Every decision we make is a decision about the future. We constantly make choices that affect the next week, year or decade, but get blinded by what we want or expect the future to be. Cognitive traps lie everywhere: failing to question our assumptions; believing in greater certainty and personal control than life allows; or missing signals because we’re distracted by the noise.

The post-2020 world demands a revolutionary way of looking ahead, and in these unpredictable times, the key to good futures thinking is good thinking. The goal of constructive futurism is not to forecast specific events, but to plot a series of scenarios that show what could happen. Consequently, we can work towards the future we want, avoid the ones we don’t, and be prepared to manage the risks and opportunities no matter what.

In Thinking the Future, scenario specialists Clem Sunter and Mitch Ilbury teach us the futurist’s art of decision-making, where the flexibility of thinking like a fox plays a key role in adapting to a complex and interconnected world. The book rejects the appealing but misleading self-help narrative that you can decide your future through sheer determination in pursuit of your goals and replaces it with a more dynamic approach.

Isaac Newton said: ‘If I have seen further than others, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.’ By reimagining seminal concepts thought up by some of history’s greatest thinkers, the authors detail the dos and don’ts for thinking the future and handling its uncertainty in a constructive way.

Many of the world's true leaders in politics, business and sport have succeeded by adopting the mental processes typical of the ingenuity of one of nature's most resourceful animals – the fox. Are these mental processes extraordinary? No. They are perfectly natural, and can be a powerful tool in scenario planning and making decisions. By drawing on fascinating examples found in business, nature, science, space and sport, the author's provide an analysis of the mind of a fox and identify the two questions you should ask before committing yourself to action: What do you and do you not control?; what is certain and uncertain about the future? They have constructed an ingenious matrix around these questions, which assists you to identify the rules of the game; assess the key uncertainties; paint scenarios; evaluate realistic options; and thereby make effective decisions.