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The World Appreciative Inquiry Conference will take place in Nice from 19th to 22nd March 2019

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Organising Committee

The World Appreciative Inquiry Conference 2019 is organized by Institut Français d'Appréciative Inquiry with the support of Champlain's Academy

Organising Committee

Generating Constructive Conversations for the Common Good

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Complete Program available

- 4 Days
- 1 Preconference
- 7 plenary conferences
- 84 workshops
- 34 explorers to meet
- 202 speakers from 31 countries

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Find all the information to come in WAIC 2019 in NICE

Conference news

I am thrilled to announce a call for proposals for the 2019 World Appreciative Inquiry Conference. We are planning this exciting conference for March 19-22, 2019 in the lovely city of Nice, France. Walking in the steps of U.S., Nepal, Belgium and South Africa, France will be the host of the next World AI Conference. I look forward to us gathering together in France – a country knowing a lot about revolution.. and now oriented toward positive revolution ! There, we can join as a community...

David Cooperrider Co-creator of Appreciative Inquiry

What has made France such a fertile ground for AI ? Perhaps it was our curious minds and our fondness of new ideas, or it may have been our interest in doing things differently … It certainly wasn’t our appetite for being critical and our careful adoption of foreign ideas … The positive revolution is certainly gaining ground everywhere in France. Maybe it helps the country and its people reconnect and rediscover the highest moments in its history and what is possible here … Our hope in hosting the WAIC is that everyone from France and abroad will join us in Nice, to discover what is possible for them and thus continue developing the AI Dream !

Jean Pagès & Jean-Christophe Barralis Founders of Institut Français d'Appreciative Inquiry

This new change equation will create a seismic shift in our approach to leading change within our organizational systems. A change initiative’s success is predicted by the collective experience the system has of co-elevation, divided by its experience of deficit despair…

The New Change Equation: 8 Steps for Leading P.O.S.I.T.I.V.E. Change

Keynote Speakers

We are pleased to welcome in Nice outstanding speakers. Additional speakers will be posted as they are confirmed

Keynote Speakers

David Cooperrider

David is 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 Fairmount Santrol | David L. Cooperrider Professorship in Appreciative Inquiry. David is also the Honorary Chair of Champlain College's David L. Cooperrider Center for Appreciative Inquiry. Last year, David received "The Lifetime Achievement Award"--the highest honor in the field of Organization Development—for his pioneering work on Appreciative Inquiry and the design of Positive Institutions. David serves as advisor with organizations such as Apple, the UN, and the Global Compact bringing the innovation of companies to the 17 SD Global Goals.

Lindsey Godwin

Lindsey is a Professor of Management at the Stiller School of Business at Champlain College where she serves as the Robert P. Stiller Endowed Chair and Academic Director of the David L. Cooperrider Center for Appreciative Inquiry. She holds a Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior from Case Western Reserve University, where she studied with the founding thought-leaders in Appreciative Inquiry (AI). Her work has been published in a variety of journals and books, and she has presented in conferences around the world. As a practitioner-scholar, she remains active in the global Appreciative Inquiry community and has a passion for helping organizations leverage their potential through strength-based change.

Gervase Bushe

Gervase Bushe (pronounced Jervis Bush) wants to create a world in which collective intelligence is more potent than collective emotion; a world in which the diversity of experiences in any group are a source of collective good, not collective strife. His research, consulting and writing have developed models and tools that help people co-construct social realities where collective intelligence, collective creativity and collective well being flourish. He is an award winning author of over 100 papers and three books, many of them on appreciative inquiry, and has close to 40 years of experience as an organization development consultant. His most recent book, co-edited with Robert Marshak, is Dialogic Organization Development: The Theory and Practice of Transformational Change, hailed by academics and practitioners as a ground breaking re-imagining of organizational change theory and practice. He is The Professor of Leadership and Organization Development at the Beedie School of Business, Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada.

