Move to the Edge, Declare it Center

Lead your organizations, solve problems, and sustain your company’s growth with effective practices for complex, uncertain, and unpredictable environments

In Move to the Edge, Declare it Center, CEO, entrepreneur, and strategist Everett Harper delivers a powerful and pragmatic take on solving complex problems by, and making decisions through, uncertainty. You’ll learn to discover insights quickly by experimenting, iterating, then building infrastructure to sustain your innovations in your teams and organizations.

The author demonstrates a set of practices, processes, and infrastructure that addresses complex problems alongside a set of methods to systematize, scale, and share best practices throughout an organization. In the book, the author offers a new framework for leadership that’s perfectly suited to an increasingly volatile, uncertain, and unpredictable world. You’ll also get:

• Effective ways to make decisions in situations without complete information
• Strategies for sustaining your team through highly uncertain times
• Techniques for managing personal anxiety—a key leadership skill for the next decade

Case studies of World Central Kitchen, COVID public health policymakers, and California wildfire responders illustrate the framework, while pragmatic playbooks about salary transparency, remote work, and diversity and inclusion will help leaders apply the framework in their own organizations. The author shares personal stories and winning strategies that help leaders maintain high performance, avoid burnout, and enable companies to thrive.

Move to the Edge, Declare it Center is perfect for business leaders facing complex problems that require immediate decisions in the face of uncertain outcomes. It’s also a must-read for anyone interested in modern leadership and looking for a way to help them make solid decisions with incomplete information.

Acknowledgments xi

About the Author xv

Preface xvii

July 7, 2016: Stand Up, Speak Up xvii

Introduction 1

Two Kinds of Problems: Complicated and Complex 4

Complicated Problems 4

Complex Problems 7

The Mismatch 9

Case Study: Introducing Salary Transparency 12

Defeating the Defaults: Making Decisions Under Uncertainty 15

Our Brains: Wired for Shortcuts 16

Our Bodies: Reacting to Stress 20

May 27, 2020: Still a Target, Still a Leader 22

Proposal: Adopt a New Mindset for Making Decisions 24

Part 1 What Is Move to the Edge, Declare It Center? 27

Chapter 1 A Framework to Make Decisions under Complexity and Uncertainty 29

What Is Move to the Edge? 32

What Is Declare It Center? 34

Chapter 2 Exterior Practices: The Methods of Move to the Edge 37

Forming Hypotheses 41

Hypothesis Testing 43

Iteration and Fast Feedback 45

Project Scoping 46

Who Is in the Room Where It Happens? Bringing in Diverse Voices 47

Example: Race and Artificial Intelligence 48

Case Study: How We Made Salaries Transparent 50

Case Study: Jane Jacobs: What Kind of Problem Is a City? 53

Case Study: World Central Kitchen 60

Case Study: Public Health Networks and the Early Days of COVID 63

Chapter 3 Exterior Practices: The Process of Declare It Center 67

Building a Remote-First Company Before the Pandemic 71

Retrospectives (Retros) 74

Exercise: Hold a Retrospective 76

Evolving Retros 81

Truss Values 83

Case Study: How We Made Salaries Transparent (Declare It Center) 87

Case Study: Healthcare.gov 88

What Did We Learn? Changing Mindsets Requires Changing Systems 96

Declare It Center in Modern Government 98

Case Study: Beyond the Scope: Responding to the California Wildfires 101

Declare It Center to Sustain Your Work 103

Case Study: World Central Kitchen 104

Chapter 4 Interior Practices: Get Comfortable with Being Uncomfortable 111

Practice: Meditate/Mindful Training 117

Practice: Learn from Your Body 119

Practice: Find Your Purpose 125

Exercise: The Purpose Playbook 127

Practice: Imagine Your Outcome 133

Exercise: Write a Letter to Yourself 134

Practice: Practice, Practice, Practice 137

Intermission: The New Normal Is Complex. Train for It 139

February 2012: Show Up, Speak Up:

