Ed Morrison, a founder of Strategic Doing methods, shared some valuable thoughts on LinkedIn about how to engage in the community challenges we face and the work we can do by working together by clarifying intent and shared outcomes.
A key to his message is understanding that the “wicked” problems we face ( housing, homelessness, Alaska fiscal plan and our PFD, funding education, cost of energy, climate change…) can not be solved without working together with an emergent or iterative approach of improvement and change. And understanding that in the process of addressing an issue, the challenges change as the underlying uncertainties become clearer and are modified.
The workshop last week organized by Commonwealth North and ISER was a valuable example of the approach and tools that will be needed in the future to untangle the issues that have stalled our Alaska economy and communities, sending over 20,000 working adults out of Alaska looking for opportunities elsewhere.
I started my work incommunity organizing and planning almost 40 years ago when it was expected that you could create a plan and execute it, and poof, results happened. Well, over time and as problems have shifted from being “tame” to “wicked”, I learned first that it was the process of planning together that created capacity and competitive advantage, not the plan; and I found tools like Strategic Doing were more aligned and practical for the challenges we now face.
I’m looking forward to linking my current public policy projects to my past Alaska Version 3 work with Strategic Doing, Transformative Scenario Planing developed by Adam Kahane and the Exploratory Scenario Planning I helped ISER apply to climate adaptations in Anchorage, Fairbanks, and Whitehorse.
I expect what I’m doing now in the Legislature will be valuable because of the access to broader perspectives and resources, and working with others in public policy who share my interest in building wider and stronger bridges across uncertainty to the future outcomes we want for the next generation of Alaskans.
“…In this tension between agency and complexity, genuine transformation becomes possible.” (Ed Morrison 2025)
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