James L. Ritchie-Dunham

James L. Ritchie-Dunham (born October 19, 1965) is Chief Strategist at the Institute for Strategic Clarity and Associate in the Psychology Department at Harvard University. His research focuses on increasing the clarity with which individuals and groups understand and act in the complex social systems in which they live.

Current research

Project: Collaborative Holistic Inquiry in Guatemala

*"Research Team": Jim Ritchie-Dunham (co-steward), R. Scott Spann, Steve Waddell (co-steward)

*"Research Focus": Specification of societal collaborative, holistic inquiry, its antecedents and consequences, with multiple stakeholders across governments, corporations, civil society, and global action networks

*"Broader Impacts": Demonstration of: (1) the strategic probabilities in the seemingly impossible in societal collaboration; (2) the ability to hear and act with the voice of a broad, vulnerable collective, in deep conflict with its stakeholders; (3) the capacity of local leaders to lead these processes; and (4) the integration of efforts across global action networks

*"Funding Support": CARE, GAN-Net [http://beta.gan-net.net/group/205] , Institute for Strategic Clarity

*"Current Status": The society-level project with CARE in Guatemala consisted in four visits from February 2004 to February 2005. This project is described in reports at the Institute for Strategic Clarity [(http://www.instituteforstrategicclarity.org/research.htm)] . The community-level project [http://beta.gan-net.net/group/205] , focusing on a watershed in the Coatan region began in May 2007

Project: Ecosynomics

*"Research Team": Sandy Hessler, Kimberly King, Jim Ritchie-Dunham (co-steward), Fred Simon (co-steward)

*"Research Focus": Identifying, elaborating, and testing the axioms of collaboration. Building on the foundations of economics, ecosynomics provides the axioms for collaboration. While recognizing the bigger interplay of the cultural, political, and economic spheres, ecosynomics focuses initially on the axioms that influence the primary agreements driving individuals today.

*"Broader Impacts": A world of harmonic stability, where people collaboratively contribute their unique gifts for the benefit of themselves and of the whole, is possible, within 40 years. The task taken up here is to shift the fundamental axioms underpinning current primary individual and collective agreements.

*"Funding Support": Azima, Institute for Strategic Clarity.

Project: Mindfulness
*"Research Team": Jim Ritchie-Dunham (co-steward), Ellen J. Langer (co-steward), Michael Pirson

*"Research Focus": Re-integrating the mind and body, relating mindfulness to behavioral outcomes.

*"Broader Impacts": Clear link between mindful interventions and outcomes, in preventive foot health, everyday meetings, strategy processes, and developmental systems thinking.

*"Funding Support": Growing Edge Partners, Harvard University, Institute for Strategic Clarity, Institute for Preventive Foot Health.

Project: Strategy for Global Action Networks

*"Research Team": Pieter Glasbergen, Kimberly King, Jim Ritchie-Dunham (co-steward), Steve Waddell (co-steward)

*"Research Focus": A key part of a global action network's work is to create conversations among stakeholders in an issue (e.g., water, forests, youth employment, corruption), to identify the issue as a common concern, develop joint understanding, and support a virtuous cycle of activities to address the issue. We are interviewing 20 GAN leaders, as the basis for exploratory conversations among global leaders, leading to a Clarity Forum on this topic.

*"Broader Impacts": Greater clarity about the power this new strategy has on its structure and governance, addressing questions such as: How does one engage a global conversation for action - recognizing it, making it explicit, engaging others in it, enacting it globally, and continuing to recognize it as it evolves? How do a GAN's structure, governance, and strategy nurture or debilitate its ability to steward the enactment of this evolving conversation?

*"Funding Support": Anonymous donor, Copernicus Institute for Sustainable Development and Innovation, GAN-Net, Institute for Strategic Clarity.

*"Reports": The following stories and commentaries are now available on-line.
**Stop TB Partnership (Anant Vijay) and Global Water Partnership (Gwynne Beris) with Commentaries (Patrice Barrat and Kimberly King) [http://beta.gan-net.net/blog/jritchiedunham/12-mar-2008/385]

*"Research Team": Dacil Acevedo (co-steward), Luz Maria Puente (co-steward), Jim Ritchie-Dunham, Steve Waddell

*"Research Focus": To create a deeper understanding on how to enrich a GAN's strategic global plan introducing the System Thinking principles using the "Managing from Clarity" framework.

*"Broader Impacts": The multi-sectorial, multinational and multi-stakeholder nature of GANs brings a new type of complexity that requires Systems Thinking to better support the great challenges they face to truly impact social good and global development. Youth Employment Systems (YES) has offered to be the first GAN for this research project. YES will create a systemic action plan for Latin America, aligning the vision and strategy for the leaders in the region. The process will be documented and evaluated to see how can it be best applied to other GANs.

*"Funding Support": Youth Employment Systems (YES), Institute for Strategic Clarity.

Project: Women's Empowerment through Microfinance

*"Research Team": Kimberly King (co-steward), Luz Maria Puente, Jim Ritchie-Dunham (co-steward)

*"Research Focus": Specification of "women's empowerment," its antecedents and consequences.

*"Broader Impacts": Discover the methods of microfinance that will most empower the 200 million women that will receive microfinance in the next 10 years.

*"Funding Support": Cleon and Jane Dunham Foundation, Institute for Strategic Clarity.

*"Reports": Details are available on-line.

**Clarity Forum on Women's Empowerment wiki (including agendas, audios, transcripts, and commitments made in a global forum) [http://womensclarityforum.pbwiki.com/]

Recent field work

Jim works with leaders in organizations such as A.T. Kearney, Boehringer Mannheim, CARE, Grupo Bal, Grupo Nacional Provincial, Mexican Secretariat of Health, National Security Agency, Petróleos de Venezuela, Petróleos Mexicanos, Pfizer, Renaissance Worldwide, Royal Dutch/Shell, Texas Department of Health, Town of Vail, TXU, US AID, and World Bank. In addition to his consulting, Jim plays an advisory role, sitting currently on the board of directors of Modern Oil and Gas Systems, Pine Hill Waldorf School, THOR-LO, and Wimberley Art Institute, and previously on the board of the Society for Organizational Learning and Dynamic I-T.

Previous work

Previously he was a visiting scholar at the MIT Sloan School of Management, a professor of operations research and decision sciences at the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM), an advisor to the Secretary of Health (Mexico), and a petroleum engineer at Conoco. He has a Bachelor of Science in Petroleum Engineering from the University of Tulsa. He has a Masters of International Management from Thunderbird - The Garvin School of International Management. He has a Masters of Business Administration from the Escuela Superior de Administración y Dirección de Empresas (ESADE) in Barcelona. He has a PhD in Decision Sciences from the University of Texas at Austin.

References

* Ritchie-Dunham, James L. (2001). "Managing from Clarity: Identifying, Aligning, and Leveraging Strategic Resources". Chichester: Wiley. ISBN 0-471-49731-2

External links

* [http://www.instituteforstrategicclarity.org/ Institute for Strategic Clarity page]
* [http://www.instituteforstrategicclarity.org/research.htm#Publications Publications and presentations available]
* [http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~jritchie/ Harvard page]