Customer Reviews

Strategic Thinking and the New Science: Planning in the Midst of Chaos Complexity and Change

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Many years ago, in the late 80's, I read James Gleick's Chaos: Making a New Science book. I was not enlightened very much. A couple of years ago, I read Margaret Wheatley's Leadership & The New Science, and also A Simpler Way. I got a much better picture of the subject, and I began to take an earnest interest in the New Science. I read a few other authors' books but they did not strike a common chord with me, although they fueled my pursuit. I stumbled on to Irene Sanders' book by chance because of its cover title.

I was intrigued when I scanned the book index and found many interesting stuff: insight, foresight, geographic intelligence, Futurescape vs. Mindmap, imagery, new planning paradigm, new science, perking information, scenario building, thinking in pictures, visual models, whole-brain functioning, etc. All my kind of stuff.

I have read the book many times because of my deep personal interest in Strategic Thinking, and I have not been disappointed.

I love the author's break down of the Strategic Thinking process into two components:

- insight about the present; - foresight about the future;

and her argument that visual thinking stimulates both processes. She also defines and makes very clear distinctions between the terms `insight' and `foresight' as well as `forecast.' She then moves on to introduce her seven principles of Strategic Thinking in the context of the New Science, and elaborates at length her ten-step Futurescape mapping process. To me, her Futurescaping is an extremely innovative expansion of the Mindscaping process created by Nancy Margulies in her book, Mapping Innerspace, which I had reviewed earlier.

She goes on further to differentiate her Futurescape from the traditional mind-mapping process, developed by Tony Buzan. I thought that was great, as I have always felt that mind-mapping is only good for organising personal notes and dumping quick ideas on to paper. I love to play with the Futurescape mapping process, in the light of its ability to present the big visual picture, showing the dynamic interactions and inter-relationships of abstract concepts as well as complex issues.

With hindsight from my own consulting work, I am firmly convinced that Futurescaping can be a very powerful tool for strategic visioning by companies/organisations, as part of their annual business planning exercise. It will allow "left-brain thinkers" to work harmoniously with "right-brain thinkers" to form a whole-brain approach for designing the preferred company future.

Frankly, just learning - and mastering - the Futurescaping process in your life and/or business will be worth more than the money you are going to spend on this book!

The book is divided into two equal parts: with Part 1: Understanding the New Science, and Part 2: The Art & Science of Visual Thinking. In the first part, she outlines and explains many of the New Science terms very well. For once, "butterflies and hurricanes" make some real sense to me. The second part is essentially the application part of the author's visual models. As the author puts it, it is also the framework for the new planning paradigm, as defined by the New Science.

While reading this book, it reminds me of another good book, The Next Common Sense, by Michael Lissack. There seems to be a common thread among the two books. Both authors argue and support very strongly the visual thinking metaphors as powerful tools for comprehending complexity. I strongly recommend readers to get hold of the book.

Again, this is another good book that you just can't read it in one go and put it on your shelf. You have to peruse it, think about it, reflect, and then make use of the Futurescape mapping process. To paraphrase the author, `The present is the future in its most creative state.' Futurescaping will allow you to put your creativity to work. On the whole, the author's writing style is very easy-going.

This book aims to apply chaos and complexity theory to business strategy. Sanders does a fine job of compressing the vast intellectual history of science into a couple of concise chapters. She shows how previous physical world views from the Aristotelian to the mechanistic have influenced culture, including business thinking (most obviously with the re-engineering movement). The connection between complexity theory and Sanders' main offering to business strategists appear rather tenuous. The main lesson seems to be that complexity theory helps us to understand the dynamically interrelated workings of the world. The real theme of this book is not complexity theory but the use of visual thinking to gain insight and foresight in a complex world. Although the historical and expository parts of the book are well written and interesting, the main value comes from the second half on using visual landscapes ("FutureScapes") to assist in strategic thinking. While much of this will not seem particularly novel to those used to using MindMaps and similar techniques, Sanders does systematically lay out a procedure for applying this tool to strategic thinking. Don't expect to learn how complexity theory can directly solve business problem. Nevertheless, the 70 or so pages in the visual thinking section are worth studying and implementing.

In light of the high praise given by other reviewers to "Strategic Thinking and the New Science", there may be some merit to a cautionary note. Other reviewers appear to have business backgrounds, while mine is mathematical and technical, which may help explain my different response.

First off, contrary to her claim on page P62, Chaos theory is NOT one of "the three major scientific revolutions of the century". This major piece of hype should trigger warning signals about how substantial the content is.

Two examples should illustrate what bothers me most about the book.

1) (P90-91) Sanders provides a checklist for what's special about insights. This list may be hazardous to your health. Included, for example, is an assertion that there "is an intuitive certainty about its correctness." Anyone holding strongly to a novel idea - pick your favorite crackpot - is likely to go through this list and agree that the revelation meets these criteria, especially that one. Except perhaps those boring old-fashioned folks who still believe in linear thinking, whatever that is.

2) (P94) "One of the most intriguing aspects of our visual mind is its ability to recognize patterns....". It's important to replace "recognize" with "find" or "see". We frequently find patterns that aren't actually present and see things that aren't there. The man in the moon is a trivial example. There's been lots of research in this area that Sanders either is aware of, or should be, that's worth citing.

We are a visual animal, so it makes sense to use problem discovering and problems solving techniques that take advantage of this capability. Sanders' book is basically a description and justification for her trademarked tool for this. But critical analysis needs to be applied to ideas so generated. That's what distinguishes crackpots from geniuses. Failure to make this clear is a major failing.

