Wicked problems can never be solved— they can only be tamed.
And they’re a lot more common than we might think. The wickedest problems include the climate crisis, war, terrorism,pandemics and mass refugee migrations. In organisations, we see wicked problems like environmental accidents, hostile takeovers, sexual harassment, health and safety failures, product recalls, industrial espionage and reputational damage.
Taming wicked problems requires people to be skilled in critical thinking, decision making, and complex problem solving. But frequently, our organisations and people aren’t trained to be able to do these things.
In SORTED: Taming Wicked Problems with Smart leadership Thinking, risk and crisis management specialist Prof. Clive Smallman thoughtfully and elegantly teaches how you can:
Spot and identify wicked problems before they arise
Tame wicked problems and contain their impact
Learn from wicked problems to build reliably safe organisations
Foster resilient, wicked leadership within yourself
Once you can spot, tame and learn from wicked problems, you’ll be well on your way to turning wicked problems into wicked opportunities.
Available on Amazon from HERE.
Get two sample chapters below:
Prof. Clive Smallman is an expert in personal and professional development, developing business models for growth, and taming wicked individual and organisational problems.
Leveraging his extensive research in leadership, strategy, and crisis management, coupled with 10,000-plus hours of professional development, Clive is passionate about assisting individuals to navigate complex, chaotic or just plain difficult challenges in life or business. His approach begins by deeply understanding his client's personal and professional circumstances. This deep insight creates opportunities for growth and overcoming obstacles. By setting clear, realistic, and meaningful goals, Clive creates strategic roadmaps for progress. Drawing on his expertise as a project manager and former CEO, he accompanies clients throughout their journey, providing valuable guidance and helping them adapt their strategies. With his background as an educator and trainer, he skillfully guides their professional development, and his pragmatic, business-oriented advice, born from his successful entrepreneurial and directorial experience, ensures his clients receive the most effective counsel.
Achieving personal, professional and business goals can be slow. Sometimes it can feel like the brakes are on when you’re trying to solve problems or take opportunities; it can be painful, full of friction. Work can overwhelm life. You probably agree that finding someone you can trust with a deep understanding of life, work and business and how they interact is difficult, so you’re unsure what to do.
Clive has helped hundreds of people successfully address life, work and business challenges and opportunities, developing personally and professionally along the way. His thought leadership has developed over thirty years through personal experience and world-class research, working with people of all age groups in businesses of all sizes and types across North America, the UK, New Zealand, Australia and Southeast Asia. His thought leadership is summarised in six principles:
Understand your SITUATION.
Identify your OBJECTIVE.
Ground yourself in REALITY.
Sketch plans as TEMPLATES.
Pick the most promising solution and EXECUTE.
DEVELOP the solution further, as well as your personal and professional knowledge and skills.
These SORTED principles are tailored to whatever situation people are in. They bring order to complexity or chaos. They render difficult challenges or opportunities workable. Work and life become better integrated, it’s no longer “either-or”. You and your business grow.
Read more about Clive HERE.
“Clive has a unique ability to identify and examine in detail complex problems within a business and isolate the problem causing issues. His style of mentoring, asking the appropriate questions, enables solutions to be determined and then deployed. However challenging the issues, Clive’s ability to think strategically and plan tactically, are invaluable in addressing challenging situations.”
Stephen Milligan, Financial and Business Consultant
“Clive is a well-established thinker, change agent and organisational leader who is a prolific writer on a range of business and management topics.”
Dr Rob Lang, Chairman, Ability Options
“If you ever wish to be inspired by a mentor with extreme knowledge of business and you want to reach your full potential, then I highly recommend Clive”
Mario Bekes, Insight Intelligence
“Clive mentored me through a significant programme of professional and personal development, which opened up opportunities in my new career.”
Van Joshua Abergos, Orica
“Anyone who has the opportunity to work with Clive is already ahead of the game”
Alys Fenson, Atos
“I worked closely with Clive as he guided me as a mentor. During this process, we engaged in extensive business dialogue on a variety of topics, during which time I came to appreciate his broad depth of knowledge across a variety of specialist streams and of business issues and trends in general. His guidance was invaluable.”
Dr Gerold Knight, Chief Risk Officer, Coca-Cola Japan System
