LEARN MORE

We hope that your appetite has been whetted to learn more about what we view as an endlessly fascinating topic: how it is that people can most effectively work with one another to bring about change – be that in companies, organizations, communities, or regions. This final section provides some guidance on where you might head next.

Our own website, strategicdoing.net, contains a wealth of information on Strategic Doing as well as “field reports” from places in which Strategic Doing is being used. You can also find the upcoming dates for trainings to delve deeper into the skills and their application; we hold sessions across North America and as we write, we are making headway into Europe.

We've also set up a page for readers of this book at www.strategicdoing.net/skills4agile. There you'll find additional information on using the skills of agile leadership; you can also easily send us comments or questions from that page.

The following resources are arranged by chapter, including the source information for research findings or other information that we directly reference, as well as more general items that you may find helpful in exploring the topics in the chapter.

INTRODUCTION

To learn more about the history of Flint and its challenges, see:

  • Canapari, Z., & Cooper, D. (2018): Flint town. Netflix.
  • Highsmith, A. R. (2015). Demolition means progress: Flint, Michigan, and the fate of the American metropolis. University of Chicago Press.
  • Misjak, L. (2010). Haunted by homicides: Flint reaches 34 slayings in seven months, on pace to hit 1986 record of 61. Flint Journal (August 1), 2010. http://www.mlive.com/news/flint/index.ssf/2010/08/haunted_by_homicides_flint_rea.html (accessed October 19, 2018).

Crime statistics for American cities or nationally can be found on the Federal Bureau of Investigations' “Uniform Crime Reporting” portion of the agency's website: ucr.fbi.gov.

CHAPTER 1: YOU ARE HERE

Explore “satisficing” in these articles:

  • Simon, H. A. (1979). Rational decision making in business organizations. American Economic Review, 69(4), 493–513.
  • Simon, H. A. (1972). Theories of bounded rationality. Decision and Organization, 1(1), 161–176.

“Muddling through” comes from political scientist Charles Lindblom, who wrote a paper in 1959 suggesting it as the way most public policy decisions are made:

  • Lindblom, C. (1959). The Science of “Muddling Through.” Public Administration Review, 19(2), 79–88. doi:10.2307/973677

Statistics on the sobering challenges to our communities and world: gun and opioid deaths, population growth, food production, and energy demands, are taken from these sources:

  • Alexandratos, N., & Bruinsma, J. (2012). World agriculture towards 2030/2050: The 2012 revision (Vol. 12, No. 3). FAO, Rome: ESA working paper.
  • Sieminski, A. (2014). International energy outlook. Energy Information Administration (EIA), 18.
  • UN DES. (2017). World population prospects: The 2075 revision: Key findings and advance tables. United Nations.

Here are three books that explain the idea of the complex system and its role in our world:

  • Holland, J. H. (2014). Complexity: A very short introduction. Oxford University Press.
  • Mitchell, M. (2009). Complexity: A guided tour. Oxford University Press.
  • Waldrop, M. M. (1993). Complexity: The emerging science at the edge of order and chaos. Simon & Schuster.

The idea of “wicked problems” is increasingly important and discussed for the first time here:

  • Rittel, H. W., & Webber, M. M. (1973). Dilemmas in a general theory of planning. Policy Sciences, 4(2), 155–169.

Peter Drucker tells the story of the rise of management consultants in this book:

  • Drucker, Peter. (1974). Management: Tasks, responsibilities, practices. Harper & Row.

To better understand the nature and dangers of hierarchies and hierarchical thinking:

  • Tett, G. (2015). The silo effect: The peril of expertise and the promise of breaking down barriers. Simon & Schuster.

Read about the “Golden Age of Hollywood” in this dispatch from Los Angeles just as the system was beginning to change:

  • Hodgins, Eric. (1957). “Amid ruins of an empire a new Hollywood arises.” Life (June 10, 1957), 146.

Our information on The Hobbit came from these sources:

  • Bulbeck, P. (2014). “‘Hobbit’ trilogy reportedly cost $745 million to make.” Hollywood Reporter (October 21).
  • The Hobbit: An unexpected journey. (2012). The Internet Movie Database. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0903624/ (accessed October 19, 2018).

The movie studio organization chart originally came to our attention thanks to Derek Dahlsad of the Info Mercantile, and Twentieth Century Fox has licensed its use here.

The iPod network graphic is shared courtesy of its creator, Valdis Krebs.

