Tackling Strategic Problems
Tackling Strategic Problems

Author: Colin Eden

Publisher: Sage Publications (CA)

Published: 1990

Total Pages: 228

ISBN-13:

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This innovative book brings together an international team of leading academics and practitioners in organization and management science. Drawing on their experiences as consultants within a wide variety of organizational settings, the authors explore key issues in the provision of effective decision support to groups tackling complex, strategic problems. The authors discuss the use of the techniques and methods they have developed for group decision support, including developments in mixed methods'. They consider the organizational and inter-organizational contexts for strategic decision-making and the approaches to group decision support. The crucial significance of the relationship between particular methods and the personal styles and theories-in-action' of both consultants and client groups is addressed. The contributors also argue for attending to the often neglected trivialities' of the physical environments for group problem-solving. Threading through all the chapters is a concern with the interaction between analytic help with the complex "content "of strategic problems and the management of "process" as the key to successful group decision support. Tackling Strategic Problems will be essential reading for all those concerned with processes and methods for improving strategic problem-solving.

Leadership for Sustainability
Leadership for Sustainability

Author: R. Bruce Hull

Publisher: Island Press

Published: 2020-11-17

Total Pages: 274

ISBN-13: 1642831670

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Solving today’s environmental and sustainability challenges requires more than expertise and technology. Effective solutions will require that we engage with other people, wrestle with difficult questions, and learn how to adapt and make confident decisions despite uncertainty. We need new approaches to leadership that empower professionals at all levels to tackle wicked problems and work towards sustainability. Leadership for Sustainability gives readers perspective and skills for promoting creative and collaborative solutions. Blending systems thinking approaches with leadership techniques, it offers dozens of strategies and specific practices that build on the foundation of three main skills: connecting, collaborating, and adapting. Inspiring case studies show how the book’s strategies and principles can be applied to diverse situations: Coordinating the activities of widely dispersed individuals and groups who may not even know they are connected, illustrated by the work of urban planners, local businesses, citizens, and other stakeholders advancing ambitious climate action goals via a Community Energy Plan in Arlington County, Virginia Collaborating with diverse stakeholders to span boundaries despite their differences of opinion, expertise, and culture, as illustrated by the bold actions of a social entrepreneur who transformed the global food service industry with the “plant-forward” movement Adapting to continuous change and confounding uncertainty, as a small nonprofit organization mobilizes partners to tackle poverty, water scarcity, sanitation, and climate change in rural India Readers will come away with a holistic understanding of how to lead from where they are by applying leadership principles and practices to a wide range of wicked situations. While the challenges we face are daunting, the authors argue that these situations present opportunities for creating a more just, healthy, and prosperous world.

Tackling Wicked Government Problems
Tackling Wicked Government Problems

Author: Jackson Nickerson

Publisher: Brookings Institution Press

Published: 2014-11-01

Total Pages: 209

ISBN-13: 0815726406

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How can government leaders build, sustain, and leverage the cross-organizational collaborative networks needed to tackle the complex interagency and intergovernmental challenges they increasingly face? Tackling Wicked Government Problems: A Practical Guide for Developing Enterprise Leaders draws on the experiences of high-level government leaders to describe and comprehensively articulate the complicated, ill-structured difficulties they face—often referred to as "wicked problems"—in leading across organizational boundaries and offers the best strategies for addressing them. Tackling Wicked Government Problems explores how enterprise leaders use networks of trusted, collaborative relationships to respond and lead solutions to problems that span agencies. It also offers several approaches for translating social network theory into practical approaches for these leaders to build and leverage boundary-spanning collaborative networks and achieve real mission results. Finally, past and present government executives offer strategies for systematically developing enterprise leaders. Taken together, these essays provide a way forward for a new cadre of officials better equipped to tackle government's twenty-first-century wicked challenges.

Tackling Wicked Problems
Tackling Wicked Problems

Author: John Harris

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2010-09-23

Total Pages: 327

ISBN-13: 1136531440

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From climate change to GM foods, we are increasingly confronted with complex, interconnected social and environmental problems that span disciplines, knowledge bases and value systems. This book offers a transdisciplinary, open approach for those working towards resolving these 'wicked' problems and highlights the crucial role of this 'transdisciplinary imagination' in addressing the shift to sustainable futures. Tackling Wicked Problems provides readers with a framework and practical examples that will guide the design and conduct of their own open-ended enquiries. In this approach, academic disciplines are combined with personal, local and strategic understanding and researchers are required to recognise multiple knowledge cultures, accept the inevitability of uncertainty, and clarify their own and others' ethical positions. The authors then comment on fifteen practical examples of how researchers have engaged with the opportunities and challenges of conducting transdisciplinary inquiries. The book gives those who are grappling with complex problems innovative methods of inquiry that will allow them to work collaboratively towards long-term solutions.

Tackling Complexity
Tackling Complexity

Author: Gilbert Probst

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-09-08

Total Pages: 172

ISBN-13: 1351287621

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Our socio-economic systems continue to grow and evolve. We need to acknowledge that, consequently, our decisions often fail – they are ineffective and create unexpected side effects. The speed of execution is increasing constantly and markets and systems respond almost immediately, making decision-making challenging. There is little or no room for failure.This important new book analyses real world strategy and policy challenges, addressing the interconnectedness of the markets/systems we live in. It provides a step-by-step approach using systems thinking to solve complex problems in socio-political as well as business environment. It proposes a technique with which to better understand the problems and the context in which they arise, and tools to directly inform each step of the decision-making process. The book explores the main innovation that systemic thinking introduces – the emphasis on defining the problem creating system, which is made up of interacting parts, rather than prioritizing events that need immediate fixing.The case studies, examples and the approach proposed can be used to better understand reality and its complexity, and to integrate stakeholders for a better solution. Practically, it can be used to identify problems, analyse their boundaries, design interventions, forecast and measure their expected impacts, implement them and monitor and evaluate their success/failure. The book touches upon global issues related to policy making and strategic management, as well as issues related to sustainable development for both the public and private sector.

