Managing for Excellence - Generative Practices

Introduction

This is a course on how to manage for excellence in organizations through a dual attention to what makes people thrive and grow and what creates extraordinary performances. The course assumes that employee and group thriving is the key to organizational excellence and that we need to understand how work practice can be generative for both individuals and organizations. The course draws from a fairly new and exciting tradition of research and managerial practice called Positive Organizational Scholarship. It also borrows from recent developments within practice-based approaches to organizations, narrative psychology and the field of "design thinking". You will be challenged to discover and/or cultivate those generative practices in which you yourself can thrive, manage at your best and be valuable to others. In line with the focus on practice, the course will present rich examples from recent research along with new theory and historical overviews.

Course content

The course will focus on the five sets of generative practices:

1. Practices of fostering quality and energy in interactions;
2. Practices of experiential learning with a focus on learning through action experiements;
3. Practices of meaning making and identity formation;
4. Practices for making space for creative collaboration;
5. Practices of positive organizational change.

The last of these generative practices, organizational inquiry, involves a strong methodological component, one that can be used when doing research or when working more hands on with development efforts.