There has been a great deal written about social networks; there will probably be several more we could suggest by the time this book is published. Here are two we recommend:

  • Cross, R., Parker, A., Christensen, C. M., Anthony, S. D., & Roth, E. A. (2004). The hidden power of social networks. Harvard Business Press.
  • Cross, R. L., & Thomas, R. J. (2008). Driving results through social networks: How top organizations leverage networks for performance and growth (Vol. 265). Wiley.

If you're interested in how strategic planning came to be a tool of choice:

  • Hunter, P. (2016). The seven inconvenient truths of business strategy. Routledge.

Here's an explanation of why the S-Curve is critical to managing innovation:

In both this book and in our trainings, we often lament that the word “collaboration” is surely in the “Top 10” for overuse. Nevertheless, here are several good treatments of the topic:

  • Chrislip, D. D., & Larson, C. E. (1994). Collaborative leadership: How citizens and civic leaders can make a difference (Vol. 24). Jossey-Bass.
  • Hansen, M. (2009). Collaboration: How leaders avoid the traps, build common ground, and reap big results. Harvard Business Press.
  • Huxham, C. (Ed.). (1996). Creating collaborative advantage. Sage.

You can learn about the origins of the Linux project in a video they created for the 20-year anniversary:

There are, of course, many books written on the behind-the-scenes maneuvering that resulted in the US Constitution. We can recommend these:

  • Berkin, C. (2003). A brilliant solution: Inventing the American Constitution. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
  • Webb, D. A. (2012). The original meaning of civility: Democratic deliberation at the Philadelphia constitutional convention. South Carolina Law Review, 64, 183.

This concise description of why simple rules are so critical is a touchstone of our work:

  • Eisenhardt, K. M., & Sull, D. N. (2001). Strategy as simple rules. Harvard Business Review, 79(1), 106–119.

CHAPTER 2: SKILL 1

Amy Edmondson's work on “psychological safety” is the bedrock of this skill:

  • Edmondson, A. (1999). Psychological safety and learning behavior in work teams. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44(2), 350–383.

Read more about the idea of deep conversations here:

  • Mehl, M. R., Vazire, S., Holleran, S. E., & Clark, C. S. (2010). Eavesdropping on happiness: Well-being is related to having less small talk and more substantive conversations. Psychological Science, 21(4), 539–541.

“Equity of voice” is also a cornerstone of this skill; many of us know the principle from our own experience, but there is research behind the idea:

  • Keil, J., Stober, R., Quinty, E., Molloy, B., & Hooker, N. (2015). Identifying and analyzing actions of effective group work. Paper presented at Physics Education Research Conference 2015, College Park, MD (July 29, 2015).

The “teddy bear principle” seems almost too fantastical to be true, but for more, see:

  • Gino, F., & Desai, S. D. (2012). Memory lane and morality: How childhood memories promote prosocial behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 102(4), 743.

Our references to optimal group size draw from these sources:

  • Blenko, M. W., Mankins, M. C., & Rogers, P. (2010). Decide & deliver: 5 steps to breakthrough performance in your organization. Harvard Business Press.
  • de Rond, M. (2012). Why less is more in teams. Harvard Business Review, 224.
  • Gallagher, S. M., & Leddy, C. (2017). Why most teams fail and how yours can succeed. Influence Success. http://www.influencesuccess.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Why-Most-Teams-Fail-How-Yours-Can-Succeed.pdf (accessed October 19, 2018).
  • Ingham, A. G., Levinger, G., Graves, J., & Peckham, V. (1974). The Ringelmann effect: Studies of group size and group performance. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 10(4), 371–384.
  • Menon, T., & Williams Phillips, K. (2008). Getting even vs. being the odd one out: Conflict and cohesion in even and odd sized groups. Organizational Science, 22(3).

If you'd like to explore why “rapid toggling” (or multitasking) is so destructive to effectiveness, see:

  • Mark, G., Gudith, D., & Klocke, U. (2008, April). The cost of interrupted work: More speed and stress. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 107–110). Association for Computing Machinery.
  • Sullivan, B., & Thompson, H. (2013). Brain, interrupted. New York Times (May 5, 2013).

Google is only one organization to put a great deal of effort into trying to build effective teams, but we have the benefit of learning from their experience here:

  • Duhigg, C. (2016). What Google learned from its quest to build the perfect team. New York Times Magazine, 26, 2016.

The paradox of American democracy as a yet-to-be completely fulfilled promise is explored in these two books:

  • Dahl, R. A. (2003). How democratic is the American constitution? Yale University Press.
  • Wallis, Jim (2016). America's original sin: Racism, White privilege, and the bridge to a new America. Brazos Press.

