Stanford, University of Chicago, and Katholieke University in Belgium, MIT, University of Michigan, Cambridge and the Drucker School of Management. David is Faculty Chair of the Fowler Center for Sustainable Value.

David has served as an advisor to senior executives in business and societal leadership roles, including projects with five Presidents and Nobel Laureates. David’s ideas have supported the success of a wide variety of organizations including the Boeing Corporation, Sloan-Kettering, Fairmount Minerals, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, PWC, Parker Hannifin, Sherwin Williams, Dealer Tire, Wal-Mart as well as American Red Cross, American Hospital Association, Cleveland Clinic, and World Vision. Most of the work has been inspired by the Appreciative Inquiry (AI) methodology for which Professor Cooperrider is best known. His founding theoretical work in this area has created a positive revolution in the field of change; it is helping institutions all over the world discover the power of the strength-based approaches to multi-stakeholder innovation and sustainable design.

Over two decades ago David Cooperrider and Suresh Srivastva brought Appreciative Inquiry into organizational life. It shifted our attention from organizational life as “a problem-to-be-solved”, to “a universe-of-strengths”. One decade later Gallup unveiled the results of its landmark research study amongst 1.5 million people worldwide. The research confirmed the basic AI principle: a person, an organization or a larger system will excel only by knowing and amplifying strengths, never by fixing weaknesses.

Since then many people and organizations around the world have shifted their attention to strengths-based practices and leadership. This has led to breathtaking results and breakthroughs. The community of people applying AI at all levels or organizational and social life is growing continuously. Not limited by sector or continent. AI is a true global innovation. AI is changing the way that we look at change.

Over two decades ago David Cooperrider and Suresh Srivastva brought Appreciative Inquiry into organizational life. It shifted our attention from organizational life as “a problem-to-be-solved”, to “a universe-of-strengths”. One decade later Gallup unveiled the results of its landmark research study amongst 1.5 million people worldwide. The research confirmed the basic AI principle: a person, an organization or a larger system will excel only by knowing and amplifying strengths, never by fixing weaknesses.

Since then many people and organizations around the world have shifted their attention to strengths-based practices and leadership. This has led to breathtaking results and breakthroughs. The community of people applying AI at all levels or organizational and social life is growing continuously. Not limited by sector or continent. AI is a true global innovation. AI is changing the way that we look at change.

Over two decades ago David Cooperrider and Suresh Srivastva brought Appreciative Inquiry into organizational life. It shifted our attention from organizational life as “a problem-to-be-solved”, to “a universe-of-strengths”. One decade later Gallup unveiled the results of its landmark research study amongst 1.5 million people worldwide. The research confirmed the basic AI principle: a person, an organization or a larger system will excel only by knowing and amplifying strengths, never by fixing weaknesses.

Since then many people and organizations around the world have shifted their attention to strengths-based practices and leadership. This has led to breathtaking results and breakthroughs. The community of people applying AI at all levels or organizational and social life is growing continuously. Not limited by sector or continent. AI is a true global innovation. AI is changing the way that we look at change.

Mario Fleurinck, CEO Melotte: ‘A sustainable economy: harmonised interaction between local societies and globalised ecosystem thinking’
Ilja Heitlager, Information Officer Schuberg Philis: ‘Beyond Cupfighting, A Company based on Love’

Mr Fleurinck (CEO Melotte) presents a breakthrough business case in the area of Direct Digital Manufacturing. Originally being a mould making company Melotte is now manufacturing medical prostheses and other high end, high precision goods. Daily Melotte is searching for market opportunities by analysing product transformation possibilities for change of analogue into digital processes with the ultimate goal to realize social, economic as well as ecologic added value. By doing so the innovation is not just technology driven, also the business model, the HR policy etc. change dramatically. The speaker will nurture the audience, with his vision on business and society change, and how these two should interact. His vision of a blue economy (vs. green) is the baseline, in which social and financial profit must go hand in hand. He will explain how this vision is brought into practice and what the results are. The results are significant and growing rapidly. He may end with an open invitation to the audience to even strengthen his (international) business case.

