Books : Visionary's Handbook: Nine Paradoxes That Will Shape the Future of Your Business
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In association with Amazon.com
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by: Watts Wacker, Jim Taylor, Howard Means
Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 658
EAN: 9780066619880
ISBN: 0066619882
Label: Collins
Manufacturer: Collins
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 272
Publication Date: August 01, 2001
Publisher: Collins
Release Date: July 31, 2001
Sales Rank: 665121
Studio: Collins
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Editorial Review:
Product Description:
In 'The 500 Year Delta,' Watts Wacker and Jim Taylor astounded readers with their sweeping vision of time and change. Now they proclaim the Age of the Individual - a world where life has never been more difficult, because it has never been easier. Today, individuals have far more power to claim their own futures than ever before, which means they have to follow four major rules to chart their courses: know who you are: know where you want to go; recognise your own seminal moments; and adopt an attitude of insurgency. As these rules are applied to organisations, they too can master the nine paradoxes that abound in everyday life and watch productivity go through the roof.
Amazon.com Review:
At a time when business bestsellers such as Six Sigma are touting scientific management, The Visionary's Handbook desires to be different. Authors Watts Wacker, Jim Taylor, and Howard Means forgo the nuts-and-bolts approach for a philosophical look at management, examining nine broad trends, or 'paradoxes,' they say are shaping business today.
At the heart of these paradoxes lies change--change that is occurring at an increasing rate. The more certain we are of the future, say the authors, the more likely we are to be wrong. To support their argument, they cite both online and real-world examples, including Xerox, eBay, Kodak, and Cisco. Their observations, if not groundbreaking, are certainly accurate. For instance, the Paradox of Size--the bigger your company, the smaller it needs to appear--has been explored at length in Customers.com. Similarly, the need for continual innovation--even to the detriment of your core business--is a paradox that merits attention and one that readers of The Innovator's Dilemma will recognize.
The Visionary's Handbook is about more than just paradoxes, though. Interspersed throughout its pages are exercises challenging readers to pencil in the future they want to see, to visualize and outline their success. Some may find these exercises a valuable and practical addition to the text. Broadly conceived and thought-provoking, The Visionary's Handbook will be an eye opener for many readers. --Demian McLean
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - A nice way to keep yourself attuned to private equity issues.
Futurists are a necessity to connect with people who think outside the box of conventional wisdom. Inconvenient to read (those damn tasks), but fun and insightful. This handbook provides a tool to get outside the box.
Rating: - thick
If only that were true of The Visionary's Handbook: Nine Paradoxes That Will Shape the Future of Your Business, by Watts Wacker, Jim Taylor, and Howard Means. Talk about self-empowerment jargon. You can tell right off that this is supposedly a "big think" book, because it tells us we should "live today not in one tense, but in two," the present and the future. The way to do that, the authors write, is by compartmentalizing your future tense from your present tense. That might best involve outsourcing, ... Read More
Rating:  - Snake Oil
Thought provoking yes, but not for its marketed reasons. While reading Wacker and Taylor's work, one's train of thought turns to how could they possibly churn out another 254 pages of mindless drivel (after "The 500 Year Delta"), spun around one or two interesting blips of thought? Wacker and Taylor's underlying advice to question "What am I?" and "What will I be?" offers little more than a sophomoric therapy session - hardly visionary. ...
Rating: - The Visionary's Handbook
In "The Visionary's Handbook," Watts Wacker and Jim Taylor lay out a vision of the future where change is the only constant and decision-making is shrouded by various paradoxes that often contradict each other. The stated goal of this "handbook" is to help readers identify nine paradoxes that they deem critical to understanding the future and managing business activity.
The so-called Age of Uncertainty that Wacker and Taylor describe picks up where their popular 1998 book, "The 500-Year ... Read More
Rating: - When was the Future?
It was great to get another fix of Watts - Matter on Fact is good but does not really allow a theme to really develop.
I though the book will be great. The discussion on Brand is tremendous - the best I have ever read. This should be required reading for anyone entering business let alone those who seek to specialise in Brand Marketing like I did once, a long time ago. The theme of Paradox is also well handled throughout. Will be great? Greatness is a property acquired over time...I ... Read More
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