Getting the Call 140

Finding Your Imaginal Cells 143

Ring, Ring, Ring 146

Part 2 Putting Move to the Edge, Declare It Center into Practice 149

Chapter 5 Where Do We Start? 151

Case Study: 2020: West Paw Recruiting for DEI 154

DEI, Recruiting, and Hiring at Truss 157

Chapter 6 Putting Practices into Action: Sustaining a Remote-First Company 173

Exterior Practices 176

Using Hypotheses to Create Company Culture 176

Deciding to Go Remote First 178

Staying Connected 179

Effective Communication 182

Using Decision Records (DRs) 189

Implementing Auxiliary Groups 190

Putting Your Money Where Your Mouth Is: Investing in Connection 191

Staying Healthy Is a Practice 194

Picking the Right Tools 198

Interior Practices 205

Exercise: Walking Meditation 205

Exercise: Learning from the Body 207

Exercise: Fear of Missing In 207

Appendix: Further Resources 209

Notes 211

Index 227

EVERETT HARPER is the CEO and Co-Founder of Truss, an Inc. 5000 fastest-growing company for 2021 (^#534) and 2020. Everett worked at Linden Lab, Self-Help, Bain & Company, and serves on the Board of CARE USA. Everett is an alum of Stanford University (MBA, M.Ed) and Duke University (BSEE) and won the NCAA National Championship in soccer.

In Move to the Edge, Declare it Center: Practices and Processes for Creatively Solving Complex Problems, veteran CEO, entrepreneur, and strategist Everett Harper delivers an impactful and pragmatic exploration of complex problem-solving in the face of uncertainty. You’ll discover how to unearth valuable business insights by experimenting, iterating, and building an infrastructure to sustain innovation in your teams and organizations.

The author presents a collection of processes, practices, and infrastructure that solves complex problems and discusses ways to systematize, scale and share best practices in your company. You’ll find a new framework for leadership that’s perfectly suited to a business environment that is increasingly volatile, uncertain, and unpredictable.

The book provides effective methods for decision-making in situations where you lack complete information, ways to sustain your team during uncertain and stressful periods, and effective techniques for managing personal anxiety—a crucial leadership skill.

Move to the Edge, Declare it Center offers revealing and expansive case studies from World Central Kitchen, public health policy- makers responding to the Covid-19 crisis, and California wildfire fighters that demonstrate the implementation of the framework discussed inside. It also includes pragmatic playbooks from Truss’ decade of work on salary transparency, remote work, and diversity and inclusion that you can run in your own organization.

The perfect resource for business leaders facing complex problems that require immediate responses even when the decision maker lacks complete information, Move to the Edge, Declare it Center is also a must-read for everyone interested in how contemporary business leaders deal with uncertainty and volatility.

Navigate complex, uncertain, and unpredictable business environments with pragmatic insights from one of the world’s leading entrepreneurs

“Everett’s book Move to the Edge, Declare it Center captures both the spirit, practice, and aspiration of our work at CARE. We’ve evolved to be more agile, innovative, and creative to respond to the challenge of reducing global poverty amidst the complexity and uncertainty of COVID and climate change. I’m excited to share his book with our global teams, so we can continue to powerfully stand up for women and girls and families around the world.”
–MICHELLE NUNN, CEO and President, CARE USA

“At World Central Kitchen, navigating through and adapting to complex environments is part of our core practice when providing nourishing meals to people around the world in times of crisis. I was excited to share our story in Move to the Edge, Declare it Center because Everett’s book illustrates a new practice of leadership that will be crucial and necessary in the coming decades. I think his framework has the potential to be professionally and personally transformational, so get started!”
–NATE MOOK, CEO, World Central Kitchen

Renowned CEO and strategist Everett Harper explores practical techniques for making pivotal decisions through uncertainty in Move to the Edge, Declare it Center—a pragmatic playbook for leaders solving complex problems in high-pressure environments. You’ll discover a collection of practices, processes, and infrastructure that can be applied to your own circumstances and scaled throughout your organization.

The author’s framework—which is perfectly suited to an increasingly volatile, uncertain, and unpredictable business environment—offers effective ways to make decisions without complete information. It demonstrates how to sustain a team through uncertain and stressful periods while managing personal anxiety.

The book includes case studies from World Central Kitchen, policymakers responding to Covid-19, and California wildfire fighters, adaptable playbooks on salary transparency, remote work, and diversity and inclusion, and personal stories from the author that describe strategies for maintaining high performance and avoiding burnout.

An indispensable guide to modern business leadership, Move to the Edge, Declare it Center is a one-of-a-kind discussion of effective, modern strategies to deal with complex problems in the face of uncertain outcomes.