Kenneth J. Gergen is a Senior Research Professor at Swarthmore College, and President of the Taos Institute. He has served as president of two divisions of the American Psychological Association, and the Associate Editor of both the American Psychologist, and Theory and Psychology. Gergen has been a major contributor to social constructionist theory and organizational change practices. Among his major works are Realities and relationships, soundings in social construction; The Saturated Self; An invitation to social construction; An Invitation to Social Construction; and most recently, Relational being, beyond self and community. Gergen’s work has received numerous awards, including fellowships, foundation awards, and honorary degrees in both Europe and the U.S.

Danielle P. Zandee is Professor of Sustainable Organizational Development at Nyenrode Business Universiteit in Breukelen, the Netherlands. As one of the Chairs of Nyenrode’s Center for Sustainability, she develops theory and practice to facilitate collaborative processes of change that nurture sustainability in and of organizations. Danielle studies and applies Appreciative Inquiry since the mid 1990’s when she was a PhD student in the Organizational Behavior department of Case Western Reserve University. In her work, she renews and strengthens the philosophy and craft of Appreciative Inquiry, by exploring its potential through a discursive, artful and relational lens. She embraces Appreciative Inquiry as both a dialogic approach to OD and a generative form of action research. Danielle serves on the Conference Organizing Committee of this 5th World Appreciative Inquiry Conference.

Diana Whitney, Ph.D. is President of Corporation for Positive Change, a global consulting consortium dedicated to the creation of collaborative advantage and life affirming organizations. She is an internationally recognized consultant and pioneering thought leader on topics related to Appreciative Inquiry, the social construction of innovation and positive change, Appreciative Leadership and spirituality at work. Dr. Whitney is a co-founder of the Taos Institute, a fellow of the World Business Academy, and a Distinguished Consulting Faculty with Saybrook University.

She is an award-winning writer. Her major works include, The Power of Appreciative Inquiry (with Amanda Trosten-Bloom), Appreciative Inquiry (with David Cooperrider), Appreciative Team Building and her newest Appreciative Leadership: Focus on What Works to Drive Winning Performance and Build a Thriving Organization.

Motivated by the Dennis Meadows 1972 report to the Club of Rome on the Limits to Growth, KLAAS VAN EGMOND worked since then as environmental scientist in support of national, European and global policies. As director of the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, he has been advisor to the Dutch government on the many scientific and technological issues in the field of environment, global change and sustainability. During that long period he has learned that the solution for the sustainability problem has to be found in social and cultural dynamics, rather than in technological development only. Lack of consensus in the understanding of human nature allows societies to degenerate into its own caricature and associated catastrophe, by one sided overexposure of genuine human value orientations. Sustainability can only be achieved by understanding and discouragement of this recurring mechanism. It implies encouragement of policies and political structures that recognize human and societal virtue in between materialistic and spiritual/ cultural values, and in between egocentric and collectivistic orientations. Sustainability is synonimous with human dignity; the recognition of genuine human values.

Dr. Anastasia Bukashe (nee White) currently serves as the Executive Director of The Wilgespruit Fellowship located in Roodepoort, South Africa. She has been active in the Appreciative Inquiry community since the early 1990’s. She is also a graduate (2004) of Case Western Reserve University, Weatherhead School of Management OB programme, where Prof. David Cooperrider was her Supervisor.
Anastasia is a true scholar-practitioner who is passionate about participating in the birth of a new global order. With this as her inspiration she works primarily in the field of transformation and specialises in peacebuilding. Having travelled extensively and published a number of articles and book chapters, Anastasia is increasingly being drawn into global movements.

Dr. Ilma Barros is a Distinguished Fellow at Fowler Center for Sustainable Value, at the Weatherhead School of Management. She has worked on some of the largest strategic planning summits in business and social change over the last 12 years. She is an ELIAS Fellow (Emerging Leaders for Innovation across Systems) and a member of the Presencing Institute. Most recently, Ilma facilitated the Global Forum Latin America, an encounter that gathered 1200 people to think about sustainability in a systematic manner, including business leaders, academic researchers, the government, and the civil society.
As part of her activities in Brazil, Ilma coordinated five B.A.W.B. (Business as an Agent of World Benefit) conferences and today she is a member of the research team at the Fowler Center for Sustainable Value. She was responsible for the methodology and content used at the Future 10 Parana Forum, a platform of proposals for the strategic planning of Paraná State, and the document created and officially turned in to President Lula, the Governor of Parana State, and all the cities mayors in the state of Paraná.

