Conversations Worth Having: Using Appreciative Inquiry to Fuel Productive and Meaningful Engagement

by Jackie Stavros and Cheri Torres

Conversation is a crucial part of everything we do. And it has a huge influence on our well-being – a good conversation can leave us ready for anything; a bad one can ruin our whole day. We live in worlds out conversations create. But most of us are unaware of the nature of our conversations, let alone how to make them consistently affirming and empowering. This unique book by Jackie Stavros and Cheri Torres is first of its kind to bring Appreciative Inquiry (AI) into our daily conversations to ensure all our interactions with others expand creativity, ignite energy, improve productivity, and unleash potential at work, home, and our communities.

Each chapter is built around real-life stories from our personal and client relationships that are using the practices and principles to transform their conversations and outcomes. These include primarily applications in the business world as well as stories from the world of education, community change, and family dynamics. We also share the research behind this work because it is evidence-based.

The Introduction is written by David L. Cooperrider – “We live in worlds our conversations create.”