Center for Positive Organizations presents 150th session of Positive Links Speaker Series

September 30, 2022

The Michigan Ross Center for Positive Organizations (CPO) is pleased to announce the 150th session of the Positive Links Speaker Series taking place on Monday, November 7, 2022. The session features Scott E. Page and is hosted by CPO Faculty Co-Director Julia Lee Cunningham.

For 20 years, the Positive Links Speaker Series has offered inspiring and practical science-based strategies to build and bolster thriving organizations. Over 115 of the world’s leading researchers in the field of Positive Organizational Scholarship have connected with our broad and diverse community of business leaders, academics, students, and staff through the speaker series.

Register to attend the 150th Positive Links session and join our CPO community in recognizing the longevity, growth, and success of the Positive Links Speaker Series.

Monday, November 07, 2022
Scott E. Page, John Seely Brown Distinguished University Professor of Complexity, Social Science, and Management, University of Michigan
4:00 – 5:00 p.m. ET
Michigan Ross Campus, Ross Building, 701 Tappan, Robertson Auditorium, Ann Arbor

Page’s session, “Creating Wise Crowds: How Positive Culture and Fair Process Can Prevent “Madness,” will explore and discuss the phenomena of wise and mad crowds in the context of forecasts, demonstrates the logic of how diversity can produce accurate collective forecasts (the wisdom of crowds), and the necessity of (1) a positive culture where people feel comfortable sharing ideas, clarifying logic, and facts and (2) a process that facilitates collective knowledge production for both good decisions and acceptance of those decisions.

A brief reception will immediately follow. The event is free and open to the public with registration required.

Humble Beginnings

Positive Links began in 2002 as a brown-bag lunch event in a classroom, with mere discussion and an audience consisting primarily of business leaders. The initial goal was to create a platform where Positive Organizational Scholarship would be accessible to the public in inspiring and practical ways, and to promote and encourage positive leadership through articles, books, partnerships, events, tools, and more. At the time, the study and practice of positive organizations was unheard of in the mainstream and unfamiliar territory in academia.

For Wayne Baker, CPO’s first Faculty Director and current Faculty Co-Director, seeing the evolution has been nothing short of extraordinary. “I remember the very first session, and at the time it was unimaginable that there would be 150 of these,” he says. “All the wisdom and power in these talks, it’s humbling. It’s symbolic of the tremendous growth of POS research and the continued impact of the Center for Positive Organizations.”

About the Center for Positive 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.