Applied Sustainability

1. Applied Sustainability POLI 319 Class 13

2. Just Start - Prediction • Prediction as Bus/Org Model • Dominant way of viewing world • Disciplined Based • Strategic Planning built around it • plan the work and work the plan • Very successful in varying areas • THINKING AND ANALYSIS • However, World is increasingly UNCERTAIN and hard to predict • Without prediction, hard to plan

3. “Creaction” • Instead of thinking and analysis  Creativity and Action (or “Creaction”) • “The future may or may not be like the past, but you don’t have to spend a lot of time wondering how it will play out if you plan to shape (i.e., create) it.” • Hallmark of entrepreneurial thinking: it’s a common logic to address uncertainty

4. 10 Reasons why “action” works • If you act, you will find out what works and what doesn’t. • If you never act, you will never know what is possible and what is not. You may think you know, but you won’t be able to point to anything concrete to prove you are right. • If you act, you will find out if you like it or not…with “it” being whatever the new action is. • Acting leads to a market reaction, which could point you in another direction. • As you act, you can find people to come along with you. • As you act, you can find ways to do things faster, cheaper, better. • If you act, you won’t spend the rest of your life thinking, l wonder what would have happened if____. • If all you do is think, you may end up being less interesting as a person. Who would you rather sit next to on a plane, someone who started a successful rock-climbing store (or even an unsuccessful one) or someone who only thought about it? • If all you ever do is think about stuff, you can gain tons of theoretical knowledge, but none of it from the real world. “You become like that woman in the fable who knows the price of everything but the value of nothing. In other words, if all you ever do is think…all you do is think,” the authors write. • Action always leads to evidence, facts upon which you can make a decision. You act, therefore something changes, and in observing that reaction, you gain knowledge. Thinking doesn’t lead to proof. It just leads to more thinking.

5. Creaction in practice • Desire: sufficient desire to get started but passion helps • Take a SMART Step ASAP • Act Quickly with Means at hand  assess resources • Stay within acceptable loss  limit downside • Bring others along • Build on that for every other step forward • ** Doesn’t replace “thinking and analysis”  supplements or complements

6. Building Creaction • Not built on efficiencies or optimization but rather  exploiting contingencies and by leveraging uncertainty as opportunities • Take advantage of the “surprise factor” • Problems are good (almost always)  • problems = advantage • Everything is a gift

7. Bringing Others along • 74% of entrepreneurs are NOT concerned with the competition (or find them irrelevant). • Where you spend your time  trying to get as many people committed, esp early. • Committed stakeholders spreads the risk, confirms your idea, add’l resources and more fun • Sarasvathy: growth of the enterprise was only limited by the number of collaborators • Co-creation

8. Using Prediction & Creaction • On spectrum from prediction to creaction, when more certainty is involved think and analyze (predict using probability) and when it is more uncertain, use creaction. • Usually requires a combination of thinking and approaches • Use everywhere