Appreciative Inquiry and Rumi’s Wisdom for Organizational Development

Abstract

Rising knowledge economy and increasing complexity in the world shifted the way companies work. For years, business improvement activities focused on optimizing processes and structures but, today, the role of human talents and wisdom in shaping the destiny of organizations is inevitable. Organizations are living, adaptive systems rather than policies and procedures, and focusing on the human side of business is more important than before. Gallup researches on employee engagement indicates that ‘people who do have the opportunity to focus on their strengths every day are six times as likely to be engaged in their job and more than three times as likely to report having an excellent quality of life in general’ (Roth, 2007).