OUR PROMISE

The issues faced by these teams are, on the face of it, quite different. Your own organization's concerns are probably different still. And yet, a common thread runs through them – the need to find new ways to work together to tackle big challenges. This book will explain how we can navigate the world of complex challenges by strengthening our shared skills of collaboration. To most people, collaboration is just a word tossed around all too quickly. After reading this book, you will see that true collaboration runs much deeper than that. It is a set of ten shared skills that we call Strategic Doing. Anyone can learn these skills. We've taught them to (among others) scientists, engineers, business executives, high school students, healthcare practitioners, community activists, university administrators, local government officials, start‐up entrepreneurs, and workforce and economic development professionals. We will explain these skills and illustrate how each of them is used as part of effective collaboration. We will also provide you with some background on the research that supports each of these skills.

Each of the skills on its own can make a tremendous impact on the effectiveness of the groups you're already involved with. Beyond that, they can be assembled into a process for building a complex collaboration from the ground up. You will see that although the skills may sound simple, they are not easy. Mastering the skills takes practice.

There is one more catch: in our experience, we've found that no one is really good at all ten skills. That is one reason, among others, that you need a diverse team to tackle a complex challenge. We'll have more to say about this in the closing chapter.

WHY ARE WE CONFIDENT? THE BACKSTORY OF OUR WORK

What makes us so confident that we can deliver on the promise we are making to you? To answer that question, we need to tell you more about how Strategic Doing came to be. Strategic Doing began in a parking garage in Oklahoma City in 1993. Back then, before the bombing that made the city famous around the globe, Oklahoma City was facing down a decade of stagnation. Oil prices had collapsed, and the city had yet to recover from a serious banking collapse a decade before. The Oklahoma City mayor, Ron Norick, and the Oklahoma City Chamber were busy planning a major renaissance through a multimillion‐dollar infrastructure investment, called MAPS (Metropolitan Area Projects). Funded by a sales tax increase, MAPS generated over $400 million to build nine projects, including an arena, a renovated convention center, and a baseball stadium.

Investments in infrastructure, although needed, are not enough to turn around an economy. Only when the private sector has enough confidence to invest can a city's economy prosper. But how does a city trigger private investment? At the invitation of Charles Van Rysselberge, then‐president of the Chamber of Commerce, Ed Morrison went to Oklahoma City to answer that question. He began work on a strategy for the Chamber (which at the time was located within a concrete bunker of a parking garage). Charles and Ed assembled a small core team of entrepreneurial civic leaders. The team included Clay Bennett, who later became a major force in moving an NBA basketball team from Seattle to Oklahoma City, and Burns Hargis, who later became president of Oklahoma State University.

A seasoned economic development consultant, Ed was arriving fresh on the heels of a number of engagements using traditional strategic planning models. He was increasingly convinced that these approaches, which relied on a costly linear process of analysis and execution of plans laid out many years into the future, simply did not work (for reasons we explain in Chapter 1). To complement MAPS, Ed proposed a new and (until then) untested approach. He suggested that the Chamber think of their strategy more like open source software development (a discipline that was then just emerging): a continuous iteration of experiments to figure out “what works” – what is now called an agile process. Ed's core team came up with seven strategic initiatives, all designed to leverage additional private sector investment in the city. They called this portfolio Forward Oklahoma City: A New Agenda.

In trying to adopt this new approach, the central problem faced by the team turned out to be this: How do you design and guide complex collaborations in open, loosely connected networks when no one can tell anyone else what to do? Developing a new way of working together as they went, the first sprouts of success in Oklahoma City began to appear in about three or four years – including a hiatus of a year or so in the immediate aftermath of the 1995 bombing. By 2000, the combination of MAPS and Forward Oklahoma City had triggered an additional $403 million in private investment, including $27 million in technology‐based companies. Today, Oklahoma City has a dynamic economy, and the Chamber is continuing to build out new initiatives based on these original principles.

Here's one other metric of their success. In 1993, the only hotel downtown, the Medallion, rarely had more than a handful of guests (indeed, on some days Ed was convinced that he was the only guest in the only downtown hotel in the capital of Oklahoma). At night, downtown streets were too deserted and dangerous for a guest to venture out to find the one or two restaurants that might be open. The historic Skirvin Hotel, boarded up, served as a reminder of economic collapse. If you had asked civic leaders back then what should be done with the Skirvin, the dominant opinion would have been, “Tear it down.” Now, fast forward to today. Oklahoma City has 18 downtown hotels, and the Skirvin has become a crown jewel.

