The wicked ones that do your head in, where being logical doesn't help and being right is irrelevant?

Maybe you're trying to get two teams to play nicely in the sandpit together, or looking for a way to keep your burnt-out group motivated and engaged. Perhaps you have to get a diverse group of stakeholders to approve a proposal, or a company to adopt a new IT or change process.

You might need a promotion, to handle a micro-managing boss. To organise a family holiday. A wedding. A divorce. A new baby. Five lovers and a bunny-boiler of an ex. Or just to convince your teenager to occasionally clean their floordrobe.

No matter how corporate the setting, wicked problems are personal. They're messy, ambiguous, unpredictable and irrational. They're frustrating as hell. They are where nearly everything we value most lives. And they can't be solved.

That's not to say you can't get amazing outcomes. You can turn around a company, save a relationship, dramatically reduce crime and malnutrition... but you can't actually solve it.

Which is a problem, because most of us thing that that's the only acceptable outcome. Which is probably why out failure rates in fuzzy areas like change, innovation, leadership, engagement and culture are so high.

So what do you do?
You have to get creative.
Which is more about the mindset than it is about the tools.

This book is a collection of the insights I've gleaned and learned to live by in my decades of working in this space. Things I know to be true. They're pragmatic. They work. They'll get you unstuck, they'll keep you sane and they'll help you create something wonderful from the wicked mess you're dealing with.