James A. Ogilvy

in progress

see a bio of James A. Ogilvy Jay is a cofounder of GBN and a partner of the Monitor Group. His research and work focus on the role that human values and changing motivations play in business decision-making and strategy. He has pursued these interests in collaboration with Peter Schwartz since 1979, when he joined SRI International, and since 1988 with GBN. While at SRI, Jay split his time between developing future scenarios for strategic planning and serving as director of research for the Values and Lifestyles (VALS) Program, a consumer segmentation system used in market research. He also authored monographs on social, political, and demographic trends affecting the values of American consumers.

Jay’s work builds on his background as a philosopher. He taught at the University of Texas, Williams College, and for seven years at Yale, where he received his PhD in 1968. He is the author of Creating Better Futures: Scenario Planning as a Tool for a Better Tomorrow (2002), Living Without a Goal (1995), Many Dimensional Man (1977); co-author of China’ Futures (2001) and Seven Tomorrows (1980); and editor of Self and World (1971, 1980) and Revisioning Philosophy (1991).

Now Ogilvy shows how we can use this cutting-edge method for social change in our own neighborhoods.

James A. Ogilvy: Creating Better Futures

In Creating Better Futures, Ogilvy presents a profound new vision of how the world is changing–and how it can be changed for the better. Ogilvy argues that self-defined communities, rather than individuals or governments, have become the primary agents for social change. Towns, professional associations, and interest groups of all kinds help shape the future in all the ways that matter most, from schools and hospitals to urban development. The key to improvement is scenario planning–a process that draws on groups of people, both lay and expert, to draft narratives that spell out possible futures, some to avoid, some inspiring hope. Scenario planning has revolutionized both public and private planning, leading to everything from the diverse product lines that have revived the auto industry, to a timely decision by the state of Colorado to avoid pouring millions into an oil-shale industry that never materialized. But never before has anyone proposed that it be taken up by society as a whole. Drawing on years of experience in both academia and the private sector, where he developed both a keen sense of how businesses work best and an abiding passion for changing the world, James Ogilvy provides the tools we need to create better communities: better health, better education, better lives.

ONE: Aiming Higher

Creating the futures we want
From the old paradigm to a new worldview
Values in a pluralistic world
Scenario Planning
Plan of the book

Part One: New Game

TWO: Religious, Political, and Economic Passions

This postmodern business
From the idea of progress to historical drift
From the rise of science to post-scientific inquiry
From industrial mass manufacturing to the knowledge economy
Import for organizational design
Beyond the nation-state: from the political era to the economic era

THREE: The Limits of the Marketplace

What markets can not do
Funding public education
The debate over educational standards
Who is the chooser of health care?
What are our choices in telecommunications?

FOUR: Rethinking Representative Government

Strategic planning and industrial policy
The likeness between learning and evolution
Rethinking representation

Part TWO: New Players

FIVE: Beyond Individualism and Collectivism

Reframing the conflict between individualists and collectivists
In favor of individualism
Too much of a good thing?
The shift of worldviews in psychology

Jürgen Habermas and reflexive sociology
Marxism’s problem
Communities as creative agents
Social creativity
Communal creativity in practice

Part THREE: New Lenses

SEVEN: From Worldviews To Better Worlds

Kuhn’s contribution
Kuhn’s contribution in context
What paradigms are like
Anthropology: from explanation by law to the interpretation of meaning
Import for scenario planning
Literary criticism and the legacy of existentialism
The import of recent literary criticism for scenario planning

EIGHT: Features Of The Relational Worldview

From things to symbols: the semiotic turn
Difference over identity: from an emphasis on things to an emphasis on relationships
From explanation to narration: the importance of stories
The fall into time
The democratization of meaning
Ambiguity
Heterarchy
Applying the new tools to the new rules

Part FOUR: New Rules, New Tools

NINE: Facts, Values, And Scenario Planning

A new look at norms
A fresh look at values
The developmental model of maturation
A concrete description of values in everyday life
Theories of value
Summary and synthesis
From the moral majority to moral maturity

Part FIVE: Scenario Planning in Action

ELEVEN: Better Education

Standards and accountability
Privatization
Technology
School finance
School governance
The public agenda
Demographics
The technology fix
The corporate fix: privatization

TWELVE: Better Health Care

Better health care
Defined contribution
Relationship-centered care

THIRTEEN: Cadenza: Earth Might Be Fair

Why there can not be one best future