The Art of the Long View: Planning for the Future in an Uncertain World [Paperback]

Peter Schwartz (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 15, 1996

Presenting a revolutionary approach to developing strategic vision in business and in life, a guide for managers, entrepreneurs, and investors explains how to apply creative and intuitive skills to corporate practices. Reprint.

Editorial Reviews

From AudioFile

Author and president of an international consulting firm, Peter Schwartz presents lessons in thinking for the future. Schwartz offers scenarios from the oil industry that can be applied to all aspects of life. His first-hand accounts, originally developed for Royal Dutch/Shell, are invaluable tools for creative thinking in one's personal life and in business. Schwartz's methods will enable anyone to think more creatively. These tapes offer lessons not found elsewhere. E.L.C. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Currency Doubleday (April 15, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385267320
• ISBN-13: 978-1863160995
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 0.8 x 9.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (50 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #32,684 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #100 in Books > Business & Investing > Biography & History > Company Profiles

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Customer Reviews

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39 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Benefits from Future Uncertainties, October 28, 2000

By 

Donald Mitchell "Jesus Loves You!" (Thanks for Providing My Reviews over 109,000 Helpful Votes Globally) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Art of the Long View: Planning for the Future in an Uncertain World (Paperback)

If you liked Arie de Geus' book, The Living Company, or The Fifth Discipline by Peter Senge, you will find The Art of the Long View a related, helpful exploration of how to go beyond "forecasting" the future to "preparing" for it.

This book is about using future scenarios to make better current decisions. As Peter Schwartz alerts us, "Scenarios are not predictions." They represent instead, possible alternative dimensions of the future that reflect the driving forces of that future. This is particularly valuable now because unpredictability is growing. "Unpredictability in every field is the result of the conquest of the whole of the present world by scientific power."

You are encouraged to use these scenarios as simulations to help you think more concretely and accurately about what might come next. Then you choose decisions and actions that leave you better off than the alternatives, regardless of the future scenario that occurs. Such scenarios are like projected script plots for a movie, and help us develop "memories of the future" (as David Ingvar noted) that make thinking about the future more practical for us. Generally one scenario will be better than the current direction, one worse, and one different.

Perhaps the greatest benefit of these practices is that "scenarios are . . . the most powerful vehicles . . . for challenging our 'mental models' about the world and lifting the 'blinders' that limit our creativity and resourcefulness." So you can think of scenarios as a stallbusting technique for overcoming the miscommunication, misconception, and disbelief stalls, as well.

One of the book's great strengths is that it takes you through the process by which the author discovered these qualities about how to use scenarios. He begins with his exposure to the kind of scenarios that Herman Kahn was using for government policy development in the 1970s. You then meet Pierre Wack at Royal Dutch/Shell who used scenarios to help the company successfully prepare for the big price increases in oil during the Arab Oil Embargo. Mr. Schwartz later replace Mr. Wack in that job and describes his experiences with later scenarios. One example that I found particularly interesting was thinking about putting in a new natural gas field offshore from Norway. Whether it made sense or not depended on whether the U.S.S.R. would continue to be an enemy of Western Europe and not ship its own low-cost natural gas to that market. That work led to understanding that the U.S.S.R. probably would fall many years before that occurred.

Another powerful section was on the global culture of teenagers as a precursor to other changes.

You will get plenty of concepts in the book to use to create your own scenarios and to make better decisions. You can get ideas from looking at themes like revolution, cycles, winners and losers, challenge and response, infinite possibilities, and the perspective of your own generation.

He has three scenarios for the year 2005 to give you a sense of what scenarios can look like. These focus about a market-driven world, a world without progress, and new geographical political alignments.

There is a user's guide with eight requirements for holding strategic conversations built around these scenarios. That is followed by an appendix with an 8 step process for developing the scenarios to use.