As a corrective measure, I would recommend Richard Muller's "Nemesis : The Death Star", except that it's out of print. It's about his contributions to the currently mostly accepted theory that the dieout of the dinosaurs was caused by a bolide impact and is a fascinating read (if you've any interest in the particular subject, Walter Alvarez and James Powell have both written terrific books about the history of how this theory came to be). What's valuable is Muller's repeated insistence on the value of creating lots good ideas and having a good mechanism for deciding which ones are worth pursuing and which aren't worth wasting further time on. Other (linear, no doubt) scientists have made the same point, but I've not recently read anything as clear about it.

Ms. Sanders has done us all a favor by writing STRATEGIC THINKING and sharing her insights about accepting and using complexity and chaos to develop better future alternatives. I read another book this year that discusses our ability to understand and remember something we have not experienced before. That ability is infinitesimally small. We have to have had experiences in order to have a place to internalize something new to use it now in the future. Ms. Sanders "visual thinking" reminds me of this research by asking us to see events and patterns, to prepare ourselves to adapt to change to be more successful in the future. Understanding and using chaos theory in business has been difficult and technical. People have many misconceptions about the difficulty of learning, using and applying ideas, especially ideas from other disciplines. They get "stalled" into believing that this does not apply to them. They procrastinate because it seems hard to understand. They do not communicate well because they are afraid they will sound silly or naïve. STRATEGIC THINKING provides a process, "FutureScape" to help people walk over these stalls relating to chaos and complexity. For a more general understanding of how these and other common stalls hold back progress, I also recommend you read THE 2,000 PERCENT SOLUTION, by Mitchell, Coles and Metz. You will find this to be a compatible process for hurdling over your stalls to make progress at a much faster rate with many more benefits in the future.

In a world where every day we see more clearly that the simple notion of a global world mandates a process that accounts for the chaos and complexity, Sanders has managed to translate science well enough so that global managers and local grass roots folks alike can understand and make sense of out of whats happening. More than that, the time she has taken to distill the theory and suggest a structure for incorporating chaos and complexity into strategic thinking will save me six years of reading and research. Bravo!

This book could have been equally valuable if it was one sentance long.

"Think about how everything relates to everything else."

Readers who are interested in Ms. Sanders' personal history, who want to gallup through a hasty summary of human history, or who want buzzwords, will be well served by this book. More thoughtful individuals will find that there is alas, much that is poorly explained, taken on faith, or just dismissed. The author provides over-hasty summaries of areas of chaos theory and her few examples of real business situations are striking in their obviousness. Ms. Sanders does leave us with a tool, the FutureScape, whose application may be of some value. Overall, if this book could have been compressed into 15 pages, it would have been worth the read. For a book on a related topic that has a far greater data density, try The Complexity Advantage by Kelly and Allison.

This book contains a good, although stretched-out, introduction to complexity and chaos. However, the business planning process in the last section is almost completely without merit. You get a couple of people together, scribble on a pad of paper (and I mean scribble!) and you've got a FutureScape.

I am a big believer in the impact of complexity thinking on business. I was terribly disappointed that this book did not address it, in my view.

Visualization or visual imaging have been important to every culture throughout history. Visual images are key elements in the current Information Age, or age of communication, but few authors have written about their importance. Scientists readily admit to the importance of artists and visual imagery to their fields. Palaeontologists and various scientists in the medical professions are examples. Experts in the field of chaos theory depend on visual images to help them and others understand the concepts. The comprehension of complex data requires communication which includes visual systems. The inclusion of visualization techniques has proved to be invaluable to brainstorming sessions. T. Irene Sanders provides access to our visual world by connecting visualization techniques to the corporate world through her strategic planning processes. Her book is important because it provides new connections between scientific theory and business practices. New ideas about how various fields relate to one another is crucial in looking ahead to the next millennium. Not only is Sander's book important to those in business but it has other attributes as well. The public loves its visual world but cannot make the mental or emotional leap to accept the visual elements of our society as a basic content area in the schools. Her focus on visual thinking provides support for art programs as basic to education. She has written a book that provides outstanding advocacy for art teachers. Wake up calls and new points of view are important when we try to make sense of a highly complex world. Sanders provides both.

I was a bit disappointed by this book. I was hoping for a more in-depth exploration of the topics of strategy and planning as viewed through the lens of complexity theory.

It's clear that the author, T. Irene Sanders, has been deeply influenced by the concepts introduced in James Gleick's "Chaos: Making a New Science" and has found a way to apply those concepts to her consulting work.

The first half of the book is a gallop through the history of science starting with ancient Greece and ending with recent discoveries in complexity theory. While entertaining it's probably not new material to you. Presumably the point is to understand that: our mental models inform our views of the world, it's critical to see the world as a system of systems, and that it's important to understand that most systems are non-linear systems where outputs can be radically altered with small changes in input.

The second part of the book picks up with a review of recent neurobiology concluding that nature endows humans with a remarkable ability to discern patterns visually and that we've not fully tapped that ability.

The book builds to a description of her trademarked FutureScape visual thinking process. This process uses visual thinking, drawing on the mindmap techniques of Tony Buzan, to help find patterns in what we already know about the environment in which our organizations operate.

I am not in any way trying to be critical of the FutureScape (TM) technique since I've not used it and don't fully understand it. I was just expecting more of a in-depth treatment of it's use in planning and strategizing and less of a history review.