What increasingly affects all of us, whether professional planners or individuals preparing for a better future, is not the tangibles of life—bottom-line numbers, for instance—but the intangibles: our hopes and fears, our beliefs and dreams. Only stories—scenarios—and our ability to visualize different kinds of futures adequately capture these intangibles.
In The Art of the Long View, now for the first time in paperback and with the addition of an all-new User's Guide, Peter Schwartz outlines the "scenaric" approach, giving you the tools for developing a strategic vision within your business.
Schwartz describes the new techniques, originally developed within Royal/Dutch Shell, based on many of his firsthand scenario exercises with the world's leading institutions and companies, including the White House, EPA, BellSouth, PG&E, and the International Stock Exchange.
| ||||||||||||||||||||
Browse our Bookshelf Favorites store for big savings on popular fiction, nonfiction, children's books, and more. |
Book Description
Frequently Bought Together
Editorial Reviews
From AudioFile
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images? |
More About the Author
Customer Reviews
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!
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.
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.
On the surface this book may appear as outdated given the fact it has not been updated since... Read more
The author presents considered judgement as the norm to pursue. Read more
One. It was originally written in 1989-1990. Sometimes the author mentions something like, "We might attack Iraq because of its aggression... Read more
- The Cerebral Symphony: Seashore Reflections on the Structure of Consciousness by William Calvin on 4 pages
- The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe on page 155, and Back Matter
- The Ascent of Mind: Ice Age Climates and the Evolution of Intelligence by William Calvin on page 29, and Back Matter
- The Ultimate Resource by Julian L. Simon on page 52, and Back Matter
- Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology by Eric Drexler on page 70, and Back Matter
See all 48 books this book cites
- Writing on the Wall: Scenario Development in Times of Discontinuity by Philip van Notten on 6 pages
- Peripheral Vision: Detecting the Weak Signals That Will Make or Break Your Company by George S. Day on page 216, and Back Matter
- Scenario Selling: Technology and the Future of Professional Selling by Patrick J. Sullivan in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
- Best Practices for Financial Advisors (Bloomberg Professional Library) by Mary Rowland on page 23, and Back Matter
- Global Order and Global Disorder: Globalization and the Nation-State by Keith Suter on page 14, and Back Matter
See all 70 books citing this book
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Listmania!
|
|
So You'd Like to...
|
|
