Hedging Your Bets About the Future: Crystal Balls and Scenario Planning

"Some of our most basic assumptions about the rules of the global economic game will increasingly come under attack in the coming decade." Eamon Kelly

Amazon.com: Powerful Times : Rising to the Challenge of Our Uncertain World: Books by Eamon Kelly

The world has always been uncertain. But, says Eamonn Kelly, not like this. This book is published by the Wharton Business School Press, and Kelly is the founder of the Global Business Network, an interesting array of "big thinkers who take the long view" and use scenario planning to help hundreds of companies and governments manage the future. So, expectations are high for this book.

I was interested enough to pick it up in an airport book store - I'm a sucker for a good book when I'm traveling, and i was pleasantly surprised to find this one a well-written and intriguing work about what lays ahead in the next decade. Lots of disruption and uncertainty, if you buy this analysis.

This is a book for deep thinkers. Technological, financial, social, economic, cultural, and political systems - what makes up our world - are all moving faster and faster, towards greater complexity and interdependence, according to Kelly. Paradox rears it head here - paradox is a common element of our modern world. I wrote about paradox yesterday, where I explained that what we think we know is not necessarily true, and only by practicing an ever vigilant awareness and education program can we stay in the know.

Kelly explains that we humans seek patterns, but our simplifications of complex issues obscure more than they clarify, and our "either/or" mindsets don't really fit well in today's world. Foundational change is underway: Kelly demonstrates that deep, fundamental dynamics may be unraveling much of what we've taken for granted since the Enlightenment dawned some 400 years ago.

From the Amazon book review: Some of Kelly's dynamic tensions are less familiar, but also vitally important. For example, while value will continue to migrate towards the intangible - services, experiences, relationships - improving physical infrastructure will take on ever-greater urgency. The world is growing more transparent, thanks to a deepening web of computers, networks, sensors, and surveillance systems. However, "conspiracy theories and falsehoods will travel the world instantaneously," and the technologies of transparency will also promote more sophisticated theft and fraud.

For some, successfully navigating these tensions may seem unlikely, if not impossible. However, Kelly's reasonably optimistic. He sees especially significant progress in two key areas: "how we relate - the realm of governance - and how we create - the realm of innovation." Top-down, "Taylorist" organizations are being supplanted (or at least supplemented) by structures that are more fluid, self-organizing, decentralized, and collaborative. These new structures may be capable of handling change with far greater suppleness and resiliency. In Kelly's view, the move from organizational "citadels" to "webs" - while not inexorable - is currently moving more rapidly than many decision makers recognize.

Down at "street level," Kelly uncovers some surprising innovations in local governance. In British Columbia, 160 randomly selected citizens have recommended important changes in the province's electoral processes. In Zeguo, China, the local Communist Party secretary offered detailed briefings about several proposed municipal projects to 257 citizens, then polled them on which projects should proceed. In Brazil, Guatemala, and Mexico, enlightened local governments are experimenting with new ways to involve citizens year-round, not just on election day.

If you choose to be more aware, this is a book that would be good to have on your bookshelf. I'd like to read it again in two years, five years, and ten years, and see how things have unfolded. I know that ten years ago, I would not have imagined this future that is our present today.

Posted on December 14, 2005 at 08:20 AM | Comments (0)