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

by T. Irene Sanders

Book Overview

This groundbreaking book shows how managers can gain insight into future business trends, innovations, and inventions - and keep one step ahead of their competitors - by applying scientific concepts... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0684842688
• ISBN13: 9780684842684
• Release Date: May 1998
• Publisher: Free Press
• Length: 184 Pages
• Weight: 1.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.5" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

The Futurescaping you learn will be worth more than the book

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 pa

Chaos made understandable - at last.

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!

Concise, Non-Mathematical, Inspirational

The author presents a very clear description of the differences between chaos, complexity theory, and complex adaptive systems. She also provides an excellent description of strange attractors which she then weaves into her approach to strategic planning. For a business in the planning function, "a strange attractor is an issue, event, or new development to which your system is sensitive" (p. 76). It is a force that holds the system variables in a pattern of behavior and thus creates the system boundaries. New strange attractors might arise in business from "emerging initial conditions" (changes or developments that are initially starting to take place, generally just below the surface conditions of an industry or system). Identifying these emerging new strange attractors, which can change an entire industry or group of industries, is the core of her book's strategic planning system. The book's system is based on the dynamics of change as described by the new science of chaos, complexity, and complex adaptive systems. It also incorporates a new visual thinking tool she calls "futurescape." I was inspired to interweave Ms. Sanders methods into my own personal model of strategic planning used with a wide variety of clients.

Outstanding application of chaos theory to strategy.

Ever since Gleick popularized the chaos literature, social scientists have been trying to find appropriate applications of chaos theory to human behavior. While it seems to be a natural application, most of the attempts have been unsatisfying. This book is an exception. Sanders has done an outstanding job of summarizing the basic concepts of chaos theory, placing them in historical context, and applying them to the area of strategic management. While her basic distinction between forecasting and foresight seems obvious in retrospect, it is a crucial link in the application of theory to practice. Most books and articles on chaos in organizations do little more than tell us that the real world is chaotic and we need to live on the edge. Through the use of Futurescapes, Sanders has provided a practical way to use chaos theory to identify "perking events" in the business environment. Many of these events seem, at first, top be no more significant than the flapping of the butterfly's wings. But, as chaos theory has taught us, it is just these seemingly insignificant events that can trigger major events in the future. This is a deceptively simple book. It is easy to make the simple complex; it is a gift to make the complex appear simple. I highly recommend this book to both academics and practitioners.

CHAOS CAN BREAK DOWN STALLS TOO!

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.