Epiphany is defined as a “sudden and striking realization.” But it doesn’t work that way with me. My epiphanies sometimes simmer gently for years, particularly one that emerged in the aftermath of a class I took on Appreciative Inquiry, taught by its guru, Professor David Cooperrider. Because I was a journalist long outraged by the corporate malfeasance I exposed as a network correspondent, David invited me to learn about asking questions from a new perspective. This caused me to shift my view. But I was a journalist, after all, and stubborn. The process was a slow conversion, indeed.
David Cooperrider is the co-creator of Appreciative Inquiry. It’s about accentuating the positive, shifting problem solving from its usual focus on “what’s wrong” to a process that starts by asking, “What’s possible?” When our attention is focused on problems, we’ll find them.
And I was very good at that.
At that point in my life I’d spent 25 years in broadcasting as an investigative reporter and was working as a correspondent for the PBS program NOW with Bill Moyers. On David’s invitation, I decided to take a week of vacation and look into this thing calledAppreciative Inquiry, taught at Case Western Reserve University’s Weatherhead School of Management.
[For more of this story, written by Robert Baskin, go to http://www.kosmosjournal.org/article/aim2flourish/]
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