Where are we going: Our Outcome
We are moving toward a more open, equitable, and regenerative world. We are unleashing our human ingenuity through collaboration, entrepreneurship, challenge innovation, and ecosystems.
Our work supports a new generation of leaders. Strategic Doing practitioners are committed to the hard, heady work of transforming our world. They guide complex collaborations by mastering our oldest technology: the conversation.
We are explorers on the path to what's next: designing new organizations, policies, and systems. If our work inspires you, discover our many touchpoints, and join us.
How we will get there: our Credo
In 2011, a group of Strategic Doing practitioners from all over the United States gathered at a public park near Purdue University. They composed a credo, a set of beliefs that drive our work.
1. We believe we have a responsibility to build a prosperous, sustainable future for ourselves and future generations.
2. No individual, organization, or place can build that future alone.
3. Open, honest, focused, and caring collaboration among diverse participants is the path to accomplishing clear, valuable, shared outcomes.
4. We believe in doing, not just talking -- and in behavior in alignment with our beliefs.
Numbers don't lie
Strategic Doing teaches people how to form collaborations quickly, move them toward measurable outcomes and make adjustments along the way. In today’s world, collaboration is essential to meet the complex challenges we face.
Strategic Doing enables leaders to design and guide new networks that generate innovative solutions. It is a new strategy discipline that is lean, agile and fast—just what organizations, communities and regions need to survive and thrive.
Models cannot be replicated and scaled unless they are translated into skills that can be taught. Morrison isolated ten skills required to apply the model. Morrison and Hutcheson began formulating a curriculum to teach these skills. A core team of Strategic Doing practitioners provided advice and guidance.
At a core team meeting, Strategic Doing practitioners from across the U.S. gathered at a state pare in Indiana. They drafted the Strategic Doing Credo that guides the development and deployment of Strategic Doing.
A small team in Flint, Michigan launched a bold experiment to reduce teenage homicides with Strategic Doing. Bob Brown, from Michigan State University, Tendaji Ganges from the University of Michigan, and Kenyetta Dotson, a community leader, formed a core team to guide the deployment of Strategic Doing. Teams have worked on a variety of complex issues beyond reducing teenage violence. The Flint core team provided the Institute with insights into how core teams function.
Strategic Doing Training introduces the learner to the skills needed to enable people to form action-oriented collaborations quickly, move them toward measurable outcomes, and make adjustments along the way. It yields replicable, scalable, and sustainable collaborations based on simple rules.
Under a National Science Foundation grant, Stanford turned to Purdue to deploy Strategic Doing. The project reached across 50 university teams, each seeking to transform undergraduate engineering education. Over 50 university teams launched over 500 collaborations.
The University of the Sunshine Coast is located in an entrepreneurial hotbed north of Brisbane in Australia. Professor Mike Hefferan learned of Strategic Doing from Paul Collits, President of the Australia-New Zealand Regional Science Association. Hefferan invited Morrison and Hutcheson to share what they were learning. This Engagment led to Morrison completing a Ph.D. in Economics to explain why Strategic Doing works.
Through a partnership between Purdue and Human Insight in The Hague, Morrison and Hutcheson bring Strategic Doing to the Netherlands. The practice continues to grow. Workshops are conducted in Dutch.
The University of North Alabama became an early adopter of Strategic Doing to build entrepreneurial ecosystems with the guidance of Janyce Fadden. UNA has positioned the university as a leading “workforce development Unviersity”. UNA launched Shoals Shift, a regional ecosystem. Shoals Shift went on to win multiple grants and awards for its innovation.
With the growing interest in Strategic Doing led Morrison to form a nonprofit organization to hold the core intellectual property of Strategic Doing. Upon coming to Purdue in 2005, Morrison reached an agreement with Vic Lechtenberg, Vice Provost for Engagement. If Strategic Doing proved successful, Morrison and Lechtenberg agreed that the core intellectual property would be transferred to a nonprofit to facilitate the diffusion of the model.
The Stennis Institute at Mississippi State adopted Strategic Doing as a way to engage rural communities in complex economic transformations. Under the leadership of Dr. Joe Fratesi, the Stennis Institute guides rural communities in the transformation of their economy.