Sue Nelson Cleveland

Having grown weary and wary of sustainability, I withdrew from practicing in this field for a few months to recalibrate... well, recalibrate my soul, really.  Then I was offered the opportunity to teach a course in John Carroll's MBA program.  Here's an overview.  Please tell me what you think is worthwhile in this design and what you think could be improved. MN/MK 581 is a cross-referenced course in the MBA Program, responding to needs of students with Management and Marketing concentrations.   The purpose of the course is to answer this question: If you want to have an impact within social-ecological systems, how do you design             and promote it? The course takes a critical thinking approach to complex problems in social-ecological systems, using three lenses.   One lens is whole systems/resilience thinking which is deliberative and, perhaps, designerly.   A second lens is sustainab...

Are you the new leader of a company or department?   Are you about to hire a new leader for your firm?   Would you like to accelerate this transition and realize amazing enthusiasm for what’s next?   Here are the steps one manufacturing plant took to get their new plant manager, and everyone else, up to speed. First, the new leader, Pat, and the management team wrote responses to a confidential survey to get their expectations and issues out on the table.   This process made sure the new leader and the whole team would be aware of and address the “real” issues in the plant that crop up every day.   Confidentiality meant the tough, politically difficult questions could be asked:   1.   Is there anything you need to know from Pat right away in order to do your job better? 2.   What do you want Pat to know about the direct report team? 3.   How do you feel about being a member of this team? 4.   What is the organizational "secret" ...

             … It is not "can any of us imagine better?" but, "can we all do better?" The             dogmas of the quiet past, are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion             is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise -- with the occasion. As our case             is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves,             and then we shall save our country. [1] In his Annual Message in 1862, President Lincoln urged Congress to consider how to influence the fate of the nation.   Today his words inspire us to review our current conditions with greater acuity and reflect upon them from a more noble perspective.   How shall we disenthrall ourselves?...

Do you ever wake up in the early morning with a random thought that answers a question you’ve had?  I’m talking about the kind of answer that isn’t the product of a logical thought process, but is the result of a kind of leap. One morning, I woke up with this phrase in my head, “generative vs. determinative thinking.” In my half-awake fog, I wrote it down, wondered what in the world this phrase was pertaining to, and fell back asleep. Once I was actually awake, I still had no clue what it was about.  So off to Google I went. Here’s the first entry from the search for generative vs. determinative thinking: Ontological and Epistemological Terrains Revisited  “…To grant thought generative and determinative functional properties is ...”Boy! Did that not clear anything up! The next source was a lot more interesting:  Why Nonprofits Have a Board Problem ( http://hbswk.hbs.edu/archive/4735.html ).  This short interview and book r...