Imprint: Triarchy Press
Publication: November 2024
Paperback
List Price: £20.00
Format: Paperback
Extent: 186pp.
Size: 15.2 x 22.9 cm
ISBN: 978-1-917251-05-1
Tags: ​business planning; strategic planning; business decision making; foresight; possibility wheel; scenario planning; strategic foresight; threats; forces for change

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Readership

This is a book aimed squarely at business leaders and anyone responsible for strategy, strategic planning, futures and foresight in any organisation.

The Possibility Wheel
Making better choices in a fractured world

Patricia Lustig  and Gill Ringland


This is a practical guide to improved medium-term decision-making for business leaders.  

The changes that mark the end of the current historic phase of economic growth mean that it’s increasingly difficult to make decisions. Yet the quality of decisions made by organisations and governments affects us all: decisions made with old paradigm assumptions may not take advantage of opportunities presented by the new, emerging paradigm; they restrict our ability to develop resilient choices.

In The Possibility Wheel, Patricia Lustig and Gill Ringland collate and analyse the trends that underlie the changes that are overturning our economy and society. They provide a clear framework for making sense of what is happening around the world:
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  • presenting evidence from the best sources
  • outlining ‘Forces for Change’ that surround us
  • evaluating the disruptive ‘Threats’ that we face
  • and examining the fracturing social and economic ‘Backbones’ on which we all rely.

Then they offer a toolset (the Possibility Wheel) to help senior executives and management teams make informed and resilient choices and strategic decisions. The Possibility Wheel brings the global evidence to play in your locality and organisational context — so you can explore more opportunities, develop resilient choices leading to more robust decisions and enjoy better outcomes.

Contents

Reviews
Introduction

PART ONE Threats
Chapter 2 Introduction to Part One 
Chapter 3 Fractured Backbones
Chapter 4 Global Heating
Chapter 5 Breakdown of International Relations 
Chapter 6 Collapse of Global Health
 
PART TWO Forces for Change 
Chapter 7 Introduction to Part Two
Chapter 8 Population
Chapter 9 Urban Pull
Chapter 10 Mobility 
Chapter 11 Energy Choices 
Chapter 12 Connected World 
Chapter 13 AI 
Chapter 14 Biology 
Chapter 15 Planetary Limits 
Chapter 16 Economic Activity 
Chapter 17 Social Change
Chapter 18 Pulling it all Together

PART THREE The Possibility Wheel 
Chapter 19 Introduction to Part Three
Chapter 20 The Possibility Wheel Tool
Chapter 21 Example: Fractured Backbones 
Chapter 22 Example: Global Heating
Chapter 23 Example: Breakdown in International Relations
Chapter 24 Example: Collapse of Global Health
Chapter 25 Insights 

Appendix 1 UN Sustainable Development Goals for 2030
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Appendix 2 Terminology and some sources of data
Index 
"It is a pleasure to introduce a handy new book to the futures field that is characterised by conceptual clarity and methodological simplicity. The authors... take us on a fascinating journey into the complex, cross-cutting issues of our time. In so doing, they outline a straightforward method for making good decisions in manifestly challenging circumstances. ...Different organisations can readily tailor the model and process to reflect their own particular needs and circumstances. Used well, The Possibility Wheel is a welcome addition to the futures toolkit and will, I trust, rapidly become established as such. ."
Richard Slaughter, Foresight International
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"As with many books offering ways to think about the future, the book catalogues how world structures are breaking in many new ways and on faster trajectories. It does this using an appealing metaphor, the backbone, to reflect how the rules of society that enable predictable relations are being threatened regularly.

...The authors have gifted those in the foresight community and those who have aspirations to futures thinking and acting. The book can be a reference work and foresight practice guide that empowers insightful confidence in identifying and understanding future possibilities. They have made a complex process more understandable, usable, and useful with mindset, frameworks, and modifiable tools that give citizens, businesspeople, and civil servants flexible ways to comprehend, with some degree of precision, actionable insights into the ways that the possibilities of their worlds might unfold."
Jim Burke, DeepDive Foresight, LLC
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