Choosing the Future
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Book Description
Strategy requires an ability to conceive the future, see and create possibilities, and focus to choose a direction. Successful strategy is a mental discipline consisting of broad ranging, flexible, and creative thinking. Choosing the Future will help you achieve this success by studying fundamentals such as effective group thinking, knowing when to delay a decision for more information, balancing contrasting modes of thought, and transforming thought into action.
Using a cycle to show the relationship among different strategic thinking tools, Choosing the Future gives you guidance to respond to these basic questions:
What seems to be happening?
What possibilities do we face?
What are we going to do about it?
Choosing the Future will help you advance your thinking skills. Rather than telling you what to do, it teaches you to use your business knowledge to discover your own ideas and strategic direction.
Stuart Wells is Professor of Organization and Management at San Jose State University, where he serves as Director of the Center for Global Competitiveness and as Director of the Small Business Institute. As founder of the Leading Edge Consulting Group and co-founder of Corporate Wisdom, he has worked on leadership development and strategy issues with such major corporations as Clorox, Dupont, PepsiCo, and Proctor and Gamble. He is the author of several books, including From Sage to Artisan: The Nine Roles of the Value-Driven Leader.
A how-to book that advances thinking skills.
A guaranteed approach to improve the quality of strategic thinking.
Shows how to discover your own ideas and strategic direction.
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1 out of 4 people found the following review helpful:
Profound IdeasFriday, February 22, 2002
Some profound ideas are in this book. I suggest reading a chapter, then thinking about it, then re-reading it. Very interesting concepts.
1 out of 4 people found the following review helpful:
The best strategic thinking bookMonday, October 29, 2001
Our professor assigned this book in the DBA reading list. At first I read it because I had to, but I have got to admit that this book really made me think as early as when I was reading the preface. Great book, hard to put it down before finishing it.
12 out of 12 people found the following review helpful:
Sensible, useful, but unexcitingThursday, December 07, 2000
An eminently sensible book in which it's hard to find much with which to disagree. If you haven't thought much about the thinking process and don't have a background in cognitive psychology, this book is well worth reading. If you have, then you'll find it agreeable but not enlightening, though it may remind you of important points that you've forgotten to pay attention to. Wells focuses on flexible thinking and how to ask the right questions. He outlines the strategic thinking cycle: Perceiving, acquiring insight, developing foresight, understanding possibilities, identifying strategic levers, matching levers with capabilities, reasoning, choosing a core strategy, and making the strategy work.
1 out of 7 people found the following review helpful:
Read less , think more !!! This is the challenge of S.WellsWednesday, September 06, 2000
We are returning to the simple things, S.Wells understood it, try you too.
Choose the future is about, Take the time, see what happen, understand, think what you will do then.
Masterpiece of strategy.