Appreciative Inquiry and Culture Change at GTE / Verizon

Author: Diana Whitney , David Cooperrider , Maureen Garrison , Jean Moore , Lisa Dinga

GTE / Verizon

Date 01/01/1996

Annotation: The “seeds of positive change” were sewn during the summer of 1995 when the senior executives of GTE Telops gathered for their annual conference and invited David Cooperrider to present a session on Appreciative Inquiry. As visionaries, the senior executives at GTE Telops were aware that a fully engaged workforce would be critical to remain competitive in the new telecommunications field.

In 1996, the senior leadership team became alarmed when the results of the annual Employee Opinion Survey were released. While management scores went up, front line, hourly employees’ scores were up in only two categories and flat or down in seven of the nine categories. Acknowledging that over 90% of GTE’s customers are served by hourly employees the Telops senior team knew something needed to be done to positively engage these employees so they began to explore reaching 64,000 through Appreciative Inquiry.

Case Study report
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AI and Culture Change at GTE