Design with a positive lens

Abstract

The positive lens refers to an emerging perspective in the social sciences that emphasizes our capacity to construct better organizations and technologies through a discourse that encourages human strengths and participative action. In the disciplines of management and organization studies, the positive lens stimulates us to focus on the potential of designing hopeful organizations and more humanly centered technologies, which are not dominated by the detection of error and control of deviant behaviors. Similar to the propositions of positive psychology, which turns attention away from the treatment of dysfunctions and toward the encouragement of human potential, management and related disciplines find themselves in the midst of an attention shift that emphasizes our capacity to design better organizations and technologies by drawing on the best of human capabilities. This shift affects the way managers and policymakers frame their discourse as they design and shape their respective organizations.