Eric Mellet

Master of Science in Applied Positive Psychology (Anglia Ruskin University-Cambridge). Appreciate Inquiry Certificate in Positive Business and Society Change (IFAI-Case Western Reserve University). Carl Rogers Approach Centered Therapy certified (Groupe D’Etude Carl Rogers). President of SOL France association (Society for Organizational Learning). Previously, worked at L’Oréal for 29 years. In his last job, Business Development General Manager, he initiated and piloted worldwide initiatives based on collective intelligence to develop customer’s centric approach and commercial excellence. Today, as a Consultant, Facilitator and Coach, he helps organisations to initiate and implement positive organisational transformation, staff engagement and client centric strategy. His approach aims to combine economic performance, quest of meaning and individual and collective potential flourishing. Co-founder of Positive Organisations & People (POP). Co-author with Denis Cristol: Développer une université d’entreprise. Créer un levier de business development (ESF,2013). Co-author with Béatrice Arnaud : La Boîte à Outils de la Psychologie Positive au Travail (Dunod, 2019)

Jackie Stavros and Cheri Torres

Jackie Stavros and Cheri Torres have been internationally recognized for their work with Appreciative Inquiry (AI). They have positively affected the lives of thousands or people and hundreds of organizations improve their capacity to thrive in uncertain times. They have been researching, writing, consulting, and speaking on AI since 1996. Their latest work is applying AI into our conversations – anywhere, anytime, anyplace. Conversations are at the core of how we interact. We know conversations influence us, but we rarely stop to think about how much impact they have on our well-being and our ability to thrive. In their new book, Conversations Worth Having: Using Appreciative Inquiry to Fuel Productive and Meaningful Engagement, (Introduction is written by David Cooperrider), they will show how your conversations will help people, organizations, and communities flourish. Using two AI practices and principles, they will share how everyone can communicate better and flourish in all areas of their lives. Participants will receive a pocket-size quick start guide (www.ConversationsWorthHaving.today).

Tony Silbert

Tony Silbert, MSOD, co-founder of Spartina Consulting, has over 25 years of experience in business consulting and was an early adopter, student, and practitioner of Appreciative Inquiry since 1998. He brings strengths-based and participatory approaches to strategic planning, culture building, innovation, and leadership development. Tony also co-authored the book Healing Conversations Now: Enhancing Relationships with Elders & Dying Loved Ones (with Joan Chadbourne, ©2011 Taos Institute). He is passionate about helping individuals/families have more meaningful connections toward end of life. He is even more excited about the possibilities that exist to fundamentally shift the aging experience – to radically transform healthcare systems and structures that exist today, to change the way care and support is provided to elders, and to incorporate narrative and relational practices in healthcare and long-term care.

Belinda Dewar

Belinda is the Professor of Practice Improvement at the Institute of Health Care Policy and Practice at the University of the West of Scotland in Lanarkshire and the Director of LIFE (Learning and Innovating form everyday excellence) research and development programmes. She has had extensive experience as a nurse, researcher and educator. She has been working with nurses, allied health care professionals, patients, residents and families in a range of care settings over the last 25 years to support improving the experience of giving and receiving care. She is committed to approaches to research and development that work with and for people to enable them to become researchers of their own practice. Recent work includes the development of a model of compassionate relationship centred care and innovative methodologies, such as appreciative action research and emotional touchpoints to enhance implementation of this model across education and practice. She has published papers and presented to national and international audiences on caring and methodologies for improvement, including user and carer involvement. She is recognised for her work on developing and delivering innovative transformational leadership programmes and positive culture change through appreciative inquiry. Her approaches help to uncover practices that are known but rarely said; make real differences to people; develop meaningful practice based theory; and support practitioners to have the confidence to be curious and provocative in practice which may mean refuting dominant ideology and political rhetoric. A strand that threads through all of her work is the belief that in every system something works well and our job through research, education and practice is to notice these happenings, amplify these and support people to enable them to happen more of the time.

Suzanne Quinney

Suzanne loves being an appreciative practitioner, specialising in a strength based approach to change, engagement, quality improvement, and safety. She particularly enjoys helping people learn more about their thinking. She is an experienced facilitator and event organiser, practiced in the use of World Cafe and Open Space Technology. She designs/delivers seminars and master classes, and was part of an award winning training combination for the Health Services Journal www.appreciatingpeople.co.uk/learning-excellence-works-wins-patient-safety-award/ She is an author – 7 AI related training materials and articles and book chapters. The most recent is Reflections - Realising the Power of AI: An Appreciative Journal and Practical Resource Book www.appreciatingpeople.co.uk/ap-launches-new-ai-guide-practitioners/ Although her working life began in Africa, she has worked in the UK public sector for 25+ years www.appreciatingpeople.co.uk/appreciating-peoples-work-academic-health-science-networks-hospitals/ She is interested in the connections between AI and spirituality, and enjoys sci-fi, yoga and dogs!!