In 2010, Derek Thompson wrote a column for The Atlantic, “Why Oklahoma City Could Represent the Future of America.” Could it be? Perhaps. There's no question that the experiment worked and that Ed's core team contributed significantly to the city's rebirth. The six members of the team mobilized the assets in their networks (more about this later) to power Oklahoma City's transformation. By relentlessly focusing on collaborations to leverage private investment, the team led by example. The lesson Ed took away from Oklahoma City was clear: an entirely new strategy process needs to be designed for open, loosely connected networks. Modifications in traditional strategic planning simply do not work.

Throughout the 1990s, Ed continued to experiment. In a large‐scale set of experiments over six years, he applied this new approach to distressed rural communities in Kentucky. Here, the problem was different. J.R. Wilhite, then‐head of the Kentucky Cabinet for Economic Development, wanted to develop collaborative investments in these distressed communities, but he did not have the resources to invest in an extensive strategic planning process for each community. To meet the challenge, Ed built on the lessons of Oklahoma City and designed an agile strategy process that involved a series of two‐day strategy workshops with community leaders in distressed counties. First, Ed worked with J.R. to assemble a core team of economic development professionals from outside the community. Then, during the first day in the county, the team fanned out and conducted a series of one‐on‐one interviews. The team then came back together in the afternoon to distill what they had learned. In the evening, Ed took these insights and drafted a “strategic action plan,” which the team then presented to the community on the second day. Through these discussions, they made quick modifications. Once everyone was in agreement, the Cabinet charged the community leaders with the responsibility for implementing the strategic action plan and scheduled a six‐month checkup to measure progress. This new approach to strategy proved to be remarkably successful: 18 of the 23 distressed counties made measurable progress.

A third early experiment took place in Charleston, South Carolina in 2001 with the launch of the Charleston Digital Corridor. Using lessons from both Oklahoma City and Kentucky, Ed helped Ernest Andrade formulate the early strategy for the Corridor. Ernest, a city employee, thought that Charleston was not doing enough to support high‐tech, high‐growth companies. He wanted to design the Charleston Digital Corridor as a new type of accelerator. There was only one problem: Ernest did not have many resources. Although he had strong support from the mayor, he began with (literally) only a logo. Despite these modest beginnings, Ernest was able to build a vibrant ecosystem by following the principles of Strategic Doing. Relentlessly building new collaborations and focusing on “doing the do‐able,” Ernest has been able to build a globally recognized high‐technology ecosystem in Charleston.

By 2005, his experiences had convinced Ed that a new approach to strategy was possible, and he moved to Purdue University to continue to mature these ideas. There, he met Scott Hutcheson and the two of them went to work on a project that Scott had landed for the university. Purdue had received a $15 million three‐year grant from the US Department of Labor to experiment with innovations in the workforce development systems in the Indiana counties around the university. The region was one of 13 regions funded across the United States. Workforce development is exceptionally complex: a number of different actors are involved, including workforce development boards, community colleges, four‐year institutions, high schools, and, of course, employers, current employees, and students just entering the workforce. Using the skills of Strategic Doing, Scott and Ed assembled a core team of six people and began to build a network of collaborations with the region.

They treated their investment funds much like a venture capitalist. They invested in collaborations that had good prospects for being replicable, scalable, and sustainable, using a phased investment process to nurture successful collaborations. When the federal government tallied the results from all the regions, Purdue's approach generated returns far in excess of the investment made (we'll describe more about this initiative in Chapter 7).

OUR CURRENT WORK

These experiences were the beginning of Strategic Doing. Since then, our work has accelerated and we've worked with companies, groups, and organizations in many areas of the country – a number of which you'll read more about later in the book. We've developed a set of executive education offerings, taught by a team of Strategic Doing practitioners from around the country, using an interactive, simulation‐based approach. And we've begun teaching undergraduate and graduate students at Purdue how to collaborate. While teachers of all levels regularly ask their students to work in groups, most students have never learned how to do so effectively – nor do their instructors really know how to teach these skills.

Our work is not limited to the United States. Beginning in 2014, organizations in Australia, Canada, Mexico, and Europe began connecting with us, and we began traveling abroad to share the lessons we are learning about how to design and guide complex collaboration. We've been excited to see that although the national or cultural context does make a difference in how the conversations are shaped, the basic skills needed for effective collaboration across networks are the same. Meanwhile, the demand for new ways of working together keeps growing. Over 3,000 participants from 145 countries signed up for our first Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) last year.

As our work in the United States and around the world began to accelerate, we realized that we needed a model to scale the expansion of this discipline. We have chosen to expand the discipline by forming an international network of colleges and universities committed to using and teaching these new skills. Following the emerging models of open source development, we have formed a nonprofit institute to manage a growing network of higher education institutions equipped to teach this new discipline. Affiliate colleges and universities agree to work through the Strategic Doing Institute to share what they are learning, exchange curricula, and improve the discipline.

