20 Years of Impact

The Center for Positive Organizations (CPO) is the leading global center for the science of designing and sustaining thriving organizations. As a pioneer of Positive Organizational Scholarship, the Center for Positive Organizations is reaching a new level as the world prepares for a new time. Housed in the Stephen M. Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan, we are actively and passionately helping prepare the organizations of today, create the leaders of tomorrow, and build a sustainable future of meaning for all.

We are a Center of research. A Center of evidence.

A Center of action. And a Center of humanity.

The science of thriving.

Using a depth of research and a breadth of evidence, we help organizations thrive, we help inspire individuals to realize potential, and we help build students who will influence change and create impact.

THE CENTER FOR POSITIVE ORGANIZATIONS

Magnify Immersion Program

The Magnify Immersion Program is a six-credit academic course for bringing Positive Organizational Scholarship to U-M’s best and brightest students to learn, identify, and employ POS principles and practices that build highperforming organizations that enable people to thrive. The course is composed of three components: classroom work, action-learning, and an integrated reflection.

Thriving Catalyst Endorsement

NEW Fall 2022

University of Michigan students enrolled in any academic program are invited to earn a Thriving Catalyst Endorsement to gain an interdisciplinary grounding in Positive Organizational Scholarship, a field dedicated to unlocking and nurturing the highest level of human potential in organizations and communities.

Thriving Catalyst students will acquire a full toolbox that is evidence-based, rigorous, and solution-oriented. They will emerge equipped with the capacity to unlock greater passion, energy, connection, and purpose in themselves and to take others with them on the journey to thriving. Given our rapidly-changing ways of working, this endorsement launches students into a whole new sphere of capability, helping them realize possibilities in themselves and in others.

CPO Teaching Cases

45 teaching cases for students to learn how POS has been adopted by a variety of organizations CPO teaching cases include:

Burt’s Bees

DTE Energy

Southwest Airlines

Zingerman’s Community of Businesses

Educational Programs and Resources

Thriving Accelerator Workshops

A Thriving Accelerator Workshop is a rapid immersion in a topic in the science of thriving that simultaneously develops knowledge, applies ideas for skill building, and creates opportunities for embodied experience of the topic of focus, yielding lasting impact beyond the session. Accelerators are modularized, scalable, and accessible to a variety of audiences.

Accelerate Engagement

This accelerator introduces a scientific approach to engagement and provides an integrative, evidencebased model that specifies five ways to accelerate engagement in teams, groups, and across organizations. Participants will learn how to actively create conditions for greater levels of engagement and see how to quickly adopt practices to elevate engagement.

Accelerate Your Compassion Competence

This accelerator gives you everything you need to understand compassion from a scientific point of view. Participants will be equipped with four ways to handle distress that offer real relief to themselves and to others who are suffering.

Accelerate Sustainable Human Performance

This session presents evidence-based practices to create sustainable high performance. Participants engage in new ways of amplifying energy for themselves and others. They see how to regulate energy in turbulent times and how to access calm energy that is key for sustainable high performance. This accelerator’s focus is on energy as a central aspect of thriving.

Accelerate Your Purpose

This accelerator will demystify the process of tapping into a sense of purpose and share practices that help participants bring their unique why to life. They will learn to accelerate their purpose in their studies and work on a more regular basis with evidence-based methods that make purpose accessible in everyday activities.

Accelerate Your Strengths

This session will give the case for focusing on strengths as a primary source of fuel for growth and resilience and help participants build a portfolio of different types of strengths related to performance, character, and impact. They’ll leave not just knowing more about strengths but also knowing more about how to put them to use to accomplish whatever they want to realize in work and life.

Accelerate Generous Community in Your Organization

This session is grounded in research which shows how to unleash generosity in the communities and organizations where we contribute in ways that accelerate resource flows. Participants will leave with a new appreciation of the power of asking for help or resources in the smartest possible ways, as well as access to tools that help them share the lessons and build generous communities.

Accelerate Your Career Success

This session introduces new ways of seeing and using strengths at every stage of a career search and beyond. As participants build a roadmap for career development, they will see how to tell the story of who they are in compelling ways that help them stand out from the crowd.

Accelerate Your Professional Relationships

This session will enrich what participants already know about human connections and help them put proven strategies into practice to build the kinds of relationships they want in their work and life. This session gives practical, evidence-based, reliable, and small-but-mighty moves that can be used right away to accelerate the quality of human connections.

POS Research Conference at Michigan Ross

CPO has organized and hosted the POS Research Conference since 2001. This biennial conference attracts senior and junior scholars from around North America and the world.

2022 POS Research Conference Highlights

■ 162 abstracts submitted for inclusion across 12 research tracks with 81 accepted for verbal presentation and 61 accepted for visual (poster) presentation

■ Registrants: 195

■ Number of academic institutions represented: 91

■ Number of doctoral students: 54

■ Number of countries: 22 international participants representing 7 countries outside the US

■ First time attending: 114 (58% of attendees)

Previous POS Research Conferences

2015: 133 attendees 2013: 89 attendees

2011, 2008, 2006, 2003, 2001 (attendance data not available)

Award for Outstanding Published Article in POS

CPO organizes, judges, and grants this award to recognize outstanding scholarship in POS and to encourage empirical research in the field. Established in 2008, it is given in conjunction with CPO’s POS Research Conference.

