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A review by sumatra_squall
The Art of the Long View: Planning for the Future in an Uncertain World by Peter Schwartz
4.0
It's easy for a book published in 1991 to feel dated, especially when the second last chapter of the book is titled "The World in 2005: Three Scenarios" and when the book references Mikhail Gorbachev. But Chapter 9 aside, The Art of the Long View is still a very relevant read for anyone looking at the medium to long term and wondering how they can position themselves and their organisations to meet future challenges. More so in these volatile times when it seems that we're not just confronted by evolutionary changes in technology, demographic shifts etc, but also being buffeted by "black swans" - the economic meltdown in 2008, the tsunami in Japan, earthquakes in NZ, etc.
I must admit that I was very sceptical about the process of "scenario planning", having been introduced to the concept a couple of years back in some planning exercise. The scenarios raised in some cases were so outlandish that most people's immediate instinct, including my own, was to dismiss the scenario as ridiculous or fantastical (what would happen if technology became so advanced that employers start to replace their workers with robots?). Reading Schwartz's book, I now realise that it wasn't a problem with the methodology, it was a problem with the facilitator. As Schwartz explains, "scenarios are stories about the way the world might turn out tomorrow, stories that can help us recognise and adapt to changing aspects of our present environment....scenario planning is about making choices today with an understanding of how they might turn out". For scenarios to work, and by work, Schwartz doesn't mean that you accurately predicted how the future would unfold. Rather, a scenario works if the storyline is plausible and strikes a chord with decision makers, such that they learn to recognise developments signalling a shift from the current plot and change their behaviour appropriately.
It's easy to dismiss scenario planning as mere storytelling and theatre. Indeed, Schwartz talks about how one can use powerful images - the illustration of a shattered Humpty Dumpty being used to illustrate the inability of OPEC to regain its former strength - to seize people's imaginations and attention about the future. But at its heart, scenario planning is about sensemaking - looking at myriad bits of information about the world, filtering them and trying to understand what they're telling you about how the world is changing. A thought provoking read.
I must admit that I was very sceptical about the process of "scenario planning", having been introduced to the concept a couple of years back in some planning exercise. The scenarios raised in some cases were so outlandish that most people's immediate instinct, including my own, was to dismiss the scenario as ridiculous or fantastical (what would happen if technology became so advanced that employers start to replace their workers with robots?). Reading Schwartz's book, I now realise that it wasn't a problem with the methodology, it was a problem with the facilitator. As Schwartz explains, "scenarios are stories about the way the world might turn out tomorrow, stories that can help us recognise and adapt to changing aspects of our present environment....scenario planning is about making choices today with an understanding of how they might turn out". For scenarios to work, and by work, Schwartz doesn't mean that you accurately predicted how the future would unfold. Rather, a scenario works if the storyline is plausible and strikes a chord with decision makers, such that they learn to recognise developments signalling a shift from the current plot and change their behaviour appropriately.
It's easy to dismiss scenario planning as mere storytelling and theatre. Indeed, Schwartz talks about how one can use powerful images - the illustration of a shattered Humpty Dumpty being used to illustrate the inability of OPEC to regain its former strength - to seize people's imaginations and attention about the future. But at its heart, scenario planning is about sensemaking - looking at myriad bits of information about the world, filtering them and trying to understand what they're telling you about how the world is changing. A thought provoking read.