Obviously, no brief commentary such as mine could possibly do full justice to the value of the information, insights, and counsel that Paulo Savaget provides but I hope that I have at least provided some indication of why I think so highly of his book. It is a brilliant achievement. Bravo! Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for providing the advance reader copy of this audiobook. I was pleased to get an early review copy, as problem solving and decision making are fields of study I am particularly interested in. In recent years, most (if not all) organizations have faced uniquely disruptive challenges that have caused the major crises to which this book’s subtitle refers. Effective leadership is needed at all levels and in all areas of the given enterprise to resolve truly serious problems. “What are we going to do?” In many situations, “a creative, flexible, imperfection-loving, problem-solving approach” may be the best answer. Once in motion, normalized situations may seem difficult to disrupt, but disruption is precisely what roundabout workarounds offer. Here, we can learn from Scheherazade, the legendary Persian queen who used a series of workarounds to change the course of a seemingly inevitable fate bestowed upon her by her husband, King Shahryar. The story goes that Shahryar discovered that his first wife had cheated on him, and he came to believe that all women would betray him. After having that wife executed, the king decided to marry a new virgin every day and have her beheaded in the morning, before she had the chance to dishonor him. We constantly encounter complex problems at home, in our places of work, and in society at large. Even if we had all the time and money in the world, sometimes no good solution can be found. So, what should we do, especially when we can’t wait? The answer: a workaround.

A hymn to deviance and “scrappiness” and a rich repository of stories . . . Entertaining’ Financial Times However, the part where the author tried to explain how to apply these strategies to readers' realities felt unapplicable and more of a repeat of the same stories from the first part of the book. Then there's the "loophole" solution, where you look for ambiguity in existing rules. It's akin to same-sex couples in countries without legal gay marriage traveling elsewhere to get hitched, Savaget explains. Women on Waves, a feminist pro-choice group, for example, offers legal and safe abortion services to people living in countries where abortion is illegal. People choose to terminate their pregnancies on board one of the Dutch ships in international waters. Why? Because on board a Dutch ship in international waters, the pro-choice legislation of the Netherlands applies. The organization uses the fact that what constrains people’s access to legal abortion is not their nationality but the law in the jurisdiction where they live. Paulo Savaget cleverly reveals how you take scrappiness to success: the workaround. In The Four Workarounds, he uses real world examples to show us smart, efficient ways to problem-solve. This book helps us live happier, successful, and more fulfilling lives." —Jenn Lim, CEO and cofounder of Delivering Happiness, and bestselling author of Beyond HappinessMany of them said that my research could be turned into a book because the research resonated with a lot of people. It also resonates a lot with people in professional settings, in their daily lives. But overall I felt like the message was: think outside the box (though that's exactly the expression the author doesn't like) and be creative.

They provide an environment where people can experiment, where they can test, where they can be flexible. It’s adaptive-management style that works really well. Also, this idea of portraying them as heroes with special skills has been often reproduced by the media, for example, or even by business books, like the myth of the dropout. Associate Professors Tracey and Samantha wrote their book for those leaders who are curious about how to lead sustainable high performing, innovative and impactful groups of people. I had the desire to communicate with many different audiences, not only restrict [myself] to abstract concepts that normally stay in academia. I wanted to make sure that this knowledge could be used by many different organizations and individuals. Workarounds are very powerful mechanisms for deviating from norms, from these rules that constrain us.Savaget identifies three approaches to deviance or standing out from the crowd. First, there’s confrontation which “always means clashes against dominant power structures.” Second, there’s negotiation to put pressure “on authority figures to legitimize changes in the system of rules.” And finally, there’s the workaround. “ Through workarounds, we can promptly get things done and defy the status quo without directly antagonizing rule enforcers.” Workarounds are the lower-risk option for moving something along. Tracey commented: ‘Our book has come at a very important moment - leaders are required to be courageous in reimagining work for young people joining organisations, for a hybrid context and for an ever-changing and ever-challenging external landscape. We explores the ancient needs, gifts and challenges that underlie teamwork while at the same time provides a practical guide to new approaches to work and leadership that make the best use of our unique human gifts. By understanding the ‘social brain’, leaders will be better equipped to create - and sustain - successful groups.’ Companies can actually stimulate a culture that embraces this flexibility and an adaptive nature that a workaround requires and that this positive deviance also requires. There are many ways of doing this that involve, for example, from a strategy perspective, allowing people to be a bit more pragmatic, be more practical, value imperfection, plan less, but allow people to experiment and pivot based on their experiments. Thanks to Netgalley and MacMillan for an advance reading copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Here are other passages that also caught my eye, listed to suggest the scope of Savaget’s coverage:

