Today we’re talking to Jackie Stavros who’s a professor in the College of Business and Information Technology at Lawrence Technological University and is recognized for her creation of SOAR, a positive approach to strategic thinking, planning, conversations, and leading. We’ve been lucky enough to have Jackie on the podcast before where we dug in-depth into her wonderful research around SOAR, and we’ll be sure to link that to today’s podcast for you. Jackie is the co-author of many articles and books, including Conversations Worth Having: Using Appreciative Inquiry to Fuel Productive and Meaningful Engagement. And she has worked in 25 countries using Appreciative Inquiry to affect the lives of thousands of people and hundreds of organizations to improve the capacity to thrive and increase performance.

In this week’s podcast, we discover how to soar into your individual or collective purpose at work with four simple but powerful questions to help us navigate uncertainty.

Connect with Jackie Stavros:

• http://www.soar-strategy.com/

GET YOUR FREE MAKING IT WORK CHEATSHEET

You’ll Learn:

• [02:51] – Jackie shares why purpose is so powerful in moments when work and life feel chaotic.
• [05:31] – Jackie explains how an appreciative inquiry approach can help us to discover the best of what is and what is possible to surface our purpose.
• [07:45] – Jackie gives us four simple questions to help us SOAR into our purpose.
• [11:08] – Jackie shares an example of how the four SOAR questions can be used to surface your what and why.
• [15:48] – Jackie explains how teams and workplaces can use the four SOAR questions to help surface a shared sense of purpose.
• [18:33] – Jackie offers advice for aligning people’s individual purpose with the purpose of a team or organization.
• [21:22] – Jackie shares how teams and workplaces drive radical change in 2021.
• [23:56] – Jackie explains why it’s never too soon to reach for purpose in a team or workplace.
• [25:51] – Jackie gives us an exercise to help keep our sense of purpose in balance so we don’t burn ourselves out.
• [28:11] – Jackie completes the lightning round

Thanks for listening!

• MPPW Podcast on Facebook
• The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz
• A Bit of Optimism Podcast

Thanks so much for joining me again this week.  If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see at the bottom of this post.

Please leave an honest review for the Making Positive Psychology Work Podcast on iTunes. Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and greatly appreciated. They do matter in the rankings of the show, and I read each and every one of them.  And don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes to get automatic updates. It’s free!

You can also listen to all the episodes of Making Positive Psychology Work streamed directly to your smartphone or iPad through stitcher. No need for downloading or syncing.

Until next time, take care!  Thank you Jackie!