The Art of the Long View

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.

Artful scenario spinning is a form of convergent thinking about divergent futures. It ensures that you are not always right about the future but-better-that you are almost never wrong about the future. The technology is powerful, simple, and enjoyable, and so is Schwartz’s book.” -Stewart Brand 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.

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.