I thought that his section on "Information-Hunting and -Gathering" was especially good in helping you to spot the early sources of new future directions. These can come from technology trends, music, fringe areas, perceptions shaping events, remarkable people, sources of existing surprises, filters (such as magazines), and new networks.

Although I have never seen anyone conduct scenario planning exercises, I felt confident that I could do so after reading this book. I think you can, too.

Mr. Schwartz is an open, likeable person, and you will enjoy his writing style. He knows how to tell a good story that will stimulate your imagination.

After you have finished understanding the book and applying it to your business, I suggest that you take a look at your personal life in the same way. What are you assuming about your family, your health, and your future work-related circumstances? What are an appropriate range of alternative scenarios? What decisions do you have to make that are affected by these scenarios? Which decisions leave you much better off? Asking and answering these questions will provide the greatest possible benefit from developing your new skills in this area.

Be more thoughtful and purposeful using scenarios . . . and more happy endings will follow in reality!

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Long View: Macro and Micro Perspectives, January 5, 2000

By 

Robert Morris (Dallas, Texas) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Art of the Long View: Planning for the Future in an Uncertain World (Paperback)

Chairman of the Global Business Network, Schwartz is one of the world's leading futurists. As also indicated in the more recently published The Long Boom, his writing is as clear and crisp as his thinking. Schwartz's comments and suggestions are anchored in extensive real-world experience. His objective is to explain the process of what he calls "scenario-building" which enables managers to "invent and then consider, in depth, several varied stories of equally plausible futures" so that they can make (in his words) "strategic decisions that will be sound for all plausible futures. No matter what future takes place, you are much more likely to be ready for it -- and influential in it -- if you have thought seriously about scenarios."

Managers of companies (regardless of size or nature) are already aware of constant change within their competitive marketplace. Recent developments, notably use of the Internet to expedite globalization, suggest that change will occur progressively faster and have progressively greater impact, both positive and negative.

Meanwhile, for obvious reasons, managers of companies face daily situations and circumstances which require immediate attention and, more often than not, they must quickly make decisions which have profound implications. As a result managers find it very difficult to see "the larger picture", to maintain a "long-term perspective."

Schwartz suggests how. Like Drucker, he avoids making predictions. Rather, he helps his reader to formulate the degree of probability of certain events yet to occur...and then to prepare accordingly.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Take your instinct to a higher level!, July 19, 2002

By 

Christo "montxsuz" (Vancouver, Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Art of the Long View: Planning for the Future in an Uncertain World (Paperback)

I belief that I possess a strong and reliable gut-feel or instinct. I also have a good knack for organising and quantifying information to help me in the process of decision making. Together these factors which have helped me through many decisions, from moderately difficult to life changing decisions, such as immigration.

But Peter Schwartz's book takes planning for the future to a much higher level. Subtitled "Planning for the future in an uncertain world", in "The art of the long view" Schwartz illustrates his own successful recipe for practical futurism.

He outlines a "scenario" approach for developing a strategic vision. This approach involves developing 2 - 4 varying scenarios. The approach is based upon a series of steps for developing each scenario, preparing for the likelihood each scenario, and recognising early on which one (or more than one) scenario is actually eventuating, so that appropriate steps can be taken.

Although the proposed scenarios are to be presented in a narrative form (which may make some people uncomfortable), the "Long View" approach is quite methodical (though it could perhaps have been presented in a more organised fashion). Apart from that, the approach holds much advantage. I expected a full-on business book glorifying globalisation, knowing that Schwartz had been involved with several multi-nationals like the Royal Dutch Shell Oil Company. I was therefore pleasantly surprised with Schwartz's environmental leanings and his inclusion of the ecological impacts of decisions in scenarios.

Taking into account the success rate of teams in which Schwartz has been involved with in the past, the scenario developing strategy definitely seems to me to have much merit. (It would be interesting to see how his predictions for 2005 turns out - in 3 years time). Now if we could only get politicians to read this book and look past their re-election windows. Highly recommended.