A smart guide to finding creative solutions for a variety of difficulties ... clever case studies enlighten, and business readers will appreciate the suggestions on how to make one's workplace "workaround friendly." ... Wise and level-headed, this delivers." — Publishers Weekly I realized that my reports were relatively similar in terms of recommendations. I was already working with these ideas of systems thinking, systems design, and realized that the work I was doing wasn’t necessarily engaging with all the ways of approaching change. It was very much focused on single assumptions of making big, systemic changes. Workarounds are good ways of getting things done and defying the status quo. But they’re not necessarily people-pleasing solutions. There are many ways of using workarounds. You’ve got to think a little bit about the impact of these workarounds that you may pursue.

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Part I covers what workarounds are and how to come up with them. In Part II I dig into how to cultivate a workaround attitude and mindset, including how to reflect on the ways you typically see, judge, and approach your obstacles. Then, on the more practical side, I’ll show you how you can systematically conceive workarounds to your problems and how your workplace can become more workaround friendly. I conclude with a reflection on how workarounds can ultimately help you with your daily, sometimes messy life. Tracey and Samantha wrote their book for those leaders who are curious about how to lead sustainable high performing, innovative and impactful groups of people.

For ages, global corporations have been lecturing small organizations and not-for-profits on how to get things done. As it turns out, it should have been the other way around. In this groundbreaking audiobook, award-winning researcher Paulo Savaget shows how the most valuable lessons about problem-solving can be learned from the scrappiest groups. This myth of the hero entrepreneur, who is visionary and who knows where we are going and is leading everyone to this, is not only inaccurate, but it’s undesirable as well on so many levels. It recreates and reinforces a very toxic culture in organizations that value some people who are portrayed as if they had special skills and abilities—change-making abilities—as if they know the future, and completely dismisses or ignores the contributions from a lot of other people who made things happen.

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Paulo Savaget is an associate professor in the Department of Engineering Science and Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford. He specializes in entrepreneurship, sustainable development, systems change, and innovation management. These cases remind us that we often find ourselves constrained or even trapped by pre-existing rules. However, there’s more than one way to be right, and simply following or breaking rules isn’t always the best way to get something done; often there is an option that lies in between. With some creativity and close attention to what rules do (and don’t) say we can benefit from their inadequacies to circumvent or otherwise avoid their purpose. This is especially appealing when we don’t have the power or resources to change things, or we don’t have time to wait for things to change because the need is too urgent. If you watched On the Basis of Sex, the biographical legal drama about RBG, you’ll have seen how by arguing from the position of a man’s diminished rights in front of all-male judges, RBG and her husband successfully set a historic precedent that unequal treatment on the basis of sex is unconstitutional. They chose the seemingly low-stakes case of Charles Moritz. If Moritz were a woman, he would have been entitled to a tax deduction for a caregiver’s expenses, but the law didn’t consider the case of a single man caring for his elderly mother. By winning this case, RBG exposed the broader sexism in US laws that afflicted women the most, creating precedents to press for changes in laws in Congress and to contest many court decisions that discriminated against women. Even people who became very famous for dropping out like Bill Gates , for example, actually did it with a safety net. His business had shown some success and was already doing relatively well when he left Harvard. This whole myth of entrepreneurs being heroes who do not have fear, who do not have a safety net, who challenge all the odds to pursue their dream is very inaccurate and leads to undesirable behaviors.