Purdue is the founding member of the network, because the university sees this kind of work as part of its mission as a land grant institution. As the United States was industrializing in the nineteenth century, Congress saw the need to create a new kind of higher education institution. Up until the 1860s, higher education in the United States was dominated by private universities affiliated with different religious denominations (think Harvard, Yale, Princeton). The Morrill Act of 1862, signed by President Lincoln, opened the door to something different. The act provided grants of land to states that were willing to establish and endow new higher education institutions. States could take the federal land grant, sell the land, and create an endowment to launch a new university. But there were strings attached: Congress directed that the institutions established under the Morrill Act focus on teaching practical disciplines in agriculture, engineering, science, and military science. In other words, land grant universities are focused on developing new knowledge and translating this knowledge into practical applications. It's no surprise, when you understand this history, that Purdue has incubated the development of Strategic Doing for over a decade.

YOUR GUIDES FOR THIS BOOK

Five members of the Strategic Doing core team are authors of this book. Each of us is both a practitioner of Strategic Doing and a teacher, helping others to master the skills we describe here. Together, we will guide you to understand these new skills and how you can apply them both individually and in your teams. Let us give you a little background on us, your guides.

Ed Morrison is director of the Purdue Agile Strategy Lab. Ed started his career in Washington, DC, where he was legislative assistant to an Ohio congressman, staff attorney in the Office of Policy Planning for the Federal Trade Commission, and a staff member for the Senate Democratic Policy Committee, where he focused on legislation involving tax, trade, and competitiveness. After leaving Washington, he joined a corporate strategy consulting firm, where he conducted strategy studies for large companies like Ford, Volvo, and General Electric. After his work as a corporate strategy consultant, Ed consulted with communities and regions on how to tackle the complex challenges of building a prosperous economy in an era of globalization. Frustrated with existing approaches to these issues, more than 25 years ago he began working on a new methodology– the process that has grown into Strategic Doing. In 2005, Ed moved to Purdue University to incubate the discipline and teach it to others.

Scott Hutcheson is associate director of the Purdue Agile Strategy Lab and a faculty member in the School of Engineering Technology at Purdue. A master teacher, Scott has led moving Strategic Doing into the classroom and also spearheads a growing research portfolio. He teaches both undergraduate and graduate level courses in agile strategy and collaborative leadership. Scott began his career at Purdue as an engagement professional exploring how to build complex collaborations between the university and the communities it serves, and was part of the original team that launched the Purdue Center for Regional Development. He has worked extensively in nonprofit, university, and business settings. Prior to coming to Purdue, Scott held positions at the United Way of Central Indiana and American Airlines.

Liz Nilsen is senior program director at the Purdue Agile Strategy Lab. She guides the growth of Strategic Doing, managing the network of affiliate colleges and universities that are teaching Strategic Doing in undergraduate, graduate, and executive education programs. She also leads the development of new offerings and oversees the training sequence we use with faculty and Strategic Doing practitioners worldwide. She has led the lab's work in the transformation of engineering education, as well as our work with NASA. Prior to coming to Purdue, Liz was part of an initiative to embed innovation and entrepreneurship in undergraduate engineering education. Under Liz's guidance, 50 university teams from around the United States learned Strategic Doing and used the discipline to launch more than 500 collaborative efforts in under three years (you'll read more about this project later on). Liz has an extensive higher education background and began her career in nonprofit management.

Janyce Fadden is director of strategic engagement at the University of North Alabama. Janyce is a principal architect of Shoals Shift, a multifaceted innovation initiative in Alabama's Muscle Shoals region. This initiative, based on Strategic Doing, is developing a dynamic entrepreneurial ecosystem in a region not traditionally associated with innovation beyond the music industry. Prior to coming to the University of North Alabama, Janyce led the Rockford (Illinois) Area Economic Development Council for nearly a decade. In that position, she guided the development of a series of strategic initiatives to build the region's aerospace cluster, its workforce and talent pipeline, and its entrepreneurship support networks. Janyce also has an extensive private sector background: she has served as a marketing director at Honeywell; as the president of Leeds and Northrup, a division of General Signal; and as vice president and general manager at two divisions within Danaher Corporation.

