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.

Former Secretary of State George Shultz once drew a distinction between “problems you can solve and problems you can only work at.” These two types of problems have names: They are tame or wicked. Many people believe that their problems are “wicked,” yet few seem to understand what should be done with them. Wicked problems are messy, confusing, unstable, ill-structured, and ambiguous. This book explores the timely issue of wicked problems – what they are and why they are important. The authors open the door to a greater understanding of wicked problems and an appreciation for their complexity, sharing insights and recommendations on how to tackle them to make positive and productive changes in relationships, at home, and at work. Making one’s way successfully through the mess of obstacles and impediments that wicked problems present puts maximum pressure on our capabilities and stretches our tolerance for confusion, conflict, controversy, and chaos. Get guidance on grappling with the wicked problems in your life by increasing your knowledge about what they are and why they are so important to keep working at – even if they can’t be completely resolved.

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.

A new approach to addressing the contemporary world’s most difficult challenges, such as climate change and poverty. Conflicts over “the problem” and “the solution” plague the modern world and land problem solvers in what has been called “wicked problem territory”—a social space with high levels of conflict over problems and solutions. In Design Strategy, Nancy C. Roberts proposes design as a strategy of problem solving to close the gap between an existing state and a desired state. Utilizing this approach, designers and change agents are better able to minimize self-defeating conflicts over problems and solutions, break the logjam of opposition, and avoid the traps that lock problem solvers into a never-ending cycle of conflict. Design as a field continues to grow and evolve, but Design Strategy focuses on three levels of design where “wicked problems” tend to lurk—strategic design (of private and public organizations), systemic design (of networked and overlapping economic, technical, political, and social subsystems), and regenerative design (of life-giving realignment between humanity and nature). Within this framework, Roberts presents refreshingly interdisciplinary case studies that integrate theory and practice across diverse fields to guide professionals in any domain—from business and nonprofit organizations to educational and healthcare systems—and finally offers hope that humanity can tackle the existential challenges we face in the twenty-first century.

The fundamental nature of a leader's work changes at the strategic level. Leaders currently working as strategic leaders or those aspiring to become strategic leaders must gain a fine appreciation for the effort and skills required at the strategic level. Moreover, they need to develop and hone their personal dimensions (including conceptual, social, and behavioral capacities; individual traits, attitudes and characteristics; and technical skills and business acumen), and acquire the new knowledge essential for success at the strategic level. This book is intended to help develop strategic leaders in each of these personal dimensions.

CSR for Purpose, Shared Value and Deep Transformation focuses on a new type of CSR, which includes entrepreneurial innovation, sustainable goals and shared and integrated value in a systems-oriented approach for deep transformation. All topics are backed by case studies, academic literature and future research opportunities.

Collaborative approaches to governance are being used to address some of the most difficult environmental issues across the world, but there is limited focus on the challenges of practice. Leading scholars from the United States, Europe and Australia explore the theory and practice in a range of contexts, highlighting the lessons from practice, the potential limitations of collaboration and the potential strategies for addressing these challenges.

This book discusses how the methods and mindsets of design thinking empower large organizations to create groundbreaking innovations. Arguing that innovations must effectively tackle so-called “wicked problems,” it shows how design thinking enables managers and innovators to create the organizational spaces and practices needed for breakthrough innovations. Design thinking equips actors with the tools and methods for harnessing the creative tensions inherent in pluralist, often conflicting disciplinary approaches. This, however, requires the transformation of contemporary organizational cultures away from monolithic, integrated models (or identities) toward more pluralist, dynamic and flexible institutional identities. Based on real-world cases from a wide range of organizations around the globe, the book offers managers and innovators practical guidance on initiating and managing the cultural transformations required for effective innovation.

This book brings together a team of renowned social scientists to ask not why climate change is happening, but how we might learn from its human dimensions to raise public and political will to fight against the climate crisis. Despite efforts for mitigation, global emission levels continue to increase annually and the world’s wealthiest nations, including all of the G20 countries, have failed to meet their Paris Climate Goals. In the absence of political will, many have called for individuals to act on climate change by mitigating their own carbon footprint through having fewer children, driving less, using LED lightbulbs, or by becoming vegetarians. While compelling, individual lifestyle changes on this scale are unlikely to prevent climate disaster. Resolving the Climate Crisis presents informed solutions for social change that center human behavior and emotions, political systems, and societal structures. Across a series of concise and accessible chapters, authors explore potential solutions to climate change, addressing topics including Indigenous ecologies, LGBTQ+ community engagement, renewable energy technologies, and climate justice. Their expert engagement with the social and behavioural sciences makes this book not only an essential handbook of climate change solutions but also an innovative model for public-facing social science scholarship. Resolving the Climate Crisis will be an essential resource for students and researchers of climate change, as well as policy makers working to develop meaningful strategies for combatting the climate crisis.

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.