Ron is Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Weatherhead School of Management, Case Western Reserve University and Chairman of the Department of Organizational Behavior, consistently ranked one of the best in the world by the Financial Times. He has been honored with the University Award for Outstanding Teacher in the Professional Schools and the Weatherhead School’s Distinguished Service Award. He received his MS and PhD from the Sloan School at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology after completing a BS in Engineering at the University of California at Los Angeles.
We are honoured that Ron holds a keynote at this 5th World AI Conference, also because of the special relationship he has with Belgium & the Organising Committee. Since the mid 1990’s, Ron has led student exchanges between CWRU and KU Leuven University and participated in a growing network of AI practitioners through projects with STEBO, Kessels-Smit, Evenwicht, and alumni from KUL’s Certificate Program for Consulting in Groups and Organizations (CIGO). Collaborations with this network have culminated in the first ever Belgian Learning Network for Talent Development (now in its second iteration) and advising the core founding group for WAIC 2012.

Gervase R. Bushe is Professor of Leadership and Organization Development at the Beedie School of Business, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada. His has won awards for his research on teams, collaborative organizing, and organizational change. He has been experimenting with and studying appreciative inquiry since 1989 and published the first research assessing it. Over the past 7 years his studies have uncovered the critical role “generativity” plays in the transformational change potential of appreciative inquiry. He has lately turned his attention to developing an integrated theory of “Dialogical Organization Development” – processes of change that do not rely on data collection and diagnosis, but focus on changing conversations to transform human systems.

Over two decades ago David Cooperrider and Suresh Srivastva brought Appreciative Inquiry into organizational life. It shifted our attention from organizational life as “a problem-to-be-solved”, to “a universe-of-strengths”. One decade later Gallup unveiled the results of its landmark research study amongst 1.5 million people worldwide. The research confirmed the basic AI principle: a person, an organization or a larger system will excel only by knowing and amplifying strengths, never by fixing weaknesses.

Since then many people and organizations around the world have shifted their attention to strengths-based practices and leadership. This has led to breathtaking results and breakthroughs. The community of people applying AI at all levels or organizational and social life is growing continuously. Not limited by sector or continent. AI is a true global innovation. AI is changing the way that we look at change.

Over two decades ago David Cooperrider and Suresh Srivastva brought Appreciative Inquiry into organizational life. It shifted our attention from organizational life as “a problem-to-be-solved”, to “a universe-of-strengths”. One decade later Gallup unveiled the results of its landmark research study amongst 1.5 million people worldwide. The research confirmed the basic AI principle: a person, an organization or a larger system will excel only by knowing and amplifying strengths, never by fixing weaknesses.

Since then many people and organizations around the world have shifted their attention to strengths-based practices and leadership. This has led to breathtaking results and breakthroughs. The community of people applying AI at all levels or organizational and social life is growing continuously. Not limited by sector or continent. AI is a true global innovation. AI is changing the way that we look at change.

Over two decades ago David Cooperrider and Suresh Srivastva brought Appreciative Inquiry into organizational life. It shifted our attention from organizational life as “a problem-to-be-solved”, to “a universe-of-strengths”. One decade later Gallup unveiled the results of its landmark research study amongst 1.5 million people worldwide. The research confirmed the basic AI principle: a person, an organization or a larger system will excel only by knowing and amplifying strengths, never by fixing weaknesses.

Since then many people and organizations around the world have shifted their attention to strengths-based practices and leadership. This has led to breathtaking results and breakthroughs. The community of people applying AI at all levels or organizational and social life is growing continuously. Not limited by sector or continent. AI is a true global innovation. AI is changing the way that we look at change.

Over two decades ago David Cooperrider and Suresh Srivastva brought Appreciative Inquiry into organizational life. It shifted our attention from organizational life as “a problem-to-be-solved”, to “a universe-of-strengths”. One decade later Gallup unveiled the results of its landmark research study amongst 1.5 million people worldwide. The research confirmed the basic AI principle: a person, an organization or a larger system will excel only by knowing and amplifying strengths, never by fixing weaknesses.

Since then many people and organizations around the world have shifted their attention to strengths-based practices and leadership. This has led to breathtaking results and breakthroughs. The community of people applying AI at all levels or organizational and social life is growing continuously. Not limited by sector or continent. AI is a true global innovation. AI is changing the way that we look at change.