THE VISIONARY'S HANDBOOK
Building upon the Age of
Possibility first examined in their worldwide bestseller, The 500-Year Delta, Watts Wacker
and Jim Taylor now welcome readers to the Age of Uncertainty, where, because life has
never been easier, it has never been more difficult.
The Visionary's Handbook is
an extraordinary book. Wacker and Taylor present a vision of the present and future that
strips away the chaos and complexity of our times and shows readers how to create a
personal route forward. The milestones are nine mind-boggling paradoxes that capture the
imponderables of modern life, and define the business and social climates of the world in
the 21 st century:
THE PARADOX OF THE VISIONARY
The closer your vision gets
to a provable truth, the more you are simply describing the present. In the same way, the
more certain you are of a future outcome, the more likely you will be wrong.
THE PARADOX OF VALUE
The value of any product
becomes inseparable from a buyer's perception of worth. Instead of intrinsic value, we
have relative value only-the products that a business makes bear diminished relations to
the physical content of the offering.
THE PARADOX OF SIZE
The bigger you are, the
smaller you need to be.
THE PARADOX OF TIME
To succeed in the short term,
you need to think in the long term. Yet the greater your vision and the longer the time
interval over which you predict results, the greater the risk that you will be unable to
take the necessary steps in the short term to achieve the long-term goals. The tension
between short-and long-term planning has never before been more tormented.
THE PARADOX OF COMPETITION
Your biggest competitor is
your own view of your future; competition comes from everywhere and nowhere at the same
time.
THE PARADOX OF ACTION
You've got to go for what you
can't expect to get; nothing will turn out exactly as it's supposed to. You must act
intuitively and be equally ready to take resolute counter-intuitive action.
THE PARADOX OF LEADERSHIP
To lead from the front, you
have to stay inside the story In an inherently inconsistent world, consistency of
leadership is not the virtue it once was.
THE PARADOX OF LEISURE
Play is hard work; play and
work are blending and becoming indistinguishable.
THE PARADOX OF REALITY
Every person on planet Earth
today has the potential to be connected to every other person, and every single one of us
inhabits a world of our own and is a marketing segment of absolutely one. As our links
become stronger, our individuality becomes starker.
Abold, incisive book, The
Visionary's Handbook captures the interlocking web of paradoxes that abound in everyday
business life, and provides an essential map to help make the future work for every
individual and every company in the challenging and uncertain times ahead.
254 pages