Modern governments have used the “claim of emergency” to undermine democracy and increase executive power. For sixty years, democratic governments have bypassed legal provisions concerning declaration of war, use of torture, civilian surveillance, and nuclear weapons. In the desire for swift national action, citizens devalue thinking and ignore ways to check government power. Scarry champions effective ways of thought in periods of crisis, asserting that thinking and rapid action are compatible.

(LEADERSHIP IN CRISIS * METHODS * GOVERNMENT * THINKING IN AN EMERGENCY)

On cooperation in the intensely tribal, competitive, and self-interested cultures that we inhabit. Living with people who differ is the most urgent challenge facing civil society today, and “modern politics encourages the politics of the tribe rather than of the city.” Cooperation is a craft and the foundations for skillful cooperation lie in learning to listen well and discuss rather than debate. Addresses the nature of communication, why it has become weak, and how it could be strengthened.

(METHODS: COOPERATION * SOCIETY * COOPERATION AS A CRAFT)

Evolution has resolved the problem of complexity not by simplifying, but by finding solutions whose processes allow us to act in the midst of complexity and uncertainty. We choose, refuse, connect, and imagine in order to act in the best possible manner. Simplexity is the set of solutions living organisms find that enable them to deal with information and situations, while taking into account past experiences and anticipating future ones.

(METHODS * COMPLEXITY * “SIMPLEXITY”)

Draws on actual business experience and social science research to enable business leaders, managers, and students to effectively stand up for their values when pressured by their boss, customers, or shareholders to do the opposite.

(METHODS * VALUES)

Our lives are full of vagueness or fuzziness. Vagueness is both unavoidable and useful, and it is tempting – and wrong – to think in terms of black and white, instead of the richly graded spectrum of the world around us. Vagueness allows us to focus on what matters, leaving out irrelevant details, and adding texture to what would otherwise be unintelligible facts. But embracing vagueness comes at a price: concepts like truth, belief, and proof lose their power, when banished from the paradise in which truth and falsity are the only possibilities.

(METHODS * VAGUENESS PRAISED)

Millett holds a PhD in history and served as a technology forecaster and futurist at the Battelle Memorial Institute, 1979-2006. He calls his work “applied history” and prefers the term “futuring” rather than forecasting. In that “most futurists have a weak grounding in the philosophy and theories that lie behind their practices,” this book seeks to establish “a philosophy of futuring and a frame of reference for more closely united theory and practice,” based on five principles: 1) the future will be some unknown combination of continuity and change; 2) the future can be anticipated with varying degrees of uncertainty; 3) futuring and visioning are different but complementary perspectives; 4) the best forecasts and plans are methodically generated and provide well-considered expectations; 5) “forecasts and plans must be continuously monitored, evaluated, and revised according to new data and conditions.” Chapters are devoted to each principles, as well as to “Managing Futuring”(identifying goals and resources, selecting trends and variables, modeling interactions, the benefit of scenarios), “Managing Visioning” (visionary leadership, participatory visioning, the STEP-UP matrix), and “Managing Applications and Benefits” (anticipating changing customers and markets, envisioning potential new products and services, teaching the learning organization, risk management), and “Managing Expectations” (for yourself, others, your business, and the future of futuring). [Note: Competent and not in the slightest flashy: a marked contrast to Marcel Bullinga’s “Welcome to the Future Cloud”. Millett perfectly nails such normative futuring as “…engaging, typically enthusiastic, but too often detached from the constraints of everyday reality. They are inspiring, but not entirely convincing. They typically are also highly idealistic.” (p.197)]

(METHODS * FUTURING * FORECASTING)

The frequency of “high-impact, low-probability” (HILP) events in the last decade – such as Hurricane Katrina, Japan’s 2012 earthquake and tsunami, and major floods in Pakistan and Thailand – signals the emergence of a new “normal”. Draws lessons other HILP events and consider whether governments and the private sector are sufficiently prepared, how the global economy could be made more resilient, and the role of communication in a crisis. [Also see Future Global Shocks: Improving Risk Governance (OECD International Futures Programme, Oct 2011; GFB BOOK OF THE MONTH, Jan 2012).]

(RISK MANAGEMENT * DISASTER PREPAREDNESS * WILD CARD EVENTS)

Focuses on social innovation broadly conceived in the context of social entrepreneurship and social enterprise in their global context. Addresses three of the most important themes in social innovation: 1) strategies and logics, 2) performance measurement and governance; and 3) sustainability and the environment. Chapters discuss the foundations of social innovation, limits of economic value in measuring the performance of social innovation, social innovation in the delivery of public services, socio-ecological innovation and transformation, green technology implementation in developing countries, and sustainable entrepreneurship.

(METHODS * SOCIAL INNOVATION * INNOVATION)

Brings together non-western, indigenous and eastern perspectives on leadership. Leadership theory has for too long been the exclusive domain of western academics developing leadership theories from the perspective of western institutions. Worldly leadership calls for pooling of the combined leadership wisdoms from all parts of the globe—the internationalization of leadership. Looks at women’s leadership, as well as leadership in China, Iran, the Arab Middle East, Pakistan, India, and Russia.

(LEADERSHIP: NON-WESTERN * WORLD FUTURES )

Analyzes over 300 pioneering web-use examples from the private, public, and nonprofit sector in Germany, Europe, and the US. A new leadership paradigm seems to be emerging with a shift away from one-way, hierarchical, organization-centric communication toward two-way, network-centric, participatory, and collaborative leadership styles.

(LEADERSHIP AND THE INTERNET * INTERNET AND LEADERSHIP)