Gretchen M. Spreitzer

• What is POS?

• Who is Gretchen M. Spreitzer?

• Why is her work important for us?

• How do her ideas relate to resilience, renewal and innovation?

Agenda

A new field of study in organizational behavior, starting in 2002

Focuses on companies creating POSITIVE work life and performance

Positive

Energy

Motion

Resilience

Virtues

Leadership

MeaningRelationship

Positive Outcome

?

Positive Organizational Scholarship(POS)

Key Components of POS

Self-efficacy

Hope

Optimism

Resiliency

POS emphasizes thriving at work

Key Component of POS: Self-efficacy

-The ability for individuals at work to have self-efficacy

- The company has individuals who are able to achieve difficult tasks due to dedication, persistence, and good work ethic.

Key Component of POS: Hope

-Individuals who have positive expectations usually stay motivated and find alternative ways to solve problems.

-Individuals who are able to handle conflict and develop contingency plans when problems arise.

Key Component of POS: Optimism

-Overall mindset of employees.

-Optimism is referred to as an individual having a positive mental outlook on situations. Those individuals are easily motivated and good job performance.

Key Component of POS: Resiliency

-The ability to overcome failure, adversity, and challenges

-Individuals who think outside the box, brainstorm and are flexible when it comes to adversity.

Center for Positive Organizational Scholarship at the University of Michigan

The center is a world-class research hub for POS, which established in 2002.

The principles of the center is to understand how to create positive work environments, improve the culture of the workplace, and help companies discover what is possible with their employees and within their organizations.

Gretchen M. Spreitzer is one of the researchers in the center, researching mainly employee empowerment and leadership development. Her most recent work is looking at positive deviance and how organizations enable employees to flourish.

Gretchen M. Spreitzer Work

Professor of Management and Organizations,

Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan (joined the Michigan faculty in 2001)

Faculty Co-Director, Center for Positive Organizational Scholarship (2013-present)

Faculty Affiliate, Center for Effective Organizations, University of Southern California (1995-present)

Business experience:

Consulting and leadership development to a variety of organizations (Google, Intel, The U.S. Department of Treasury, U.S. Army)

Management Consultant Intern, Price Waterhouse, Government Services Office, Washington, D.C. (1986)

Gretchen M. Spreitzer Education

University of Michigan, School of Business Administration

Ph.D. in Business Administration, 1992

Concentration: Organizational Behavior and

Human Resource Management

Miami University, School of Engineering and Applied Science, Oxford, Ohio

Bachelor of Science, Systems Analysis, May, 1987

Gretchen M. Spreitzer Academic Work

• Journal articles

• Books

• Case studies and teaching materials

• Refereed conference presentations

• Presentations

• Technical reports and research briefings

• Conferences organized

• Chair, discussant and Professional Development Workshop Roles

Gretchen M. Spreitzer Awards

2012 Academy of Management Research Center Impact Award

for the Center for Positive Organizational Scholarship

2012 Ranked as the 20th most influential scholar who received

their degrees since 1991 based on impact inside and outside

of the academy

2011 Journal of Management Inquiry Outstanding Scholar Award

2010-2011; 2012-2013 Organization Science, Extraordinary

Service Award

1997 Ascendant Scholar Award, Western Academy of Management

Gretchen M. Spreitzer Books & articles

She is the co-author of four books:

The Leader's Change Handbook: An Essential Guide to Setting Direction and Taking Action (1999),

The Future of Leadership: Speaking to the Next Generation (2001),

A Company of Leaders: Five Disciplines for Unleashing the Power

in Your Workforce (2001),

Leadership (2003)

She has authored many articles on contemporary issues in organizational behavior in leading journals, e.g: the Academy of Management Journal, the Academy of Management Review, Administrative Science Quarterly, the Journal of Applied Psychology

Why her work is important for us?

- We can enrich our knowledge about resilient and expand it by understanding different approaches.

- Change our paradigms and allows us to expand our thinking and understanding of the world.

- She relates knew concepts with resilience

e.g. virtuousness, Emotional Carrying Capacity (ECC), trust, team resilience, relationships, pursue excellence.

How does her ideas are related with resilience, renewal and innovation? #1

• Resilience:

- Ability to absorb stress, recover functionality, learn and grow from the adversity to emerge stronger than before.

- How to become resilient?

Person: Improve the ability to interact with others.

Team: Promote interaction in order to facilitate the sharing of information and the learning processes.(Trust among the members)

• Communication:

- Thriving employees can communicate efficiently verbally and nonverbally and have better collaboration skills.

• Thriving at work: - Thriving employees have high levels of thriving in their personal lives.

- “Thriving is indicated by the joint experience of vitality and learning at work.” (Gretchen Spreitzer, 2012)

• ECC (Emotional carrying capacity):

- The expression of more emotion

- The expression of positive and negative emotions.

- The constructive nature of the expression

(Dutton & Heaphy, 2003)

• Interpersonal Relationships:

- Networking or business interactions

- Expressing negative and positive feelings in a constructive work

How does her ideas are related with resilience, renewal and innovation? #2

“Resilience is an outcome of virtuousness”

“Resilience is necessary in pursuit of virtuousness”

John Paul Stephens, Emily D. Heaphy, Abraham Carmeli, Gretchen M. Spreitzer and Jane E. Dutton, (2013)

Video - Thriving at Work

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nG9MfJrqZ3Q

References• Stephens, J.P., Heaphy, E.D., Carmeli, A., Spreitzer, G.M., and Dutton, J.E. (2013).

Relationship Quality and Virtuousness: Emotional Carrying Capacity as a Source of Individual and Team Resilience. The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science.

● Dutton, Jane, Glynn, Mary Ann, and Spreitzer, Gretchen (2006). Positive Organizational Scholarship. Encyclopedia of Career Development. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

● Carmeli, Abraham and Spreitzer, Gretchen M. (2009). Trust, Connectivity, and Thriving: Implications for Innovative Behaviors at Work. Journal of Creative Behavior, 43(3): 169-191.

● Spreitzer, Gretchen & Grant, Adam. (2004). Leading to Grow and Growing to Lead: Some Lessons from Positive Organizational Scholarship. For presentation at the Leadership: Bridging Theory-Practice Divide, An INSEAD-Manpower Conference.

● Spreitzer, G., Porath, C.L., and Gibson, C.B. (2012). Toward human sustainability: How to enable more thriving at work.Organizational Dynamics.

Thank You!