Nancy Franklin leads Franklin Solutions, a consulting firm that guides leaders in universities, government agencies, and community organizations in strategic initiatives, innovation, and change initiatives. Nancy is a national leader in university engagement initiatives in which universities build complex collaborations with the communities they serve. She previously led strategic initiatives at Penn State, Virginia Tech, and Indiana State University. Nancy uses Strategic Doing to work across organizational boundaries to develop shared goals and to execute effective strategies. She has deployed Strategic Doing in numerous settings, including regional development, higher education–community partnerships, and corporate supply chain innovation.

Books written by more than one person face the unique challenge of deciding what wording to use when describing experiences by members of the team. In this book, we usually just use the pronoun “we,” although in a few cases (including the case studies, all of which describe initiatives in which one or more of us has been directly involved) we'll identify exactly which of us was involved.

WHY THIS BOOK?

Fads come and go. Whether it is the latest management model or the newest leadership book, we have all seen new ideas that end up being nothing more than a flash in the pan. As we hope we've convinced you by now, the practitioners and researchers committed to Strategic Doing are different. We are committed to a new discipline of strategy specifically designed for open, loosely connected networks. We are committed to continuously improving this discipline through rigorous testing and evaluation. Finally, we are committed to transformation. The economic, social, and political institutions at the core of our developed economies desperately need an overhaul. It's been clear for a long time that designing these transformations would require us to collaborate. Yet for most people, “collaborate” is just a word used to dress up the usual series of endless and ineffective meetings. It doesn't have to be that way.

To unpack these ideas, the book is arranged in three sections:

You Are Here: Before introducing the skills, it's important to understand the nature of our challenges, how the world has fundamentally changed and the implications for strategy, and the changes we ourselves need to make. We know that some of you will skip right to the skills chapters, but we think you'll get much more out of them if you understand why the approach has to be different than traditional methodologies.

The Ten Skills of Agile Leadership: In a set of chapters, we'll unpack each of the ten skills. In addition, we'll provide some guidance about how you might start using the skill, and also illustrate how that skill was critical in a particular situation in a case study (while there are people using these skills all over the world, each of the case studies is drawn from a situation in which one of us was directly involved). Even if your challenge or organization is different from the one we describe, we hope the example will help you see how the skill can be adapted to specific scenarios.

Ten Skills. Got It. Now What? We don't want to just leave you with a list of ten “to‐do's.” In this closing section, we'll show you how the skills can be combined to amplify their effectiveness and, more generally, how to use the skills in different kinds of contexts.

In this book, we aim to show you that collaboration — and the human potential it unleashes — emerges from a portfolio of skills that can be widely distributed within a team of individuals. Each person committed to a collaboration can understand and practice these skills. At the same time, we can also recognize that none of us will be equally good at all the skills. As a collaboration moves through a predictable cycle from idea generation to implementation and evaluation, members of the team bring different skills to bear. The virtues of a team emerge as leadership is passed around based on each individual's strengths. The purpose of this book is to help you recognize these skills and where your strengths lie (as well as your limitations). We want you to become a more effective leader and team participant.

OUR CREDO

For over 10 years, a small group of practitioners we call the core team has come together three to four times a year to share what we've learned and to explore how to improve the discipline. Indeed, we practice Strategic Doing on Strategic Doing. At one of these meetings, we decided to dig a little deeper. We drafted a credo (which means “I believe” in Latin) as a simple statement of what motivates us to do this work.

We want to introduce this credo to you early, so you can understand the depth of commitment that drew us to writing this book. We believe that the obligations expressed in this credo can extend to all individuals in our society and to government, business, and nonprofit organizations:

• We believe we have a responsibility to build a prosperous, sustainable future for ourselves and future generations.
• No individual, organization, or place can build that future alone.
• Open, honest, focused, and caring collaboration among diverse participants is the path to accomplishing clear, valuable, shared outcomes.
• We believe in doing, not just talking – and in behavior in alignment with our beliefs.

For us the credo is a statement of shared values that can help us overcome the silos that weaken our creativity. It is a statement of our inescapable interdependence.

POSTSCRIPT

As you read about the different skills, some of you may be wondering about whether there is underlying research supporting our work. Strategic Doing emerged from fieldwork conducted with hundreds of groups and thousands of participants over 25 years. As we distilled the discipline around ten core skills of complex collaboration, the academics among us began searching the literature to understand why these skills are so effective. We learned that existing academic research supports the development of each of these ten skills, but also that, until now, no one had put all the puzzle pieces together. It's not surprising, because the academic research is not centralized in any one discipline but instead spans a number of fields, including cognitive psychology, strategic management, and behavioral economics. We'll refer to some of this research in the book, although it is written for practitioners rather than academics. If you'd like to refer to a particular source yourself for a fuller understanding, a full citation can be found in the “Learn More” section that's at the end of the book and is arranged by chapter.