Study Questions Leadership for Sustainability Strategies for Tackling Wicked Challenges By R. Bruce Hull, David P. Robertson, and Michael Mortimer
Roadmap for the Anthropocene Chapter 2: Challenges of the Anthropocene ● Which challenges of the Anthropocene reviewed in chapter 2 do you see as most disruptive? Which provide the most opportunities? Why? ● What are the implications of using “declinist” versus “breakthrough” narratives to explain the future given the trends reviewed in chapter 2? Explain the narrative you use and the future you see. ● What are the implications of these trends for your education, career, and profession? How might you position yourself to be more influential and relevant to the future being created? What should you think about when selecting your major or future classes to take? What should you consider when selecting a job, employer, or career path? How can you have an impact via the workplace and in your community?
Chapter 3: Opportunities of the Anthropocene ● Describe five ways businesses are transforming to address sustainable development challenges? ● Why are cities becoming increasingly relevant to the challenges of sustainable development?
● What is the difference between government and governance? Why is governance increasingly occurring in the cross-sector space where government, business, and nonprofit organizations intersect? ● What are the implications of these trends for your education, career, and profession? How might you position yourself to be influential and relevant to the future being created? What should you think about when selecting your major or future classes to take? What should you consider when selecting a job, employer, or career path? How can you have an impact via the workplace and in your community?
Toolbox for Wicked Leadership Chapter 4: Leadership Basics ● Compare and contrast the Direction-Alignment-Commitment theory of leadership with the Leader-Follower theory of leadership? Why do the authors argue Direction-Alignment-Commitment is more appropriate for wicked problems? ● What are the defining characteristics of wicked problems and how do they differ from tame problems and crisis situations. ● How does it make you feel when the authors argue that leadership can be practiced by anyone from any position in the hierarchy and that you can and should practice leadership? Do you believe that you can lead from where you? Why?
Chapter 5: Connecting across Space and Time ● List and define characteristics of wicked problems that require special leadership practices that help connect people and actions across space and time. ● Summarize how accountability connects people across time and space. Provide an example with which you are familiar. ● Compare collective impact to scaling up. What are the biggest similarities and differences? ● What are the key challenges of a successful social marketing campaign?
Chapter 6: Collaborating across Differences ● List and define characteristics of wicked problems that require collaboration across stakeholders who may differ in their values, assumptions, personalities, disciplines, professions, generations, cultures, and sectors.
● Use the analogy of an elephant and rider to explain why human psychology makes collaboration so difficult. Explain why the rider operates more as a lawyer than a scientist. Define confirmation bias and explain how it is related to filter bubbles. Define identity protective reasoning and explain how it is related to echo chambers. ● Do you agree with the assertion that facts rarely matter? Why are values and identity so important when trying to promote collaboration? ● Do you agree or disagree with the assertion that some people can’t be collaborated with because they are trapped in network propaganda loops? Why or why not? ● How would you go about targeting elites and leaders of groups you disagree with using facts, logic, and identity? ● List where you fit within the five phases of working across differences (i.e., denial of difference, defense against difference, minimize the difference, span differences, or synergize differences). Briefly discuss what it might take to get you to move up to the next level. ● Define the attributes of trust and how lost trust might be repaired.
Chapter 7: Adapting to Change, Uncertainty, and Failure ● List and define characteristics of wicked problems that require special leadership practices that help people adapt to confounding uncertainty and change. Be sure to include a discussion of the different sources of uncertainty (e.g., stakeholders, systems, strategies). ● Differentiate between sense making as a way of thinking and sensemaking as a practice and process. Outline the core components of the 3SO sensemaking approach, focusing especially on methods to do a stakeholder analysis. ● Why is resiliency a more appropriate framework than efficiency when confronting wicked problems of the Anthropocene? ● Explain the difference between single, double, and triple loop learning and suggest situations for when each would be appropriate. ● How is the method of collaborative innovation an extension of the simple but powerful plan-do-check-fix strategy? ● Under what conditions should you try to be disruptive? Do you have the courage to do it? ● Why is communication so important when confronted with confounding uncertainty, failure, and continuous change?
