\| Home \| Calendar \| Contact Us \| Keep Me Informed \| Search \| Site Map \| SLO \| ENG

IEDC in the Media Press Room Newsletter Insights

IEDC hosts European Appreciative Inquiry Network Meeting

Bled (Slovenia), 10 April 2010

IEDC-Bled School of Management has hosted the 9th European Appreciative Inquiry Network Meeting, which has gathered 40 experienced change management consultants and organizational development practitioners from 15 countries. Appreciative Inquiry is a strategic management approach celebrated as the most important innovation in organizational development of the past decade.

Dr Nadya Zhexembayeva, professor of leadership, organizational change and sustainable development at IEDC, was a host and co-designer of the 9th European AI Network Meeting titled "Begeistring Learning: Moving on to the Next Level.". Dr Ron Fry, co-creator of the Appreciative Inquiry method, and Chair of the Department of Organizational Behavior at the Weatherhead School of Management, Case Western Reserve University, USA also participated and addressed the participants of the AI meeting.

Appreciative Inquiry is an innovative method which redefines the way companies and individuals experience transition by focusing on core strengths and leverage them to reshape the future. The world-renown methodology has served such corporations around the world as Wal-Mart, British Airways, Hewlett-Packard, Ford, General Electric, Nokia, Ernst & Yong et cetera.

On this occasion, IEDC also organized a seminar titled “Leading positive change through Appreciative Inquiry” which has gathered managers and consultants with strategic change initiatives and a need to expand their ability to catalyze positive change from 20 countries. The seminar was led by Dr Ron Fry and his long-term collaborator Dr Nadya Zhexembayeva. The seminar offered a new practical perspective on individual and organizational change.

During the seminar, Dr Ron Fry explained that “Appreciative Inquiry (AI) represents a proven alternative or additional change process to help human systems develop. It is unique in that it begins not by analyzing the root causes of a problem, but rather by reconnecting people or stakeholders with the inherent strengths or life-giving factors in the team or organization in order to then imagine together new possibilities for the future. Success with AI in organizations all over the world suggests that we can change or improve things by first changing the way we talk about them – by changing the questions we ask. When members of a system reconnect with their best experiences, times when their individual and collective strengths were in play, they then imagine bolder, or less incremental, possibilities and are drawn to want to work on those to co-create their futures”. He added that “as a personal, managerial, or organizational practice, AI can bring out the best in each of us and thereby unleash cooperative capacity to work for the common good”.

IEDC News | < Back | Next > |

CEEMAN | ELC | UNGC SLOVENIA
©IEDC-Bled School of Management 2004. The copyright of information contained in these web pages
is owned by the IEDC-Bled School of Management. All rights reserved. Disclaimer
Printer friendly version