Customer Reviews

Appreciative Management and Leadership: The Power of Positive Thought and Action in Organization (Revised Edition, 1999)

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Managers call "People issues" the biggest problem when it comes to change in organisations. I believe Appreciative Inquiry may be one of the most important "discoveries" of the end of last century. For me, it seems it offers the answer to many work-related problems that persons in my workshops on emotional intelligence experience, problems to which I can only teach them on how to handle those problems for themselves, by developping their emotional intelligence.

Appreciative Inguiry and related methods offers ways to obtain real, systemic change in an organization. Still, this is maybe not the book you're looking for. If you want a more modern publication, I recommend the books entitled "Appreciative Inquiry: Rethinking Human Organiation Toward a Posotive theory of Change (Cooperrider et al, 2000) as a more "serious" sourcebook (containing papers) or "Appreciative Inquiry: Change at the speed of imagination" (Watkins & Mohr, 2001) as a more practical "how-to" book.

I felt a bit "cheated" by the mention "revised edition". As far as I can see, the only "new" thing is (maybe?) the addition of 2 of the original papers on the topic (from 1986 and 1987) at the end of the book, adter a title reading "expanded edition". There isn't even a new foreword from 1999. Also, checking the references, I couldn't find anything that indicated more recent stuff than the materials from 1988. If I had known that on forehand, I wouln't have purchased this volume.

Patrick Merlevede Author of "7 Steps to Emotional Intelligence"