Think Like a Futurist is the ground-breaking book that shows how to engage in new thinking in order to connect today's pressures with tomorrow's realities. Drawing from more than a decade of work with clients, noted futurist Cecily Sommers shows what it takes to apply long-term focus and strategies to needs as diverse as industry forecasts, innovation challenges, leadership development, and future-proofing a brand. In all her work, she shows how the skills and methodologies needed to think like a futurist can be taught to anyone, how they follow a clear, replicable structure, and how they can be scaled for groups of all sizes. Her book shares the same tools and techniques she uses with individuals and organizations to help them become unstuck from the "Permanent Present," the natural¿and often disastrous¿bias for projecting current conditions out into the future. Clearly and deftly, Think Like a Futurist explains how the social, economic, and environmental crises of our time spring from just four constant and predictable forces. Once you understand how they work together to drive change, you can stake out a territory that is yours to invent and own. Think Like a Futurist also reveals future-directed activities designed to spark creative epiphanies, push past resistance, and bring the power of foresight to strategy and innovation, resulting in fresh answers to the ageless questions: Who are you? Where are you going? and What's your territory? This is not a book about identifying trends, but rather transcending them, which is crucial in today's fast-paced world where success is often defined as movement from deadline to deadline (and crisis to crisis). Throughout, Cecily shows how to make your perspective both more elastic and comprehensive. With her approach, you'll find the long-term vision needed to see opportunities onthe horizon and understand how to realize them.