Robert E. Quinn offers advice for making stay-at-home experience meaningful in WEMU interview

May 6, 2020


The All Things Considered episode “Shift In Focus Is Advice Of U-M Prof Bob Quinn For Dealing With Pandemic & Stay At Home Extension” explores how we can wring meaning out of our negative emotions.

WEMU host Lisa Barry interviews Center for Positive Organizations (CPO) co-founder Robert E. Quinn about how we can use the stay-at-home experience to identify our strengths and use them to support a worthy purpose.

Quinn recommends we take this time to clarify our purpose and values and reconnect with high-quality connections from our past.

“The key is to shift the focus from the sense of loss to where it is I want to go and what is it that’s supporting me in this process,” Quinn says. “It’s a reorientation and when we make that reorientation, we begin to function well.”

Science suggests that when we know our purpose and live it, we’re healthier, our networks are stronger, we make more money, we have better interactions and a richer life experience, Quinn says.

“This can be a golden opportunity, a great moment in our lives in the middle of a major crisis, to make a difference in the world,” Quinn says.

Quinn is a CPO core faculty member and serves as the Margaret Elliott Tracy Collegiate Emeritus Professor in Business Administration; Emeritus Professor of Management and Organizations at the University of Michigan. He is hosting an online program called “Becoming Who You Are: How to Grow Yourself and Your Organization.”