August 28, 2002

Strategic Foresight: The power of standing in the future, is a new book by Nick Marsh (of Theory K and The All Star Company fame) which hit the bookshelves last month. It is a practical guide for managers and leaders interested in managing the future better. It offers a new approach to planning and organisation change based on the “power of standing in the future”. Here are some extracts from chapter 8, Sustainable Value>

Call centres have evolved into contact centres. Properly scoped they can drive sales as well as customer service. The secret is in the set-up.

Develop it and they will come – underscores the leap of faith that property developer The Neil Group took when it acquired rural land on Auckland’s North Shore from the Housing Corporation back in 1993. The developer’s success in progressively transforming 130 hectares of Albany dirt into a “city within a city” is a lesson in top shelf project management.

Mentors have a major impact on the career advancement of their proteges, according to ground-breaking research initiated by the New Zealand Institute of Management and revealed for the first time in this report.

At a time when many senior managers dismiss outdoor experiential learning activities as passe or useless, Outward Bound is leaping into its 40th year. What is it doing right and what are leaders who avoid the experience missing?

There’s so much disturbing news concerning the ethics of America’s bigger, newer, publicly traded corporations that I was actually surprised to run into smiling CEO the other day. The scene