Customer Reviews

Inevitable Surprises

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In Inevitable Surprises, veteran futurist and scenario constructor, Peter Schwartz, takes an assignment done for Citicorp in 2001 and turns it into a discussion of seven themes for the future.

Here is the book's structure:

Chapter 1: Inevitable Surprises

Chapter 2: A World Integrated with Elders

Chapter 3: The Great Flood of People

Chapter 4: The Return of the Long Boom

Chapter 5: The Thoroughly New World Order

Chapter 6: A Catalog of Disorder

Chapter 7: Breakthroughs in Science and Technology

Chapter 8: A Cleaner, Deadlier World

Chapter 9: Inevitable Strategies

In chapter 1, he argues that scenarios can predict the future. His most telling example is having helped develop a scenario involving airplanes destroying the World Trade towers for the Hart-Rudman Commission that was reported a few months after President George W. Bush took office in 2000. But no one paid attention. He cites several other examples of denial that have led to corporate disasters from ignoring scenarios he helped construct. If you would like to learn more about scenario construction, I also highly recommend his fine book, The Art of the Long View, which was published in 1991.

What can we expect now? "First, there will be more surprises. Second, we will be able to deal with them. Third, we can anticipate many of them."

Chapter 2 begins by pointing out that the U.S. retirement age began climbing in 2001 and will probably continue to do so. People are living longer, are healthier, and either want to work (as his examples of wealthy, educated people show) or have to work (as his example of the airline attendant in her 70s who cannot afford to retire shows). Even after retirement, these people will be active and be part of society. Strom Thurmond's retiring from the Senate at 100 is described as what could become the norm in the future.

Chapter 3 is more about migration than population growth, which is expected to be pretty much over worldwide in the next 50 years. He focuses on Asians and Hispanics in the U.S., unwelcome Muslims in Europe, and Chinese become mobile around the world.

Chapter 4 describes a return of the old drivers of economic growth: greater productivity; better communications; and greater globalization. He feels that the next 3-4 years might be so-so, but that the good times will be back by late in the decade.

Chapter 5 was written before the war in Iraq began, but it describes the issue of having the U.S. operate unilaterally even when the international community doesn't agree -- becoming a rogue superpower in the eyes of much of the rest of the world. He builds up a theme that nations which are orderly internally and encourage order internationally will do best. Most countries will learn to compete in fostering orderliness, sort of like Singapore.

Chapter 6 describes a world of continuing terrorism, and high costs to offset it. This is not because terrorism really threatens individuals . . . but because the thought of terrorism is intolerable. By changing individual behavior around the world, terrorists are encouraged to continue. He seems establishing honest democracies in all the Middle Eastern countries as the only way around this. He's concerned about the potential of religious groups coming into conflict in other parts of the world.

Chapter 7 is the most intriguing part of the book. He speculates that we could be at the beginning of a new set of fundamental discoveries including new sources of energy, broad scale applications of nanotechnology (molecular devices) controlling biological processes and developing quantum computing, and far-out changes like changing fundamental reality so that science fiction (like teleportation) becomes science fact. If you're not familiar, though, with the background of what he's talking about, you won't get enough here to help you understand it.

Chapter 8 was written before the S.A.R.S. outbreak, but describes a similar scenarios about how new diseases may spread very rapidly and be hard to control. He's very optimistic about ordinary source of pollution being cleaned up, as fossil fuels are replaced by new technologies. In an area where you may not agree, he forecasts a bright future for the growth of atomic energy for power generation.

In Chapter 9, you are given some principles to use in trying to anticipate when to pay attention to concerning these scenarios for a business. These include having "strategic conversations" with colleagues, thinking about "timing," identifying "earning warning indicators," foster your own use of mechanisms that "engender creative destruction," try to avoid denial of the scenarios, think like a "commodity company," be aware of where your judgment is and is not "competent," and focus on learning, good environmental practices and financial infrastructure and support. He reminds readers that there are no "pat" answers or formulas to apply.

For most people, these trends are not new. What's new is his weaving of the trends together into a picture of what could emerge. Necessarily, the pictures are blurry.