Emma Plunkett

Emma is a consultant anaesthetist at University Hospitals Birmingham (UHB) and Birmingham Women’s Hospital. Her main clinical interests are obstetric anaesthesia and pre-operative assessment. Emma’s non-clinical work focuses on ways we can support each other at work. She is a trained mentor and is part of the Association of Anaesthetists mentoring scheme. In 2015 Emma introduced the concept of Learning from Excellence (LfE) at UHB. Learning from Excellence is a system for capturing episodes of good practice with the dual aim of improving quality and morale of staff. It was first introduced in at Birmingham Children’s Hospital in 2014 and has since spread to over 100 organisations within the NHS. Emma has been working with the West Midlands Patient Safety Collaborative to enable this spread and develop a community of practice. Emma discovered Appreciative Inquiry (AI) in 2015 as it was a natural fit for investigating and LfE reports. She completed training in AI with Appreciating People in 2016 and 2017 and is a developing AI practitioner, using AI to investigate excellence reports and and in other projects and settings. LfE and AI sit perfectly together with AI providing a vehicle to amplify the good practice that has been reported. Since 2016 the LfE team and the WMPSC have been working with Appreciating People to deliver training in LFE and AI and this programme of work won the Education and Training Prize in the HSJ Patient Safety awards 2017. @emmaplunkett www.learningfromexcellence.com

Helen Hunt

Helen has worked in the English NHS acute care setting for 18 years, starting with frontline patient-facing positions right up to senior management positions overseeing large departments. These positions have covered a large cross-section of NHS landscape including cancer services, operational management, health informatics and R&D. Helen is Prince 2 practitioner, trained in human factors and is completing her Post Graduate Certificate in Health Policy specialising in Quality Improvement. Within the West Midlands Academic Health Science Network wmahsn.org/about-us she has played a key role supporting the spread of Learning from Excellence (LFE) learningfromexcellence.com/ and Appreciative Inquiry (AI) as an Assistant Programme Manager of the Patient Safety Collaborative. It was a new landscape for her and she is so glad she took the big leap. She believes LFE & AI are key for the success of healthcare and that AI is used daily all around her including parenting her children! It is a non-technical skill that is vital to the everyday functioning of healthcare.

Diana Whitney

Dr. Diana Whitney, a leading figure in the fields of Appreciative Inquiry, Large Scale Organization Change and Spiritual Development, has been at the forefront of positive change theory and practice for three decades. She founded the international consultancy, Corporation for Positive Change and co-founded the social constructionist think tank, the Taos Institute. Her work, advising leaders, designing and facilitating social innovation, strategic culture change, merger integration and leadership development with Fortune 100 companies, global interfaith communities and professional associations, has gained her a world wide following. She is a prolific and award winning author with twenty books and dozens of chapters and articles to her name, including The Power of Appreciative Inquiry (with Amanda Trosten-Bloom), Appreciative Inquiry: A Positive Revolution in Change (with David Cooperrider), Appreciative Leadership: Focus on What Works to Drive Winning Performance and Build a Thriving Organization, Appreciative Inquiry in Healthcare and Positive Approaches to Peacebuilding.

Tanya Cruz Teller

Tanya Cruz Teller is a passionate, creative leader of appreciative systemic change processes, committed to ensuring a diverse, equitable and inclusive (DEI) world through building flourishing organisations. Tanya’s 20+ years experience in the international Organisation Development and DEI arena include roles as expert panelist of the Global Diversity and Inclusion Benchmarks, co-founder and member of several diversity think tanks. Residing in South Africa, her latest DEI work is applying Appreciative Inquiry using a context appropriate and relational—Ubuntu ‘I am because you are’—lens that inspires inclusion and innovation, named the Appreciative Leadership Lotus Model. Tanya brings the unique skills of combining participatory convening, coaching, technology, and social media to engage the whole system in service of connecting internal wisdom with collective knowledge.

