Leading Change, with David Cooperrider

Ended May 24, 2024

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How to Harness 3 of the Most Powerful Tools for Making Positive Change a High Point in Your Life and Career, For Everyone in Your Business, and for Our World: The “AI” Summit Method | Design Thinking for Teams | Moonshot Missions

"It is becoming increasingly clear that we are entering a critical next decade to radically address the global challenges before us. [And] the scale, speed, and collaborative capactiy of the human side of transformation is increasingly recognized as the difference that can make all the difference" - David Cooeprrider and Lindsey Godwin, Our Earthshot Moment: Net Positive OD for the Creation of a World of Full Spectrum Flourishing.

“A leader” states Meg Wheatley, “is everyone who wishes to make a difference at this time.” And now, more than ever, change is at the core of pretty much everything that executives, managers, project leads, and professionals across fields—from Human Resources to OD, from engineering management to health care strategy leadership—must excel at and thrive in, while making a difference that can make the difference. At its core, change and leadership are synonymous; they are about change as betterment, about making a positive difference, and about propelling speed, at the right scale, on time, for a significant cause. To flourish in an era of perpetual disruption, where massive shifts are shaking organizations everywhere—yes, “everything, everywhere, all at once”-- this capability is needed more than ever across all organizational levels.

David Cooperrider is a global authority on the highest payoff tools and leverage points, for what he calls “the 3 most dependable change superpowers.” Each, alone and especially in balance, show you how to transform change from something that creates stress, cynicism, burnout, fear, and resistance, to something that brings people alive to be their best, not just alone but in rising together. It’s been said that “people don’t resist change; they resist being changed.” But its more than that. Recent research shows that when done well, and with several of the latest breakthroughs in the positive human sciences, that the call to organizational change, even in the midst of upheaval, can become one of those inflection points where people will single out and share, “that was a high point moment in my career and for so many in our organization.”

Learning Outcomes

Join David Cooperrider, to learn how to lead change with confidence via three of the most powerful and positive change tools that can propel both your career trajectory and your organization’s highest potentials. Upon completion of this workshop will know how to creatively combine three leading change superpowers:

Design and lead what’s been called “the best large group method in the world today”—the Appreciative Inquiry Summit -- and learn how its principles of “wholeness” and “narrative richness” can be leveraged in enterprise-wide positive change, as well as with smaller teams and even individual level change (e.g., in personal coaching.) Learn how to manage the pre-summit, the summit, and post-summit momentum work—and the new change equation of hope theory and conscious co-elevation. The workshop will draw upon stories and research with industry-leading stars and brands, along with examples from early-stage entrepreneurial startups, tri-sector partnerships, whole cities, and communities, and even UN level world summits.
Learn to unite and integrate the creative power “design thinking” with small groups and, in combination with inclusive AI Summits. Learn how to bring out the creative confidence in business units, with customers, and bring design-thinking into everything from strategic planning and culture building to supplier relationships and designing the most loved workplaces. Learn why design is too important to leave to designers, and how to facilitate and bring the designing of change into the digital era.
Appreciate this new era of mission economy leadership and how to incorporate the moonshot mission mindset while igniting the superpower of purpose-driven “doing good to do well” change. This is the era when the business of building a better world is good business. This workshop will help you be a change leader that sees how even the tiniest change project can be part of building inclusive sustainable growth and the 21st century organization—one that’s loved by its customers, envied by its peers, and admired by all those who care about the next decisive decades of our planet.

Change can be inspiring, energizing, and exciting. To be sure, you will walk away with tools you can use. For example, we will share proposals that work for launching change, whether you are inside an organization or a consultant from the outside. We will share workbooks. We will share meeting designs. We will share how to hold an executive or senior level briefing. We will experientially learn, interactively, and you will have time for customizing together exchanging your application questions and opportunities with a cohort of learning partners ready to offer feedforward on your changemaking efforts.

Great for Teams with Projects!

We strongly encourage participation in teams or participation by people close to embarking on large scale system change projects. We specialize in helping teams bridge the knowing/doing gap. COACHING CALLS and DISCOUNTS available for teams of 3 or more. Contact the Cooperrider Center (appreciativeinquiry@champlain.edu).

Workshop Dates

Thursday May 23, 2024 9:30am - 3:30pm ET
Friday May 24, 2024 9:30am - 3:30pm ET

This Course is For:

Organizational Leaders, Human Resource Professionals, Organizational Development or Culture Professionals, AI Professionals, Coaches and Consultants, Project Leads, and anyone trying to enact positive change within an organization, team, or larger system such as cities or even whole industry associations. No prior AI experience is necessary, though a fundamental understanding will deepen your learning. Gain expert insight into bringing an entire organization or community together to energize purpose, deepen connections, and create meaningful and lasting impacts!

The program is entirely virtual - participate from anywhere you are in the world!

Questions? Please contact the Cooperrider Center at appreciativeinquiry@champlain.edu

Led by David Cooperrider

David L. Cooperrider, PhD, is a Distinguished University Professor at Case Western Reserve University and holds two chaired professorships: Char and Chuck Fowler Professor of Business as an Agent of World Benefit and the Covia - David L. Cooperrider Professorship in Appreciative Inquiry, both at the Weatherhead School of Management. David is the Founder and Faculty Director of the Fowler Center for Business as an Agent of World Benefit and is also the Honorary Chairman of Champlain College's David L. Cooperrider Center for Appreciative Inquiry at the Robert P. Stiller School of Business. Recently David was placed in the Organization Development field’s Hall of Fame and received "The Lifetime Achievement Award"--the highest honor in his field of Organization Development and the OD Network—for his work on positive change theory and his advancement the concept of full-spectrum flourishing as the field’s North Star.

David is best known for his original theoretical articulation of "AI" or Appreciative Inquiry with his mentor Suresh Srivastva. Today AI's approach to strengths-inspired, instead of problematizing change, is being practiced everywhere: the corporate world, the world of public service, of economics, of education, of faith, of philanthropy, and social science scholarship-it is affecting them all. Jane Nelson, at Harvard's Kennedy School of Leadership recently wrote, "David Cooperrider is one of the outstanding scholar-practitioners of our generation."

David has served as advisor to prominent leaders in business and society, including projects with five Presidents and/or Nobel Laureates such as William Jefferson Clinton, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Kofi Annan, and Jimmy Carter. David advises a wide variety of corporations including Apple, Johnson & Johnson, Keurig Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, Verizon, Hunter Douglas, Cleveland Clinic, National Grid, Smuckers, Clarke, Fairmount Minerals, McKinsey, Parker, Dealer Tire, Webasto, and Wal-Mart as well as the Navy, Red Cross, United Way of America, USAID, United Nations, the UN Global Compact, and hundreds of international private voluntary organizations (the GEM project.) David is also a founding Board Member of the International Association of Positive Psychology, the Taos Institute, and a Fellow of the World Business Academy and International Academy of Management. Early in the growth of the UN’s Global Compact David was called upon by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to facilitate (using Appreciative Inquiry) the largest summit in history between business CEOs and leaders of government and civil society. It was one of the high point moments in David’s career, and shifted the focus of his work to the discovery and design of positive institutions and a world of full spectrum flourishing, that is “a world where businesses can excel, all people can thrive, and nature can flourish now and across the generations.”