CHAPTER 3: SKILL 2

The creation story of Polaroid is told in these accounts:

The work of Ronald Heifetz is critical to understanding the dimensions of the challenges you may be facing. Here is his seminal work on leadership, along with a workbook to assist you in applying its lessons:

  • Heifetz, R. A., & Heifetz, R. (1994). Leadership without easy answers (Vol. 465). Harvard University Press.
  • Heifetz, R. A., Grashow, A., & Linsky, M. (2009). The practice of adaptive leadership: Tools and tactics for changing your organization and the world. Harvard Business Press.

Rather than refer you to only one source on Appreciative Inquiry, David Cooperrider's website is full of helpful information:

www.davidcooperrider.com

Tina Seelig's elegant explanation of the essence of a powerful question is from her book:

  • Seelig, T. (2012). inGenius: A crash course on creativity. Hay House.

The idea of a “mental model” comes from the work of (among others) Philip Johnson-Laird:

  • Johnson-Laird, P. N. (1980). Mental models in cognitive science. Cognitive Science, 4(1), 71–115.

For the backstory on how Steve Jobs posed the right question to (arguably) launch our digital age, see:

  • Palus, C. J., & Horth, D. M. (2002). The leader's edge: Six creative competencies for navigating complex challenges. Jossey-Bass.

Gervase R. Bushe has graciously given us permission to use his checklist for good questions, found here:

  • Bushe, G. (2007). Appreciative inquiry is not (just) about the positive. OD Practitioner, 39(4), 33–38.

CHAPTER 4: SKILL 3

The idea of basing strategy on assets got its start in community development; for more, see:

We're not the first to draw business lessons from the art of improvisation, as you'll read here:

  • Barrett, F. (2012). Yes to the mess: Surprising leadership lessons from jazz. Harvard Business Press.

CHAPTER 5: SKILL 4

The Caesar salad is iconic in part because of its fascinating origin story:

  • Henderson, P. (2014). Caesar salad turns 90? San Diego Reader (July 4, 2014).

Recombinant innovation in the food world is explored in this article from a journal having nothing to do with cuisine:

  • Messeni Petruzzelli, A., & Savino, T. (2015). Reinterpreting tradition to innovate: The case of Italian haute cuisine. Industry and Innovation, 22(8), 677–702.

Explore the idea of horizontal thinking here:

  • Burke, J. (1995). Connections: From Ptolemy's astrolabe to the discovery of electricity, how inventions are linked and how they cause change throughout history. Little, Brown and Company (revised, 1995).
  • Johansson, F., (2006). The Medici effect: What elephants and epidemics can teach us about innovation. Harvard Business School Press.
  • Johnson, S. (2011). Where good ideas come from: The seven patterns of innovation. Penguin UK.

Learn more about the infusion pump innovation here:

  • Fiorini, P. (2012). Regenstrief launches hospital research community to improve infusion pump drug-delivery system. Purdue News Service (July 16, 2012).

The idea that groups using horizontal thinking create an “extended mind” comes from these sources:

  • Clark, A., & Chalmers, D. (1998). The extended mind. Analysis, 58(1), 7–19.
  • Sloman, S., & Fernbach, P. (2018). The knowledge illusion: Why we never think alone. Penguin.

The story of how bears and honey helped an engineer on a thought walk solve a technical problem is described on Michael Michalko's fascinating website:

For more on our brains and creativity, see:

  • Mednick, S. (1962). The associative basis of the creative process. Psychological Review, 69(3), 220.

CHAPTER 6: SKILL 5

The role trust plays in a how a decision process is perceived is explored in these sources:

  • Daellenbach, U. S., & Davenport, S. J. (2004). Establishing trust during the formation of technology alliances. Journal of Technology Transfer, 29(2), 187–202.
  • Korsgaard, M. A., Schweiger, D. M., & Sapienza, H. J. (1995). Building commitment, attachment, and trust in strategic decision-making teams: The role of procedural justice. Academy of Management Journal, 38(1), 60–84.
  • Tackx, K., Van der Heyden, L., & Verdin, P. (2016). Fairness in strategy: A fair process evaluation of strategy schools (working paper). Université Libre de Bruxelles—Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management.

The 2x2 matrix is a powerful tool, as these authors make clear:

  • Lowy, A., & Hood, P. (2011). The power of the 2×2 matrix: Using 2×2 thinking to solve business problems and make better decisions. Wiley.