The book's main weakness is in the flip and incomplete way that he sometimes introduces ideas. For example, he argues that nuclear reactors are not really dangerous because Israeli air attacks on the reactor in Baghdad failed to destroy the facility. Nowhere is there a description of how to handle the nuclear waste, especially the waste that can be turned into terrorist weapons. As a result, I'd encourage you to take this as "food for thought" rather than being "carved in stone" as inevitable.

After you finish, think about some trend that he did not mention that will be important to your life or your business and think about what will probably happen. My favorite example is the rapid growth in the use of antidepressant medications in the U.S. How will that affect our health, wealth and happiness? What will come next? You probably can think of a trend that has more meaning to you, such as the growth in regular exercise.

Since the future isn't what it used to be and only seems to get stranger by the day, Peter Schwartz's latest book should be a welcome guide to the "inevitable surprises" ahead. Schwartz isn't just any futurist; he's a kingpin at the Global Business Network and frequently consults to governments and large corporations. Schwartz argues that many of the big surprises ahead can be foreseen if we use scenario thinking to closely examining existing signs. With this point as well as in some details - such as the impact of shrinking populations - Schwartz is in accord with Peter Drucker. This book lays out the dramatic transformation and volatility we face over the next quarter century. The book's scope is wide enough that everyone is likely to find themselves startled and stimulated.

In case you read Schwartz's previous work and wonder whether he still believes in "The Long Boom", the answer is an undeniable and unashamed *yes!* Productivity and accelerating technological advances will return the economy to a long-term path of strong growth. This doesn't mean that Schwartz paints a pastel portrait of the future. We can expect a cleaner environment and opportunities in abundance, but must also anticipate massive migrations of people, declining populations in large parts of the Western world, a confusing and unruly international situation, global climate crises, plagues, and possibly an asteroid strike. Study this book, challenge Schwartz's thinking, and prepare yourself and your business for a wild ride ahead.

Schwartz believes that his forecasts and scenarios will stand up to the test of future history better than those of most prognosticators. The reason is that, in the grand tradition of "predetermined elements" in scenario planning, he is drawing out the implications of events that have already happened. Many of the big surprises are, in fact, inevitable. So why are we continually caught off guard? Schwartz pins the blame on our tendency as decision makers to react to the drivers of change either with denial or defensiveness. Neither kind of response is effective and both are "fundamentally irresponsible" as Schwartz puts it. In this book, he aims to help us understand the kinds of inevitable surprises lying ahead, and to suggest steps that organizations can take to thrive.

In the author's view, humanity faces greater challenges now than ever before. At the same time we have greater capabilities than ever before. Our greatest challenge is "to master our own accelerating power, without being swept away by it." Along with a few other well-grounded futurists, Schwartz has laid down a challenge along with weapons for tackling the future. Inevitably, most readers will read this book and find it both informative and engaging but few will incorporate the resulting ideas for action into their plans. When it comes to these large-scale shifts, *doing* has always been disadvantaged compared to *denial* and *defensiveness*. Being proven wrong about this would be a surprise but, alas, not an inevitable surprise.

Change is no news. The great changes that will alter the commercial, political and demographic workings of the world are already underway and some of their consequences are quite predictable, says author Peter Schwartz. He outlines a variety of the more important changes, particularly in places such as China and India, and limns scenarios that represent possible futures. Perhaps this sort of book is inevitable at the turning of a century, of a millennium. The author, in fact, compares his work to predecessors at the end of the nineteenth century. Although some of his predictions fall far short of shocking - for example, global warming and aging populations are hardly undiscovered issues - the exercise of thinking about scenarios and preparing strategies is a good one. The book is also entertaining, because Schwartz writes with a light hand and a casual style. We believe this book would be a good airplane read. It would certainly be appropriate for a long flight, since air travel contributes to some of the more important changes the author discusses. And, if you read it, the time will fly.

Previously, Schwartz wrote The Art of the Long View as well as The Long Boom (which he co-authored with Peter Leyden and Joel Hyatt) and When Good Companies Do Bad Things (which he co-authored with Blair Gibb). In this volume, he addresses many of the same issues as in his previous works. However, in my opinion, he examines them in much greater depth while addressing other issues suggested by questions such as these:

1. In an increasingly more turbulent environment, how to recognize and understand "the inevitable surprises that lie ahead of us, particularly in the next twenty-five years"? For example, how to know what is needed to be known and then obtain that knowledge?

