The Weatherhead School of Management is holding a 2 ½ day Appreciative Inquiry Summit with the future-focused task of “Coming Together to Create an Enduring Impact for an Interconnected World” on Nov. 2–4 at the Thwing Center Ballroom on the campus of Case Western Reserve University.
Those planning to attend must register by Wednesday, Oct. 25. Faculty and staff should fill out this form to register. Students should complete this form.
To learn more about the Appreciative Inquiry process, the summit and who should attend, we sat down with Megan Buchter, director of the Fowler Center for Business as an Agent of World Benefit, to answer some frequently-asked questions:
What is Appreciative Inquiry and what is the connection to Weatherhead?
Appreciative Inquiry is a strengths-based approach to organizational change that utilizes questions and dialogue to help participants uncover existing strengths, advantages or opportunities in their communities, organizations or teams. Appreciative Inquiry is an alternative to a problem-solving or deficit-based approach, that instead focuses on what’s right, what’s working, and how to work toward a desired vision. Appreciative Inquiry was developed by David Cooperrider, Suresh Srivastva and Ron Fry in the late 1980’s at the Weatherhead School of Management.
Why is this summit being held?
Weatherhead is facing an unprecedented opportunity to make lasting changes in our organization, our education, our research and our interactions with the community. The 2 ½ day summit—November 2-4—will honor our history, transform very real challenges into big league opportunities, and elevate our sights in a world of unprecedented change.
Who should attend?
The Weatherhead AI Summit is about full voice participation–collectively discovering and designing our vision of the future that we most want to create. It will bring together faculty, staff from every level, people from every program, students, alums and key external stakeholders, such as companies, community leaders, philanthropists and strategic partners.
What can attendees expect to take away from this?
During the summit attendees can expect to discuss the best of what has been to imagine what could be and then co-determine pathways toward what will be. Participants can expect to feel heard and to know that the pathways forward will create the future of Weatherhead.
What makes this school summit different from others?
Weatherhead has never done a full Appreciative Inquiry Summit—a “whole-system-in-the-room” planning process. This is our very first. Appreciative Inquiry-style questions have been used in past strategic planning as conversation starters for dialogue but the impact of the Appreciative Inquiry Summit is about moving beyond a good dialogue. Concrete impact is derived from a summit because the courageous ideas created are then used to actually design a way forward. For this summit we had a great steering committee of about 30 people that designed the focus of the summit and have been working over the past six months at making sure that this process will lead to extraordinary results for Weatherhead.
Learn more on the Weatherhead Appreciative Inquiry Summit’s website.