Stanford's Katherine Eisenhart explains the concept of group intuition here:

  • Eisenhardt, K. M. (1999). Strategy as strategic decision making. Sloan Management Review, 40(3), 65–72.

CHAPTER 7: SKILL 6

The idea of prospection (“reminiscing forward”) is a fascinating one; for more, see:

  • Gilbert, D. T., & Wilson, T. D. (2007). Prospection: Experiencing the future. Science, 317(5843), 1351–1354.

In writing the book, members of our team expressed skepticism about being able to “see” dopamine activity; if you are doubtful as well, read more here:

  • Lee, T., Cai, L. X., Lelyveld, V. S., Hai, A., & Jasanoff, A. (2014). Molecular-level functional magnetic resonance imaging of dopaminergic signaling. Science, 344(6183), 533–535.

CHAPTER 8: SKILL 7

Our understanding of the idea of small successes draws from these sources:

  • Amabile, T. M., & Kramer, S. J. (2011). The power of small wins. Harvard Business Review, 89(5), 70–80.
  • Diaz, P. P. (2012). The progress principle: Using small wins to ignite joy, engagement, and creativity at work. Research Technology Management, 55(6), 68.
  • Schlesinger, L., & Kiefer, C. (2012). Just start: Take action, embrace uncertainty, create the future. Harvard Business Review Press.
  • Weick, K. E. (1984). Small wins: Redefining the scale of social problems. American Psychologist, 39(1), 40.

We've used several terms to describe your team's initial work or starting project, based on these researchers' work:

  • Gerber, E., & Carroll, M. (2012). The psychological experience of prototyping. Design Studies, 33(1), 64–84
  • Harford, T. (2011). Adapt: Why success always starts with failure. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
  • Liedtka, J. (2009). Designing learning launches. Darden Business Publishing, University of Virginia.

CHAPTER 9: SKILL 8

Read more about Amy Edmondson's work on “teaming” in this book:

  • Edmondson, A. C. (2012). Teaming: How organizations learn, innovate, and compete in the knowledge economy. Wiley.

Explore the dimensions of shared leadership in these resources:

  • Goldsmith, M. (2010, May 26). Shared leadership to maximize talent. Harvard Business Review.

The concept of “promise-based management” as a prerequisite for shared leadership comes from this article:

  • D'Innocenzo, L., Mathieu, J. E., & Kukenberger, M. R. (2016). A meta-analysis of different forms of shared leadership–team performance relations. Journal of Management, 42(7), 1964–1991.
  • Sull, D. N., & Spinosa, C. (2007). Promise-based management. Harvard Business Review, 85(4), 79–86.
  • Wang, D., Waldman, D. A., & Zhang, Z. (2013). A meta-analysis of shared leadership and team effectiveness. Journal of Applied Psychology, 99(2): 181–198.

“Micro-commitments” form the basis of this skill; these resources explore the idea, although without using the term:

  • Brinkmann, K. (2017). How to raise teachers' motivation through “nudges” and attribution theory. Open Journal of Social Sciences, 5, 11–20.
  • Cheng, J., Kulkarni, C., & Klemmer, S. (2013). Tools for predicting drop-off in large online classes. Proceedings of the 2013 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work Companion—CSCW '13, 121–124.
  • Jamison, J., & Wegener, J. (2010). Multiple selves in intertemporal choice. Journal of Economic Psychology, 832–839.

If you, too, have a dissertation that needs to be finished up, we're happy to share this useful volume:

  • Bolker, J. (1998). Writing your dissertation in fifteen minutes a day: A guide to starting, revising, and finishing your doctoral thesis. Holt Paperbacks.

If you'd like to read more about the Epicenter project with 50 universities, here are the relevant articles:

  • Nilsen, E., & Morrison, E. F., & Asencio, R., & Hutcheson, S. (2017, June), Getting “There”: Understanding how innovation and entrepreneurship become part of engineering education. Paper presented at 2017 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Columbus, Ohio. https://peer.asee.org/28404 (accessed October 19, 2018).
  • Nilsen, E., & Monroe-White, T., & Morrison, E. F., & Weilerstein, P. (2016, June). Going beyond “What Should We Do?”: An approach to implementation of innovation and entrepreneurship in the curriculum. Paper presented at 2016 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, New Orleans, Louisiana. https://peer.asee.org/25405 (accessed October 19, 2018).

