Team Members
- Terry Porter, Maine School of Business
- Corky Potter, consultant, organizational management
- Linda Silka, UMass Lowell, community-university partnerships
SSI as an organization
While the primary goal of the Sustainability Solutions Initiative (SSI) is the co-production of knowledge that can directly benefit Maine’s capacity to meet human needs while preserving the planet’s life-support systems, there is also a clear recognition that this very mission implies many challenges beyond those addressed by our natural and environmental scientist researchers. In other words, cutting edge scientific findings are necessary but not sufficient to the project’s success. A fundamental additional challenge is that of designing and adapting appropriate organization and communication systems that can help maximize collaboration, while also maintaining the diversity and depth of knowledge of each researcher and community partner. A related task involves studying the evolution of SSI itself, in order to link internal operations and indicators with desired external outcomes such as the conservation of natural resources, sustainable economic development, and the preservation of indigenous and traditional cultural values. In short, a crucial yet often overlooked component of the entire undertaking is the study and continual improvement of SSI itself, as an innovative, dynamic organization. To these ends the Research on the Research (RoR) team has been created.
Research on the Research
The Research on the Research (RoR) core faculty includes a wide range of social scientists, including organizational, communications, social psychology, media, anthropology and other scholars, public policy and planning experts, and organization development professionals. Our explicit focus is upon SSI as an organization or, more precisely, as an evolving and dynamic system. The SSI “meta-system” exemplifies a new and exciting organizational form, where power is shared by all (rather than concentrated at the top), where projects (rather than departments) govern working group formation, where change and adaptation are expected (rather than unwelcome intrusions), where management is flexible and inclusive (rather than command-and-control), and where core values and shared goals guide the system’s development. The SSI core values are leadership, excellence, respect, service, cooperation, and teamwork.
RoR Goals and Activities
The work of RoR is focused around two basic questions. The first asks, How does this system work? For example, what key processes and networks are developing within our various university—stakeholder research groups? What key indicators of internal processes are linked with desired outcomes? What kind of monitoring and feedback systems need to be put in place for tracking the progress of research projects and groups? The second, related question is, What can we do to help the system work better? This question refers to our role in assisting groups and team members with communication, facilitation, and team development; providing information and skills training to members at all levels of the system, and serving as linchpins between research groups and the overall project management team. As with all SSI undertakings, engagement and collaboration with community, state, and civil society groups will be crucial to the success of our project, since many of our desired outcomes involve improving communication and collaboration with these diverse state constituencies. Finally, we expect that our research on the research may help to identify important relationships, patterns, and best practices in the emerging arena of complex organizations and systems, all of which may be of value in a variety of contexts beyond SSI and the state of Maine.