These award-winning papers are published in Administrative Science Quarterly , Academy of Management Journal , Organization Science , Journal of Organizational Behavior , and more.

PAST POS RESEARCH CONFERENCES WITH AGENDAS AND MORE >>

PAST RECIPIENTS

OF THE AWARD >> (includes authors, link to published paper, publication name, link to keynote presentation if available)

Adderley Positive Research Incubator

Since 2004, CPO has conducted 231 incubator sessions to encourage and support early-stage POS research. These sessions originated as in-person events and have evolved into virtual offerings to accommodate more members of our research community. Presenters and attendees come from many different institutions.

Network of POS Scholars

Faculty at Ross, other schools at the University of Michigan, and universities around the world are formally affiliated with CPO.

Academy of Management

CPO and POS scholars are active participants in the Academy of Management (AOM).

AOM Awards presented to CPO

CPO was awarded the Joanne Martin Trailblazer Award by the Organization and Management and Theory Division (2010) and the Research Center Impact Award by the AOM Practice Theme Committee (2012).

Gathering of POS Scholars at AOM

Since 2009, CPO has organized and hosted this popular event at the annual meeting. Registration varies between 150 – 175 attendees each year. Individual hosts from CPO and other institutions lead the gatherings.

POS Sessions at AOM

At the 2022 annual meeting, more than 250 sessions and symposia were related to POS concepts and themes.

Positive Links Speaker Series

The Positive Links Speaker Series offers inspiring and practical science-based strategies to build and bolster thriving organizations. Attendees learn from leading positive organizational scholars and connect with our community of academics, students, staff, and leaders.

■ Most watched speaker series at Michigan Ross

■ 20 years running

■ 150th session November 2022

■ 115 of the world’s top POS scholars have been presenters including Angela Duckworth, Dolly Chugh, and Adam Grant

■ Attendance records: 500 people for an in-person session (full capacity for Michigan Ross’ Robertson Auditorium); 1,321 people for a virtual session

■ Most countries represented for a single virtual session: 27

Positive Organizations Consortium

CPO’s Positive Organizations Consortium is a vibrant, leader-to-leader learning and networking community designed to create highly effective workplaces where people thrive. Established in 2014, the Consortium hosts regular forums, working groups, webinars, and other events for its members.

Inaugural and current member organizations include:

The Central Intelligence Agency

DuPont

Humana

KPMG

Logitech

Kimberly-Clark

Meijer

Owens Corning

VMware

University of Michigan (Michigan Medicine, Business and Finance, Development, and more)

Positive Business Conference

Next conference in 2024

The eighth Positive Business Conference will bring together top practitioners, intrapreneurs, and academics to engage around ideas and insights for designing and sustaining thriving organizations.

The conference is an important part of the Michigan Ross mission and strategy and highlights CPO’s leadership in preparing the organizations of today, creating the leaders of tomorrow, and building a sustainable future of meaning for all. The conference hosts sessions with both practical examples of positive business practices being implemented, as well as the cutting-edge research underlying those practices.

■ Reached capacity at the two most recent in-person conferences, hosting nearly 500 business leaders in middle- and high-leadership positions

■ Diverse industries represented included: energy, financial services, non-profit, healthcare, education/ government, manufacturing, retail, technology, consulting, and more

■ United States attendees have represented 21 states

■ International attendees have represented 17 countries

Executives in Residence Program

CPO’s Executives in Residence Program is a research-to-practice bridge that brings the experience, knowledge, and wisdom of senior leaders to Ross. These executives provide strategic guidance, mentoring for students, and access to organizations for POS research.

Current Executives in Residence

■ David Drews

Founder and CEO, Justus Equity, LLC

■ Richard Haller

Retired President and Chief Operating Officer, Walbridge

■ Ron May

Retired Executive Vice President, DTE Energy

■ Roger Newton

Executive Chairman and CSO, Esperion Therapeutics, Inc.

■ Richard Smalling

Managing Director, Rolling8, LLC

■ Laurita Thomas

President, American Research Universities

Human Resources Institute

Emeritus Executive in Residence

■ Fred Keller

Founder and Chair, Cascade Engineering

CENTER FOR POSITIVE ORGANIZATIONS

Stephen M. Ross School of Business University of Michigan 701 Tappan Street Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1234

CONTACT US 734-647-8154 positiveorgs.bus.umich.edu positiveorg@umich.edu

REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN

Effective October 14, 2022 through January 1, 2023

Jordan B. Acker Huntington Woods

Michael J. Behm Grand Blanc

Mark J. Bernstein Ann Arbor

Paul W. Brown Ann Arbor

Sarah Hubbard Okemos

Denise Ilitch Bingham Farms

Ron Weiser Ann Arbor

Katherine E. White Ann Arbor

Santa J. Ono (ex officio)

NONDISCRIMINATION POLICY STATEMENT

The University of Michigan, as an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer, complies with all applicable federal and state laws regarding nondiscrimination and affirmative action. The University of Michigan is committed to a policy of equal opportunity for all persons and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, age, marital status, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, disability, religion, height, weight, or veteran status in employment, educational programs and activities, and admissions. Inquiries or complaints may be addressed to the Senior Director for Institutional Equity, and Title IX/Section 504/ADA Coordinator, Office for Institutional Equity, 2072 Administrative Services Building, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-1432, 734-763-0235, TTY 734-647-1388, institutional.equity@umich.edu. For other University of Michigan information call 734-764-1817.

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