2. Given those "inevitable surprises," which steps must be taken that would allow a company or organization to thrive? For example, how to overcome "two different types of natural [but fundamentally irresponsible] reaction": denial and defensiveness?

3. What to do when new complications reveal themselves? For example, how can an "early-warning system" identify them so that appropriate and effective responses can be made in a timely manner?

Schwartz's response to only one of these questions is worth far more than the cost of his book. As he explains in Chapter 1, "Underneath the specifics, between the lines on every page in this book, you will find a basic message about the future in general: The challenges facing civilization right now are immense -- arguably more difficult than they have been during the lifetime of any living person. At the same time, because of advances in knowledge and technology, the human race has never been so capable. And since most of our challenges are caused, at least partly, by our own activity, this expanded capability is a double-edged sword." In ways and to an extent which Schwartz carefully explains, these are (in Dickens' words) the best of times and the worst of times.

The material is carefully organized within nine chapters whose titles range from "Inevitable Surprises" to "Inevitable Strategies." Of special interest to me is what Schwartz has to say in Chapter 5, "The Thoroughly New World Order." Here is a representative portion of Schwartz's rigorous narrative: "In the words of Robert Kagan, Americans are from Mars and Europeans are from Venus. And then there is a third set of nations, increasingly chaotic and disorderly, in danger of being written off as marginal by the rest of the world. Their power, when they have it, is the power of terrorism. And if that is the only power available to them, they will use it more and more frequently." How prescient.

It is important to keep in mind when reading this book that Schwartz is not relying on a real or imagined crystal ball. He would be the first to insist that, at best, useful speculation identifies degrees of probability. This is especially true of efforts to reduce the number of what would otherwise be "inevitable surprises."

Here's a hypothetical example. (Mine, not Schwartz's.) Let's say that you learn that your next competitive environment will probably involve competition by teams. You cannot (as yet) identify the specific sport but you already know that, whatever it proves to be, members of the team must be in superb physical condition and possess certain qualities such as speed, agility, sufficient intelligence, hand-eye coordination, commitment to teamwork, etc. You should also know where to obtain, on short notice, the equipment needed. Also the correct sizes for various uniforms. Terms and conditions of appropriate behavior can be formulated. Nutrition can be controlled. You can also be alert for "signals" generated by your early-warning system. For example, at some point, you learn that the competition will be indoors. You then learn that height is irrelevant. That rules out basketball. You get the idea.

In all of three of his books that I have read, Schwartz helps his reader to (a) identify relevant probabilities, (b) ask the most important questions bount each, (c) know how and where to obtain the information needed, (d) complete contingency preparations, and (e) modify plans as new information becomes available.

Over the past 50 years, there have been so many examples of this in the business world. They include the pressurized cabin which was essential to airline travel and the rapid adoption of facsimile machines which substantially reduced the volume of overnight delivery of 1-5 page documentsas well as the Internet and WWW which enabled those online to communicate with others online (anywhere and any time), obtain information and complete commercial transactions almost instantaneously. As Schwartz explains so well, once relevant probabilities and heir implications have been identified, better decisions can be made and more effective actions can be taken.

Schwartz is generally optimistic that those who share the "thoroughly new world order" can overcome the chaos and turbulence to come if (a huge "if") they build and then maintain sensory and intelligence systems; cultivate a sense of timing; put in place mechanisms to engender what Joseph Stumper once characterized as "creative destruction"; avoid denial of the chaos and turbulence; "think like a commodity company" (see page 232); remain aware of the competence of judgment and the level of judgment that new situations require, then move deliberately and humbly into new situations that stretch that judgment; place a very, very high premium on learning, on environmental and ecological sustainability, and on financial infrastructure; and finally, cultivate "deep, candid" connections.

Schwartz does not assert that these values and strategies will guarantee the total elimination of all of the problems we have now nor the prevention of others in years to come. However, he has convinced me that these values and strategies can -- and will -- improve the prospects for human survival. I agree with him that "There is no recipe or playbook for doing this. There is only the ongoing knot of life to unravel. Perhaps the string that is easiest to pull first is the string in inevitable surprises."