Strategic Doing
Strategic Doing

Author: Edward Morrison

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2019-05-01

Total Pages: 228

ISBN-13: 1119578612

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Ten skills for agile leadership Complex challenges are all around us—they impact our companies, our communities, and our planet. This complexity and the emergence of networks is changing the practice of strategic management. Today’s leaders need to understand how to design and guide complex collaborations to accelerate innovation and change—collaborations that cross boundaries both inside and outside organizations. Strategic Doing introduces you to the new disciplines of agile strategy and collaborative leadership. You’ll learn how to design and guide complex collaborations by following a discipline of simple rules that you won’t find anywhere else. • Unleash the power of true collaboration • Learn and master the 10 skills of agile leadership • Apply individual skills to targeted situations • Introduces a new discipline of leadership strategy Filled with compelling case studies, Strategic Doing outlines a new discipline of leadership strategy specifically designed for open, loosely-connected networks.

Bulletproof Problem Solving
Bulletproof Problem Solving

Author: Charles Conn

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2019-03-04

Total Pages: 352

ISBN-13: 1119553032

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Complex problem solving is the core skill for 21st Century Teams Complex problem solving is at the very top of the list of essential skills for career progression in the modern world. But how problem solving is taught in our schools, universities, businesses and organizations comes up short. In Bulletproof Problem Solving: The One Skill That Changes Everything you’ll learn the seven-step systematic approach to creative problem solving developed in top consulting firms that will work in any field or industry, turning you into a highly sought-after bulletproof problem solver who can tackle challenges that others balk at. The problem-solving technique outlined in this book is based on a highly visual, logic-tree method that can be applied to everything from everyday decisions to strategic issues in business to global social challenges. The authors, with decades of experience at McKinsey and Company, provide 30 detailed, real-world examples, so you can see exactly how the technique works in action. With this bulletproof approach to defining, unpacking, understanding, and ultimately solving problems, you’ll have a personal superpower for developing compelling solutions in your workplace. Discover the time-tested 7-step technique to problem solving that top consulting professionals employ Learn how a simple visual system can help you break down and understand the component parts of even the most complex problems Build team brainstorming techniques that fight cognitive bias, streamline workplanning, and speed solutions Know when and how to employ modern analytic tools and techniques from machine learning to game theory Learn how to structure and communicate your findings to convince audiences and compel action The secrets revealed in Bulletproof Problem Solving will transform the way you approach problems and take you to the next level of business and personal success.

Tackling the Wicked Challenge of Strategic Change
Tackling the Wicked Challenge of Strategic Change

Author: Professor Longmore

Publisher: Author House

Published: 2014-06-18

Total Pages: 371

ISBN-13: 1496982886

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The aim of this book is to make better sense of a long, complex, messy, change process through the stories of those who were involved. Over fifty participants were interviewed during the course of the study and their uniquely personal perspectives have been woven into a compelling story of organisational change. This book describes their ingenuity and effort in bringing about change that they and their organisation valued. Between 2009 and 2012, Southampton Solent University (UK) engaged in an unprecedented and highly complex strategic initiative which ran across the entire institution, its structures, processes and systems; it aimed to produce a fundamental shift in institutional culture. Such an all-embracing approach is rare in universities. This programme of organisational change is seen through the eyes of people who were immersed in the process. Their perspectives and feelings will resonate with anyone who has tried to bring about significant change in a university. Universities are inherently creative places but too often there is a pervasive inertia that prevents ideas from being turned into new and better practices. This programme aimed to create a culture of innovation. Conventional project planning techniques were deliberately avoided and replaced with an approach based on complexity theory, recognising that the process of change requires constant adaptation, acceptance of non-linear progress and subversion of conventional management discourse. Offering an unusual example from the higher education sector, this study is a distinctive contribution to the extensive literature on organisational change. Learning gained from participants is related to theories and research from this wider literature. The study proposes a holistic and integrated approach to change which might offer a more culturally relevant and sustainable model both for higher education and for those sectors of industry and commerce from which much change management practice has conventionally been drawn.

Moments of Impact
Moments of Impact

Author: Chris Ertel

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2014-02-11

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13: 1451697627

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Two leading experts on designing strategic conversations unveil a simple, creative process that allows teams to tackle their most challenging issues. In our fast-changing world, leaders are increasingly confronted by messy, multifaceted challenges that require collaboration to resolve. But the standard methods for tackling these challenges—meetings packed with data-drenched presentations or brainstorming sessions that circle back to nowhere—just don’t deliver. Great strategic conversations generate breakthrough insights by combining the best ideas of people with different backgrounds and perspectives. In this book, two experts “crack the code” on what it takes to design creative, collaborative problem-solving sessions that soar rather than sink. Drawing on decades of experience as innovation strategists—and supported by cutting-edge social science research, dozens of real-life examples, and interviews with well over 100 thought leaders, executives, and fellow practitioners— they unveil a simple, creative process that leaders and their teams can use to unlock solutions to their most vexing issues. The book also includes a “Starter Kit” full of tools and tips for putting the book’s core principles into practice.