Full-Spectrum Thinking: How to Escape Boxes in a Post-Categorical Future

  • 3h 41m
  • Bob Johansen
  • Berrett-Koehler Publishers
  • 2020

Leading futurist Bob Johansen shows how a new way of thinking, enhanced by new technologies, will help leaders break free of limiting labels and see new gradients of possibility in a chaotic world.

The future will get even more perplexing over the next decade, and we are not ready. The dilemma is that we're restricted by rigid categorical thinking that freezes people and organizations in neatly defined boxes that often are inaccurate or obsolete. Categories lead us toward certainty but away from clarity, and categorical thinking moves us away from understanding the bigger picture. Sticking with this old way of thinking and seeing isn't just foolish, it's dangerous.

Full-spectrum thinking is the ability to seek patterns and clarity outside, across, beyond, or maybe even without any boxes or categories while resisting false certainty and simplistic binary choices. It reveals our commonalities that are hidden in plain view. Bob Johansen lays out the core concepts of full-spectrum thinking and reveals the role that digital media—including gameful engagement, big-data analytics, visualization, blockchain, and machine learning—will play in facilitating and enhancing it. He offers examples of broader spectrums and new applications in a wide range of areas that will become possible first, then mandatory. This visionary book provides powerful ways to make sense of new opportunities and see the world as it really is.

About the Author

Bob Johansen is a distinguished fellow at the Institute for the Future (IFTF) in Silicon Valley. He has done forecasts for a wide range of corporations, including P&G, Kellogg's, Disney, Intuit, Walmart, Syngenta, UPS, McKinsey, and United Rentals. Major universities, nonprofits, and churches also use his books. He is author or co-author of ten books, including Get There Early, Leaders Make the Future, and The Reciprocity Advantage.

In this Book

  • Ramping Up to Full-Spectrum Thinking: More Clarity, Less Certainty
  • The Coercion of Categories: Please Don't Stamp Me with Your Label
  • Escape the Boxes of the Past: How to Use Futures Thinking
  • Clarity Filters: Scrambling with Distrust
  • Distributed-Authority Networks: Scrambling for Control
  • The True Digital Natives: Scrambling with the Social Order
  • Broader Spectrums of Business and Social Value: Operating in a Post-Categorical Distributed-Authority Future
  • Broader Spectrums of Hierarchy: New Animated Organization Charts
  • Broader Spectrums of Human–Machine Symbiosis: The New HR Will Be HCR
  • Broader Spectrums of Diversity: New Inclusive Paths to Innovation
  • Broader Spectrums of Meaning: A New Game of Hope
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