Shirli Kopelman, Center for Positive Organizations

February 16, 2015

4:00 PM - 5:00 PM, Reception Immediately Following

The Colloquium, 6th Floor, Ross Building, Stephen M. Ross School of Business


Shirli Kopelman is a leading researcher, expert, and educator in the field of negotiations at Michigan Ross; Faculty Director of Business Practice at the Center for Positive Organizations; and President-Elect of the International Association for Conflict Management. (www.ShirliKopelman.com)

Professor Kopelman is author of Negotiating Genuinely: Being Yourself in Business, published in 2014 by Stanford University Press. Her innovative positive framework for negotiations enables people to draw on their leadership strengths to co-create internal and external opportunities in order to maximize economic profits sustainably while fostering well-being. Kopelman has been honored with outstanding teaching and prestigious research awards; her research, published in leading academic journals, has been featured in media outlets such as Businessweek, Fortune, Inc., and Harvard Business Review

Session Description: Positive leaders can increase capacities for excellence by recognizing emotions as valuable resources. Resource-abundant business relationships are inherently cooperative and competitive mixed-motive social interactions fueled by a variety of positive and negative emotions. People often regulate and suppress emotions out of a fear of losing the ability to think rationally and act strategically; yet it is possible to lead genuinely and strategically with emotions. Relational mindfulness enables leaders to appropriately infuse conversations with genuine positive and negative emotions that align with strategic goals. Leading with emotions fosters positive relationships and the co-creation of extraordinary negotiated outcomes that also promote well-being in a flourishing social and natural ecosystem.

The Positive Links Speaker Series 2014-15 season features contributing authors of How To Be a Positive Leader: Small Actions, Big Impact.

Positive leaders are able to dramatically expand their people’s—and their own—capacity for excellence. And they accomplish this without enormous resources or huge heroic gestures. Leading scholars describe how this is being done at organizations such as Wells Fargo, Ford, Kelly Services, Burt’s Bees, Connecticut’s Griffin Hospital, the Michigan-based Zingerman’s Community of Businesses, and many others. Like the butterfly in Brazil whose flapping wings create a typhoon in Texas, you can create profound positive change in your organization through simple actions and attitude shifts. Please join us to learn how.

Free and open to the public.

The Center for Positive Organizations thanks Diane and Paul Jones (Ross School of Business MBA 1975), for their generous gift in support of the 2014-2015 Positive Links Speaker Series.