David Cooperrider

In selecting a consultant for this assignment, I wanted to query one whose “theory of change” mirrored my own, so I could learn how he or she was able to put it into practice. I work within the frame of complexity science, and the implications that biology, specifically complex adaptive systems, have on that of the organizational system. The organization is a complex adaptive system, one whose parts are wholly interdependent, and require the full functioning of every part to be “healthy.” Just like the human body, an organ cannot suffer long before other parts follow suit; and without repair the entire system eventually fails. I believe this kind of systems thinking requires a different kind of approach to working with each other than our mutant,

Though rooted in science, across a wide range of fields including psychology, neuroscience, complexity and organization science, David chooses not to use the language of these disciplines with his clients; lest he be greeted with blank stares and potent resistance. He chooses instead to speak about the leader in all of us, whose everyday choices has an effect on the people around us; from the minor to the major. Working with all levels of the organization, he stresses the impact of every individual, reshaping leadership in the following

This analogy may have served us well when industry boundaries and opponents were clear, slow moving, and winning was about grabbing a bigger slice of the pie. There was, at one time, a lot to grab. Today the pie has been divided, and redivided, and it is not to our advantage to be distributive. A short term win is just that: short. We must be integrative to achieve long term success. It seems ironic that we have drifted so far from what in our species’ earliest days so strongly influenced our survival: cooperation. This does not mean we should ignore competition. Increasingly, competitors in one arena are also partners in another. So potent cooperation is more powerful than ever. In this new world, the ability to work together effectively is the missing link. The individual can improve this in his or herself by focusing on what David calls “best self” and “next self.” When we are our best selves, we have both a high concern for self and other. Creating “best self” habits promote personal evolution and we eventually become the “next self;” a more self-aware, emotionally intelligent, capable self than before. In this way, we can all continually shape the system from our respective levels to be it’s best self, while allowing the diversity of existence that life requires to sustain a “healthy” system that extends far beyond that of the doors of an