Storybook of People Practicing Wicked Leadership Chapter 9: Changing Tastes: Influencing Identity and Choices for Sustainable Food ● What in Arlin’s background equipped him to be a change agent? ● Why is meat eating such an important sustainability challenge and why is it so hard to change people’s diets? ● List specific examples of identity management used to change what people cook and eat. ● List specific examples of choice editing used to change what people cook and eat. ● What would you do differently or improve if trying to change diets? ● How might you use identity management and/or choice editing to tackle another sustainability challenge?
Chapter 10: Leadership Is a Key Ingredient in Water: Getting Direction, Alignment, and Commitment in India ● What are characteristics of Kanupriya that make her so good at leadership? ● Why is water scarcity and sanitation such an important problem in this and other regions of the world? ● List specific examples of practices that promoted direction, alignment, and commitment in the organization known as JBF and in the communities where JBF works. ● Explain how the train-the-trainer strategy was used. ● What would you do differently or improve if in a similar situation? ● How might you use the strategies used here to tackle another sustainability challenge?
Chapter 11: Collective Impact for Climate Mitigation ● What are characteristics of Rich that made him so successful at helping Arlington mitigate its greenhouse gas emissions? ● What are the major sources of greenhouse gas emissions of cities and why is climate mitigation by cities so important and within reach? ● List and define the key characteristics of Collective Impact and give one example of how each characteristic is illustrated in this case study. ● How do you think the approach would work in smaller, poorer cities with fewer professionals on staff? What do you think would need to change? ● What similarities and differences do you see between collective impact illustrated here and the collaborative innovation strategy illustrated in Chapter 12? ● What would you do differently or improve if in a similar situation?
● How might you use the strategies used here to tackle another sustainability challenge?
Chapter 12: Innovating Carbon Farming ● What are characteristics of Alisa that helped her succeed at organizing this collaborative innovation effort? ● What is restorative agriculture and why is it so important to climate mitigation? ● List and define the key characteristics of Collaborative Innovation and give one example of how each characteristic is illustrated in this case study. ● Why is it so important to assemble the right stakeholders and how did Alisa go about doing it? ● Which of the proposed critical shifts do you think had the most potential? Why? ● What similarities and differences do you see between collaborative innovation illustrated here and the collective impact strategy illustrated in Chapter 11? ● What would you do differently or improve if in a similar situation? ● How might you use the strategies used here to tackle another sustainability challenge?
Chapter 13: Accounting Makes Sustainability Profitable, Possible, and Boring ● What are characteristics of Brian and other executives at Host Hotels that made this effort successful? ● Why are investors motivated to invest in companies with strong sustainability records? ● Why do transparency and accountability combine to create a powerful strategy for changing behavior even when people don’t interact or meet one another directly? ● List and define the key characteristics of Accountability as a strategy to promote change and give one example of how each characteristic was illustrated in this case study. ● Do you think an effort like this would be successful if there were not an organization like SASB whose goal is to standardize the practices so all companies, good and bad actors alike, can be held to the same standards? Why or why not? ● What would you do differently or improve if in a similar situation? ● How might you use the strategies used here to tackle another sustainability challenge?
Chapter 14: Fire Learning Network ● How is fire related to climate change, biodiversity, and ecological health? Why is it so hard to manage (i.e., what makes it wicked)? ● List the defining characteristics of trust and give an example of how trust was built in this case study. ● List and define the key characteristics of a learning network as a strategy to promote change and give one example of how each characteristic was illustrated in this case study. ● What would you do differently or improve if in a similar situation? ● How might you use the strategies used here to tackle another sustainability challenge?
Chapter 15: Partnering for Clean Water and Community Benefit ● Why is stormwater management such an important issue for many communities? ● How can green infrastructure be used to complement grey infrastructure in managing stormwater? What are some of the additional benefits of green infrastructure? ● List and define the key characteristics of partnering as a strategy to promote collaboration and give one example of how each characteristic was illustrated in this case study. ● What are concerns about a government agency contracting with a private business to deliver public goods? How were those concerns addressed here? What were some of the public benefits the partnership delivered (in addition to cheaper, faster stormwater mitigation)? ● What would you do differently or improve if in a similar situation? ● How might you use the strategies used here to tackle another sustainability challenge?
Chapter 16: Conclusion ● How will you make yourself relevant and influential to the challenges of the Anthropocene? ● How will you generate direction, alignment, and commitment within your team, organization, community, and networks? ● How will you help others to connect, collaborate, and adapt? ● How will you lead?