Finally, while not referenced directly in the book, we've found several other works helpful in exploring this skill:

  • Collins, J. (2007). Level 5 leadership. The Jossey-Bass reader on educational leadership (2nd ed.), pp. 27–50. Jossey Bass.
  • Greenleaf, R. K. (2002). Servant leadership: A journey into the nature of legitimate power and greatness. Paulist Press.
  • Haiman. F. S. (1951). Group leadership and democratic action. Houghton-Mifflin.
  • Hersey, P., Blanchard, K. H., & Johnson, D. E. (2007). Management of organizational behavior (Vol. 9). Prentice Hall.

CHAPTER 10: SKILL 9

Chris Argyris is the premier thinker about organizational learning; here are a few of his resources:

  • Argyris, C. (2000). Teaching smart people how to learn. In R. Cross, Jr. & S. Israelit (Eds.), Strategic learning in a knowledge economy (pp. 279–296). Elsevier.
  • Argyris, C. (2002). Double-loop learning, teaching, and research. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 1(2), 206–218.

Argyris is not the only person who's explored this theme, however; here is another source we've found useful;

  • Richardson, J. (2014). Double loop learning: A powerful force for organizational excellence. In Proceedings of the Pacific Northwest Software Quality Conference.

While it covers history before the Shoals Shift Project, we can't pass up the opportunity to recommend this documentary about the music industry around Muscle Shoals, Alabama:

  • Camalier, G., & Badger, S. (2013). Muscle Shoals. Magnolia Pictures.

CHAPTER 11: SKILL 10

There is an entire book about the idea of “nudging”:

  • Thaler, R. H., & Sunstein, C. R. (2008). Nudge: Improving decisions about health, wealth, and happiness. Yale University Press.

The example of nudging to influence retirement savings is told here:

  • Ben-Artzi, S., & Thaler, R. H. (2013). Behavioral economics and the retirement savings crisis. Science, 339(6124), 1152–1153.
  • Utkus, S. (2002). A recent successful test of the SMarT program. Vanguard Center for Retirement Research. September 2002. Available at https://institutional.vanguard.com/pdf/SMarT_112002.pdf

There are also these more granular pieces of advice about how to effectively nudge in the digital age:

  • Halpern, D. (2016). Inside the nudge unit: How small changes can make a big difference. Random House.
  • Shamah, D. (2015). The fine art and gentle science of digital nudging The Times of Israel, December 22, 2015.

We often refer to nudging as the primary tool to “build trust at scale.” Here are three of the most illuminating resources we've found on trust:

  • Blacksher, E., Nelson, C., Van Dyke, E., Echo-Hawk, A., Bassett, D., & Buchwald, D. (2016). Conversations about community-based participatory research and trust: “We Are Explorers Together.” Progress in Community Health Partnerships: Research, Education, and Action.
  • Christopher, S., Watts, V., McCormick, A.K.H. G., & Young, S. (2008). Building and maintaining trust in a community-based participatory research partnership. American Journal of Public Health.
  • Fukuyama, F. (1995). Trust: The social virtues and the creation of prosperity (No. D10 301 c. 1/c. 2). Free Press Paperbacks.

CHAPTER 12: TEN SKILLS. GOT IT. NOW WHAT?

The detailed explanation of how Benjamin Franklin made decisions is described here:

If you'd like to read more about “requisite variety,” see this article:

  • Ashby, W. R., & Goldstein, J. (2011). Variety, constraint, and the law of requisite variety. Emergence: Complexity and Organization, 13(1/2), 190.

We believe the idea of “cognitive diversity” will take on increasing importance in the coming years; here's one source to learn more:

  • Page, S. (2007). The difference: How the power of diversity creates better groups, firms, schools, and societies. Princeton University Press.

We have found the AEM-Cube® to be a remarkable tool for helping teams explore their cognitive and strategic diversity, understand their strengths and build for growth. You can learn more about the tool here:

These articles also provide helpful background on the tool:

  • Robertson, P. P. (2005). Always change a winning team. Marshall Cavendish Business.
  • Reynolds, A., & Lewis, D. (2017, March 30). Teams solve problems faster when they're more cognitively diverse. Harvard Business Review.

If you've ever wondered how it is that, for example, birds know how to fly together in tight formation, you'll enjoy this explanation of how simple rules make such complex collaborations possible:

  • Johnson, S. (2002). Emergence: The connected lives of ants, brains, cities, and software. Simon & Schuster.

The Drucker quote on finding the right question can be found here:

  • Drucker, P. F. (1954). The practice of management: A study of the most important function in America society. Harper & Brothers.