I got this book, Inevitable Surprises, written by Peter Schwartz, because the one that I was looking for (the Art of the Long View) was not available at that time. The author's works have been recommended to me by a close friend of mine, so I made little hesitation before picking this one up.

He wrote about different aspects of the global society, and predicting trends (trends, not events. He's not psychic) for the following 30 years from 2003. Many of these trends have already happened, or happened long before, despite many obvious major events that happened shortly before the time of its publication.

Although a good portion of his "scenarios" are not so upbeat, (e.g., the rest of the world pulling the plug on Africa, and new radical groups, new diseases) they are already taking place. I personally will not deem his book pessimatic, but realistic. They are simply results of human nature, and its interactions between one another, nothing more.

Even though he had a technical background (aeronautic engineering), his discussion on technogical advances a little too optimistic. Being (or was until recently) an engineer by trade, I still think that, as promising are new technologies may be, such as quantum computing and space travel, it would take more than 30 years before such technologies become prominent.

There is still a pretty subtle indication, that Schwartz may not fare well with the Arab nations. Some of his comments, albeit still very neutral and professional, tilts slightly to the negative whenever he touches this particular subject. The reasons are likely his own, and I will not speculate any further.

This is a good book to pick up, if you are looking for the driving forces of the present and near future, and would like to know how they interact, which is the basis of scenario planning, a subject of his "claim-to-fame" book, the Art of the Long View. After reading both books, I tend to think "Long View" as the book on concepts (in scenario planning) and Inevitasble surprises as the one of its machinery. Both works should be read simultaneously.

P.S. - Regarding the "technical error" made by a certain reviewer, METHANE IS A FUEL, and it is often referred to as NATURAL GAS, which is about 94% methane by mass. I can go for miles, but it will be quite off topic.

Heartily enjoyed this book. Got me thinking long-term about some of the possibilities for the future that you don't find in the newspapers e.g. the impact of AIDS in places like Russia and India and how that could affect future growth.

The way the author can say pretty well what will happen based on current evidence is an amazing tool that should only grow in importance, yet it does not take away the free will to change.

Makes you appreciate the world will be even more amazing in the future.

I got this book from a colleague of mine with impeccable taste in books and a strong background in scenario thinking, so it comes as no surprise that I found this book to be of tremendous usefulness. Mr. Schwartz seems to offer a plan of action that is a bridge between straight operations research and a completely qualitative Delphi-style methodology - both of which I have had experience with as an economist. I had previously encountered Schwartz while reading The History of Royal Dutch Shell: Four-Volume Set (great book if you're interested in the corporate take on the rise of the 20th century petrochemical industry).

I found that Mr. Schwartz's think is very well augmented when combined with a text on modularity - such as Design Rules, Vol. 1: The Power of Modularity. By doing so, one can take a complex issue - such as the mentioned international political standing of the United States and break it down into its varying parts and then plot the different rates at which they move. For instance, the rate at which a great power can be eclipsed is far from uniform - it would take a great deal of time for a rival to match both technologically and materially the might of the US Armed Forces; but perhaps less time to beat it to the punch on IPv6.

Reading this book has help alter the way I think about economic and financial modeling in manner similar that reading Mandelbrot did several years back. I look forward to integrating more of Peter Schwartz into my thought as I work my way through his works.

A great book for people interesting in plotting the future or just looking to avoid being woefully under prepared for surprises.

This book is listed under strategic organizational change. If that is what you are interested in, read one of the following:

"Strategic Organizational Change" by Beitler
"Leading Change" by Kotter
"On Leading Change" by Hesselbein et al.
"HBR on Leading Change"

I would recommend this book, but only if it is read along with others in the field; such as "Leading Change" by Kotter, and "Strategic Organizational Change" by Beitler.

I don't understand why this book is classified as a "Strategic Change" or "Organizational Change" book. It is neither.

But, it is a good book, if you enjoy reading the work of a futurist.

For "Org Change" take a look at Kotter, Collins, Beitler, Black & Gregersen, etc.