Inspiring Awe and Wonder in Business
If awe is what moves us forward, as writer and mythologist Joseph Campbell argued, then how can use that to lift our personal lives, our businesses, our society to higher heights?

We likely all have stories about the power of natural phenomena to inspire awe, from seeing the magical shimmering of the Northern Lights to looking up to a breathtaking vista of the Rockies.

We may also have stories of the birth of a child "opening up the universe," creating a thrilling awareness of new, yet to be explored possibilities.

In one way or another, those experiences tend to be transformative.

At last week's Foundations and Frontiers in Appreciative Inquiry (AI) gathering in Longboat Key, Florida, David Cooperrider said he's wrestled with the question of how to generate this sense of awe in other settings.

If awe can propel a business forward, how do you trigger a sense of wonder in that environment?

Cooperrider argues there's nothing like a powerful question to propel a person into a state of wonder, surprise and amazement.

Questions reverberate. They affect the thinking process, the imagination process and the heart; they have an impact on action. Read More