Positive Psychology and Change

Acknowledgements

A book doesn’t come out of thin air. The invitation to write this book came from Darren Reed and Karen Shield of Wiley-Blackwell following the modest success of the first book we produced together. I was delighted to oblige. It has taken a year longer than we originally hoped, and their response when I had to divert my attention to various family matters was so graciously supportive that I truly felt I could take the time it took.

This book is built on the work of so many other people: people I’ve read, people I’ve talked to, and people I’ve worked with. I have made every effort to acknowledge the original researchers and practitioners whose work I have called upon. On the other hand, I have granted my clients the cloak of anonymity in an attempt to protect their reputation, if not my own, and so trust that they are only recognizable to themselves. That they allow me and people like me to come into their organizations and workplaces and “do creative things” with their people is a wonderful privilege and I am eternally grateful to them all. Practitioners, like trainee doctors, have to start somewhere, and so even further back in the midst of time are all my earliest clients from whom I learnt so much about the art of engaging productively with organizations. I thank them all.

On a more practical level, at the behest of the publisher, this time I have written every word of this text myself, quotes excluded. It’s a lot of words! Jem Smith, my eldest son, has ...