A growing number of studies from institutions, including Yale, the University of Pennsylvania, and the Mayo Clinic, suggest happy people live longer. Attitude really does make a difference, and in a stepfamily it can make all the difference.
David Cooperrider and Suresh Srivastva, at Case Western Reserve University’s Weatherhead School of Management, developed a strategy in 1987 to help organizations and corporations improve. The theory calls for companies to abandon a problem-solving approach to organizational development and instead use a strategy called “appreciative inquiry.”
The basic assumption behind the problem-solving approach is that “an organization is a problem to be solved.” Alternatively, the appreciative inquiry approach begins with the assumption that “an organization is a mystery to be embraced.”
Cooperrider maintains that problem-solving language assumes and highlights human deficiency, while appreciative inquiry techniques use positive language to focus on dreams and possibilities. He and his colleagues have developed a way to interview members of an organization so that even in the largest corporations, every member has a voice and a vision to help improve the whole, while addressing difficult issues.