Clem Sunter

Business is a game. Americans are natural hedgehogs and South Africans are natural foxes. "We like foxes", says Clem Sunter, but we don't like hedgehogs or rimless wagon wheels, we do prefer circles and we do like games. The 'we' is Clem Sunter and Chantell Ilbury, andSunter is talking about their latest book, 'Games Foxes Play - Planning for Extraordinary Times'.

The book is a follow-up and a fine-tuning of the authors' number-one bestseller 'The Mind of Fox', published in June 2001. 'The Mind of a Fox' put scenario planning back on the map and in the boardroom.

'Games Foxes Play' has taken the basic principles further, challenging the American hedgehog view that only leaders with a fixed, central vision can achieve greatness.  Sunter and Ilbury favour foxes, leaders...

One of the most appealing aspects of this business book is that it doesn't read like a business book. You don't get lost in confusing business jargon, which allows you to concentrate and enjoy the message of the book.

The premise is simple: Business is a game and just like any other game, the point is to win. First you need to decide what type of game (business) you're playing, where the game is being played (the geographical footprint of the business) and who you're playing...

What about some key uncertainties of the future? How pricey is oil going to get? Sunter says with a dry laugh: "Life changes at 80″ - 80 dollars a barrel of oil that is.
This, in a very simplified form is the first phase - defining the game. Next comes playing the game, where you discuss what you're going to do and how you're going to go about it in order to achieve success.

The book takes you through defining the game and playing the game step by...

On the issue of HIV/AIDS, the majority of the South Africans can be divided into two broad categories: those who bury their heads in the sand and deny that the epidemic exists, and those that believe that it exists but they cannot do anything about it.  In this presentation, Clem Sunter offers a third view which is shared by a small number of people active in the HIV/AIDS field: there is an epidemic but there are plenty of things we can do to prevent it spreading further and to...

The game is simple but unprecedented. Whereas Britain put 30 to 40 million people through an industrial revolution in the mid-to-late 19th Century and had the colonies to draw its raw materials from; whereas America put 150 million people through an industrial revolution at the turn of the 20th Century and had its own raw materials; China is putting 1300 million people through an industrial revolution with neither colonies nor substantial indigenous resources besides coal. The only way it...

We live in a world that is constantly evolving, and yet within this evolution history seems intent on repeating itself. This paradox has been driven by our continued use of history as a source of experience to improve ourselves, but also by our remarkable refusal at times to learn from it. Interestingly, our world has remained relatively predictable in one aspect for the last few centuries. The West has been the dominant force in global politics and economics - a veritable superpower apart...