20-20 Foresight: Crafting Strategy in an Uncertain World.

• Author: Marshall, Jeffrey
• Position: Brief Article

20-20 Foresight: Crafting Strategy in an Uncertain World. By Hugh Courtney. Harvard Business School Press, 207 pages. $29.95.

Anyone who wonders whether or not we live in an uncertain world need only look to the events of Sept. 11 and their aftermath. Author Hugh Courtney's focus isn't on terrorism, but on corporate strategy in the face of uncertain outcomes. Essentially, the book tries to structure a response to uncertainty. While it cannot be mastered, it can be better managed, he argues.

Courtney, an associate principal with McKinsey & Co., builds the book around four "levels of residual uncertainty": a relatively clear future, with one path; alternate futures, but with an expected choice of outcomes; a range of futures; and "true ambiguity," in which the strategist doesn't have a clue about how to proceed. From these, he writes, managers can select strategy ranging from a...