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

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.

ISBN-13: 9780385267328

Media Type: Paperback

Publisher: Crown Publishing Group

Publication Date: 04-15-1996

Pages: 288

Product Dimensions: 6.00(w) x 8.97(h) x 0.79(d)

Peter Schwartz is the chairman of the board of directors of the Ayn Rand Institute, as well as the teacher of an advanced writing course at the Institute's Objectivist Graduate Center.

Table of Contents

Introduction to the Paperback Edition:
The Strategic Conversation - Broadening The Long View
The Pathfinders Tale
The Smith & Hawken Story: The Process of Scenario-Building
Uncovering the Decision
Information-Hunting and Gathering
Creating Scenario Building Blocks
Anatomy of a New Driving Force: The Global Teenager
Composing a Plot
The World in 2005: Three Scenarios
Rehearsing The Future
Epilogue: To My Newborn Son
Afterword: The Value of a Strategic Conversation
Appendix: Steps to Developing Scenarios
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