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Future Think: How To Think Clearly In A Time Of Change
FutureThink will help you discard the blinders that keep you from seeing what's really happening around you - so that you can anticipate waves of change and ride them to unprecedented success. Futurists Edie Weiner and Arnold Brown reveal breakthrough thinking techniques that can liberate your mind from its old assumptions and sensitize it to the earliest signals of change - so that you can start responding while your competitors are still asleep.
- GenresNonfiction
286 pages, Hardcover
First published September 15, 2005
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85 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
July 25, 2008
FutureThink: How to Think Clearly in a Time of Change,
Edie Weiner and Arnold Brown
Prentice Hall
According to Weiner and Brown, their book "defines the ABCs of clearly seeing patterns, weighing choices, understanding trends, getting the future right, making good and innovative decisions about the future, and, indeed, influencing what that future will be." They provide some truly unique and thought-provoking perspectives on how to "think [more] clearly in a time of change." More specifically, respond to a number of critically important questions:
1. How can (and do) "personal traps" such as individual biases prevent us from recognizing and then understanding change?
2. How can (and do) "organizational traps" also do so?
3. How can we avoid (or extricate ourselves from) these "traps" in order to see what Weiner and Brown characterize as "The Big Picture"?
4. How can we use metaphors to help us to "see" more...and to see it more clearly?
In Chapter 2, they suggest: "The important thing to remember is that both trend and countertrend present opportunities for profit. At the fork in the road, businesspeople should not merely ask which is the best road to take. We should also ask how our assets and constituencies can be used to our advantage on either or both roads." Why? "Not realizing that every trend creates a countertrend will leave you confused and surprised by unfolding events and changes ahead. Understanding the existence of countertrends will untrap your mind and allow it to process change much more accurately." Then in Chapter 7, Weiner and Brown examine the mental trap of entropy which can be especially difficult because its requires thought and action which most people prefer to avoid. What to do? "Give up many `sacred cows' and start over...Pick your fights more wisely...Lose the fear of experimenting, particularly with less significant things...Be more aware, active, and informed politically...Give up relying solely on the best practices of others in running your business...[and finally] Stop trying to fit every opportunity or challenge into an old framework."
In Leading Change, Jim O'Toole examines various barriers to change, suggesting that the worst of them is what he calls "the ideology of comfort and the tyranny of custom." Presumably Weiner and Brown agree. In FutureThink, they suggest that, in fact, there are no effective barriers to the process of natural selection and that the velocity of this process continues to accelerate rapidly and irrevocably. What decision-makers do now to avoid or extricate themselves from the personal and organization "traps" they have identified may not be wholly sufficient in years, perhaps even in months ahead. But at least understanding the "16 proven mental paths to insight and foresight" which are recommended in this volume will help them to respond to change in the future, whatever its nature and extent may prove to be.
Edie Weiner and Arnold Brown
Prentice Hall
According to Weiner and Brown, their book "defines the ABCs of clearly seeing patterns, weighing choices, understanding trends, getting the future right, making good and innovative decisions about the future, and, indeed, influencing what that future will be." They provide some truly unique and thought-provoking perspectives on how to "think [more] clearly in a time of change." More specifically, respond to a number of critically important questions:
1. How can (and do) "personal traps" such as individual biases prevent us from recognizing and then understanding change?
2. How can (and do) "organizational traps" also do so?
3. How can we avoid (or extricate ourselves from) these "traps" in order to see what Weiner and Brown characterize as "The Big Picture"?
4. How can we use metaphors to help us to "see" more...and to see it more clearly?
In Chapter 2, they suggest: "The important thing to remember is that both trend and countertrend present opportunities for profit. At the fork in the road, businesspeople should not merely ask which is the best road to take. We should also ask how our assets and constituencies can be used to our advantage on either or both roads." Why? "Not realizing that every trend creates a countertrend will leave you confused and surprised by unfolding events and changes ahead. Understanding the existence of countertrends will untrap your mind and allow it to process change much more accurately." Then in Chapter 7, Weiner and Brown examine the mental trap of entropy which can be especially difficult because its requires thought and action which most people prefer to avoid. What to do? "Give up many `sacred cows' and start over...Pick your fights more wisely...Lose the fear of experimenting, particularly with less significant things...Be more aware, active, and informed politically...Give up relying solely on the best practices of others in running your business...[and finally] Stop trying to fit every opportunity or challenge into an old framework."
In Leading Change, Jim O'Toole examines various barriers to change, suggesting that the worst of them is what he calls "the ideology of comfort and the tyranny of custom." Presumably Weiner and Brown agree. In FutureThink, they suggest that, in fact, there are no effective barriers to the process of natural selection and that the velocity of this process continues to accelerate rapidly and irrevocably. What decision-makers do now to avoid or extricate themselves from the personal and organization "traps" they have identified may not be wholly sufficient in years, perhaps even in months ahead. But at least understanding the "16 proven mental paths to insight and foresight" which are recommended in this volume will help them to respond to change in the future, whatever its nature and extent may prove to be.
August 4, 2014
Desde Leader Summaries recomendamos la lectura del libro Adelantarse al futuro, de Edie Weiner y Arnold Brown.
Las personas interesadas en las siguientes temáticas lo encontrarán práctico y útil: innovación, nuevos mercados y sus oportunidades.
En el siguiente enlace tienes el resumen del libro Adelantarse al futuro, Técnicas creativas para anticipar las tendencias sociales futuras: Adelantarse al futuro
Las personas interesadas en las siguientes temáticas lo encontrarán práctico y útil: innovación, nuevos mercados y sus oportunidades.
En el siguiente enlace tienes el resumen del libro Adelantarse al futuro, Técnicas creativas para anticipar las tendencias sociales futuras: Adelantarse al futuro
June 27, 2014
This is perhaps one of the best books about how to think. If you are a conceptual thinker this book will be a delight. I would consider this both a reference book for thinking techniques and an interesting read.
The chapter on common denominators and the failure of compromise is worth the read alone.
The chapter on common denominators and the failure of compromise is worth the read alone.
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August 31, 2011هذا الكتاب لا يفوتكم سهل وبسيط في رؤية المستقبل في زمن التغير المفتوح المؤلف يفجر قنابل يفضح الادارة الامريكية عن طريق اسلوبه في الكتابة فهو لا يتوار عن قول الاشياء كما هي وبشكل جرىء وشجاع جداً
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews