Books with author Roland Harrison

Effective strategic thinking requires a clear understanding of one’s external environment. Each organization has a unique environment, but as Ross Harrison explains in Strategic Thinking in 3D, any environment—whether in the fields of national security, foreign policy, or business—has three dimensions: systems, opponents, and groups. Systems strategy involves the challenge of creating leverage against opponents by shaping the external environments they rely on for sustaining their power. Opponents-based strategy requires analyzing a competitor’s capability, motivation, and strategy, assessing one’s own competitive challenges, and then developing approaches for directly confronting the opponent. Group strategy aims to mobilize political, consumer, and market groups against the power of an opponent. Strategic Thinking in 3D makes strategy “portable” for individuals who switch careers multiple times during their professional lives, moving among public, nonprofit, and private sector jobs. Harrison uses al Qaeda’s strategy against the United States as a “capstone” case study to demonstrate how strategic success often results from the cascading effect of “wins” in all three of these dimensions. Conversely, strategic failure can come from the mutual reinforcement of “losses” across these same three dimensions. Reinforcing and integrating the concepts, Harrison shows how strategy in 3D actually works in practice.

One of TeenVogue.com's 10 Best Queer Books to Check Out: “Looking for Group is a road trip book that ends with a punch to the gut. Warning: this is a book that will make you cry.”Rory Harrison’s beautiful novel about identity, home, and fresh starts recounts one boy’s quest to discover a world where he can thrive, one adventure at a time.Dylan doesn’t have a lot of experience with comfort. His room in the falling-down Village Estates can generously be categorized as squalid, and he sure isn’t getting any love from his mother, who seemed to—no, definitely did—enjoy the perks that went along with being the parent of a “cancer kid.”His only escape has been in the form of his favorite video game—World of Warcraft—and the one true friend who makes him feel understood, even if it is just online: Arden. And now that Dylan is suddenly in remission, he wants to take Arden on a real mission, one he never thought he’d live to set out on: a journey to a mysterious ship in the middle of the Salton Sea.But Arden is fighting her own battles, ones that Dylan can’t always help her win. As they navigate their way west, they grapple with Arden's father (who refuses to recognize his daughter’s true gender), Dylan’s addiction, and the messy, complicated romance fighting so hard to blossom through the cracks of their battle-hardened hearts.

Poor Mr. Snuffles, all nine lives gone in the squeal of a tire and the screech of brakes. His person, Jennifer, is in tears at her loss. Her neighbor, Mrs. Jones, a German war bride and about to move into assisted living has a treat for her. Being the grand-niece of a certain Transylvanian doctor, she has a treat for Jennifer. The good doctor’s laboratory notebooks. Thus begins the convoluted story of how a cat becomes Frankenkitty, upsetting the status quo ante in a sleepy college town. Mayhem abounds in this young-adult themed novelette.

One of TeenVogue.com's 10 Best Queer Books to Check Out: “Looking for Group is a road trip book that ends with a punch to the gut. Warning: this is a book that will make you cry.”Rory Harrison’s beautiful novel about identity, home, and fresh starts recounts one boy’s quest to discover a world where he can thrive, one adventure at a time.Dylan doesn’t have a lot of experience with comfort. His room in the falling-down Village Estates can generously be categorized as squalid, and he sure isn’t getting any love from his mother, who seemed to—no, definitely did—enjoy the perks that went along with being the parent of a “cancer kid.”His only escape has been in the form of his favorite video game—World of Warcraft—and the one true friend who makes him feel understood, even if it is just online: Arden. And now that Dylan is suddenly in remission, he wants to take Arden on a real mission, one he never thought he’d live to set out on: a journey to a mysterious ship in the middle of the Salton Sea.But Arden is fighting her own battles, ones that Dylan can’t always help her win. As they navigate their way west, they grapple with Arden's father (who refuses to recognize his daughter’s true gender), Dylan’s addiction, and the messy, complicated romance fighting so hard to blossom through the cracks of their battle-hardened hearts.