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Flash Foresight: A book review by Bob Morris

Flash Foresight: A Book Review By Bob Morris

Flash Foresight: How to See the Invisible and Do the Impossible
Daniel Burrus with John David Mann
HarperBusiness (2011)

In this book written by John David Mann, Daniel Burrus discusses a skill that uses “the data of your five senses, as well as that intuitive sixth sense we all have that some call a gut feeling or hunch. But flash foresight goes further because in using it you synthesize those sensory and intuitive faculties and project them forward through the dimensions of time. A flash foresight is a blinding flash of the future obvious. It is an intuitive grasp of the foreseeable future that, once you see it, it reveals hidden opportunities and allows you to solve your biggest problems – before they happen. Flash foresight will allow anyone to both see and shape his or her future.”
How valuable would someone be to an organization if she or he mastered that skill? How valuable would a team be if all of its members had mastered that skill? How to do that? Burrus explains the process in his book.

More specifically, he suggests that there are seven “triggers,” anyone or several of which can produce a flash foresight:

1. Start with Certainty (i.e. identify and verify hard trends)
2. Anticipate (i.e. determine the degree of probability of relevant contingencies)
3. Transform (i.e. leverage technology-driven change)
4. Skip what you think is your biggest problem (in fact, it isn’t…and never was)
5. Go opposite (e.g. look where no one else does, see what no one else sees, do what no one else does)
6. Redefine and reinvent (i.e. leverage your unique strengths in new and better ways)
7. Direct your future (or have someone else will do it for you)

Zappos offers an excellent example. Its leaders were certain that online sales would continue to increase and that it was probable that the process of purchasing commodities would be more important to the consumer than the products themselves would be. They concluded that the most efficient operations (e.g. order processing) would be driven by high technology and that returns rather than sizing were its biggest problem. They defied conventional wisdom that selling shoes online could not be profitable. Until Zappos, that was true.

Years ago, Oliver Wendell Holmes said that he “didn’t care a fig about simplicity this side of complexity” but that he would “give his life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity.” Daniel Burrus would make the same claim for serendipity. I think his Flash Foresight may well prove to be the best business book published in 2011. Is it that good? Yes.

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Bob Morris is an independent management consultant based in Dallas who specializes in high-impact knowledge management and accelerated executive development. He has also reviewed more than 2,200 business books for Amazon’s US, UK, and Canadian websites. Each week, we will add to the Networlding Business Bookshelf abbreviated versions in which he discusses a few of his personal favorites. To contact him directly: interllect@mindspring.com.

 

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