Positivity: LeadTogether Highlight #13 12-1-14

Positivity: LeadTogether Highlight #13 12-1-14

Dear Friends,

While researching the current newsletter on Mentoring, I found an article on the practice of Appreciative Inquiry. Developed as an idea to help consultants for organizations take a path away from looking for what is wrong to looking for and building on what is right, Appreciative Inquiry is now a tool used by many people involved in organizational change. The basic premise is simple: helping people identify and connect with their strengths and areas of success can lead to effective changes and improvements in all areas of their organizational life. Research now shows how effective positivity can be.

Positivity is one of the six basic exercises given by Rudolf Steiner. “This exercise is the development of a positive attitude to life. Attempt to seek for the good, praiseworthy, and beautiful in all beings, all experiences and all things. Soon you will begin to notice the hidden good and beautiful that lies concealed in all things. This is connected with learning not to criticize everything. You can ask how something came to be or to act the way it is. One way to overcome the tendency to criticize is to learn to 'characterize' instead.”

The path to judgment in our thinking is a quick one. Before we finish experiencing or perceiving something we have already generally formed a judgment about it. The practice of positivity helps us learn to be open minded, to celebrate wonder, to be grateful before we form judgments. This makes it essential in our work with collegial relations of all kinds, especially in Mentoring.

Keep in touch

Michael Soule

 

You can find an article outlining Appreciative Inquiry here and the Six Basic Exercises of Rudolf Steiner here.