Marlene Ogawa

Marlene Ogawa specialises in designing innovative learning interventions within NGOs, government and the private sector across the Southern Africa Region. Marlene implements Appreciative Inquiry across leadership, partnership building and collaboration initiatives. Her recent work as part of a small AI community of practice includes: building an inclusive strategy to affirm and strengthen a research institute that supports trade unions; envisioning growth and enhancing the strategic partners of a Pan-African non-profit digital news agency; and strengthening gender and race inclusion for a private economics development firm consulting across Africa. Marlene’s work at Synergos Institute focuses on relational determinants towards poverty alleviation through social connectedness with leaders and communities. She uses appreciative inquiry towards building their inner strength and resilience resulting in meaningful partnerships and sustained impact.

Miriam Subirina

Miriam Subirana is an international speaker who combines leadership skills and Appreciative Inquiry (AI) with the use of art and creative meditation techniques. She conducts summits, workshops, trainings on strength based methodologies which attract senior leaders from Global companies, public agencies, consultants and researchers. Professor at different Universities and management schools in Europe and Latin America. Some of her books: - Flourishing together, Appreciative Inquiry Coaching, OBooks, London 2016. - Indagación Apreciativa, Un enfoque innovador para la transformación personal y de las organizaciones, co-author with David Cooperrider, Kairós 2013. - Serenité mental, decidé avec lucidité. Ed.Pictos, Paris 2013. Poder de nuestra presencia, guía de coaching espiritual, Kairós, Barcelona 2012.

Felix Viloria

Appreciative Co-creator member of the Global Network of Associated Consultants of the Dialogues and Appreciative Inquiry Institute - IDeIA; Barcelona, Spain. Trained in the domains of APPRECIATIVE INQUIRY, APPRECIATIVE LEADERSHIP AND APPRECIATIVE COACHING. Certified Ontological Coach LIFE COACH by the Institute for the Practice of Ontology in Italy. Accredited as Associate Certified Coach (ACCTM) before the International Coach Federation (ICF). In recent years, he has been dedicated to facilitating appreciative dialogues in organizations and to joining leaders in the construction of a more inclusive and humane vision with their work teams.

Lorena Merino Naranjo

A clinical psychologist, with a Master´s degree in Mental Health Clinic, an international certification in Appreciative Coaching, International Certification by Case Western Reserve University and David Cooperrider in Advanced and Fundamentals of Appreciative Inquiry. A licensed organizational consultant in Appreciative Inquiry models for individuals (one to one), teams, as well as, communities. A licensed professional with highly specialized training in Evaluation Model and Competency Development, Application and Evaluation through the Appreciative Assessment Center for recruitment and development, a facilitator in processes of labor resilience. (burn out), a leading facilitator of Appreciative interventions that provoke a profound change in individuals as well as groups of individuals. A leading facilitator of post trauma Appreciative Inquiry,in the 2016 earthquake in the community of Pedernales, an accredited certifier of Ecuadorian companies in the use of Appreciative intervention as a model of organizational development, a private practitioner as an Appreciative psychotherapist in Hospital de los Valles, a leader of the group Women IA in Ecuador, a medical staff member at Hospital los Valles, Leader of the Bioethics committee at Hospital los Valles. A volunteer worker at Fecupal accompanying patients at the end of their journey.

Circe Peralta Huerta

Fine arts artist, facilitator of educative processes inspired by Reggio Emilia’s model. Fouder of ArtEnvivo, joining artists and young people to build creative processes, mutual and services to the community. Design and facilitation of projects, workshops, conferences on art focusing on environmental education, human rights, recovering the traditional and cultural narrative. Different projects have been developed with Mexican ethnics groups as Seris, Otopames, Mazahuas. Representing Voces y Visiones de Malinalco, director of the fund “Fondo Habilitación de Espacios Educativos” (Estado de México) to rebuilt three areas affected by the earthquake of September 19, 2017, using Appreciative Inquiry to leverage the emerging regeneration of social energy. Trained by Miriam Subirana. Also, director and coordinator of social organizations as Fundación Comunitaria Malinalco, Fundación Esperanza, Fundación Selva Negra, being specialized in reinforcing the interactions in the community from the first developments at their roots. Trained in processes of project launching to promote social and private investment for community and rural projects.

WAIC 2019 official partners

We can organize this conference thanks to the great support of our partners

Welcome to Nice

Organising Committee