Introduction

This book primarily consists of articles I have written each

week between May 2009 and September 2010 for the News24
website. The internet is a wonderful medium through which to
express your views, because you get instant feedback in the
comments made by readers of your article. They are raw, un-
censored, positive and negative. The internet democratises the
word as well as spreading it.
Although some of my columns are written as an impulsive
reaction to an event that has occurred in the world or South
Africa, I have a subconscious theme running through all of
them. I want people to become foxy futurists, where – like
the fox – they are constantly scanning the environment
around them to identify opportunities and threats that arise
from the changes taking place. But – more than that – I want
them to respond with action, an adaptation of behaviour,
strategy or tactics to suit the new circumstances. It is the
speed of response that ensures the survival of the fox and
makes it one of the most successful of species. Likewise with
human beings and companies.
I would like to thank Cathryn Rees, who originally invited
me to become a columnist for News24, and Aneeqah Emeran,
who has assisted me with the production of the articles on a
weekly basis. Reading the articles of my fellow columnists
on the website, I am very proud to be part of the team. We
try to serve up a quality product that educates and entertains
the readership. Sometimes we strike a chord, sometimes we
fail, but the intent is always there. The great thing about an
internet news site is that you rapidly know where you stand
by the number of hits you achieve. We even have a hit parade!

9
Each article is like a CD single, immediately measured and
ranked.
I would also like to express my gratitude to Erika Oosthuy-
sen and her colleagues at Human & Rousseau for converting
my articles and commentary into a literary format that is
logical to follow and entertaining to read.
I have dedicated the book to the late Steve Biko, who linked
self-development to self-esteem, a concept that is only now
gaining general currency. In modern terminology, the only
way of overcoming the hideous inequalities in South African
society is to create a culture of entrepreneurship whereby
people feel sufficiently empowered and confident to do things
for themselves and ask what they can do for others.
I hope you get as much pleasure out of dipping into these
articles as I got out of writing them. Because I liken this book
to a CD album, here is the message for the cover. Wherever
you are, whatever you do, may the fox be with you when you
look at the future. Every track is composed with this wish in
mind. Press ‘play’.

10
 Foxy futurists

This is the first of two articles that define a foxy futurist. It reflects
a methodology which Chantell Ilbury and I have jointly developed
since we published The Mind of a Fox in June 2001. The principal
difference between our method and the standard scenario planning
technique used and taught in America, Britain and Europe is our
insistence that scenarios have to be accompanied by flags and sub-
jective probabilities.
Ordinary people are underwhelmed by experts who just offer sce-
narios or possible pathways into the future. They liken these experts
to the Delphic Oracle, who could never be proved wrong. The pro-
cess gains credibility only if you supply the flags indicating possible
movements from one scenario to another, and then attach subjective
probabilities to the scenarios based on the disposition of the flags.
As much effort has to go into defining the flags and determining the
probabilities as goes into formulating the scenarios themselves.
Even then, Chantell and I make it quite plain that our flags and
probabilities are open to debate. There is no guarantee that we are
right. Nevertheless, we firmly believe that, given the inherent uncer-
tainty of the future, it is a great deal smarter to structure a conversa-
tion around possible scenarios, flags and probabilities than to attempt
to arrive at a single-line forecast on which you bet your whole life
or business.
Obviously, a company has to have a single set of assumptions on
which it bases its plan and budget. But that’s all it is – a set of assump-
tions. The whole point of our approach is to examine in advance the
practical implications of other possible futures, so that you can adapt
your plan more quickly than your competitors if any of those futures
materialises. We call it ‘road-testing’ your current plan.
Checking your resilience just makes sense, particularly in the vola-

11
tile times that we are currently experiencing. Indeed, whereas a few
years ago, during the long boom, companies would tell us it was
a waste of time looking at alternative futures because their plans
and forecasts were quite satisfactory, now they welcome us with
open arms.
Another point we underline is that, no matter how exhaustive a con-
versation you have, you will never capture all possibilities. There will
always be ‘unknown unknowns’ – events you don’t know you don’t
know – that will subsequently occur (like the volcanic ash cloud over
Europe). Yet you still need the flexibility and swiftness of a fox to re-
spond to these totally unexpected events.
Three final aspects of our model, to which we refer as our ‘conver-
sation model’, are as follows:
Firstly, foxy futurists can, at the most, hold a maximum of four sce-
narios in mind at any one time. We therefore encourage management
to construct a matrix where the two axes are the principal driving forces
behind the scenarios. Examples are given early in this book. It helps
to put the scenarios into a pictorial context.
Secondly, foxy futurists reject scenarios that break fundamental rules
of the game. For instance, in one article you will see that it is impos-
sible for a nation to be competitive in global terms and have a civil
war at the same time. In other words, scenarios have to be plausible
and logically consistent.
Thirdly, foxy futurists are as much interested in unusual White Swan
scenarios as Black Swan scenarios. Foxes pounce on opportunities
as much as they counter imminent threats. A full description of the
conversation model is given in our previous book Socrates & the Fox.

When an economist says “on the one hand” and “on the other
hand”, you know exactly what the audience is thinking: give
me a one-armed economist. The problem with providing dif-
ferent scenarios of the future, but no further information, is

12
that people conclude that you are just covering your back-
side – exactly as the Delphic Oracle did in ancient times.
So one of the most important points that Chantell Ilbury
and I made in our third book Socrates & the Fox is that you
have to go further in exploring the future than merely pro-
ducing a range of scenarios. You have to provide the flags
that would indicate that you are moving from one scenario
to another and, based on the disposition of the flags, attach
subjective probabilities to the scenarios.
What do we mean by subjective probabilities? The answer is
that the future is only played once, so you cannot – as in a labo-
ratory – repeat an experiment many times and, from the pat-
tern of outcomes, derive a scientific range of probabilities. It is
more a matter of intuition and hunch after studying the flags.
The closest we can come to an analogy is to picture scenarios
as racehorses and, as the race proceeds, we note the changing
position of the horses and amend the odds accordingly.
In other words, before the future unfolds, you have a fa-
vourite scenario, a possible scenario and a long shot. As you
proceed into the future, the flags either go up or stay down,
which gives you an indication of the positioning of each sce-
nario: which one is moving to the front and which one is lag-
ging behind. Thus, a favourite may become an outside
chance at the back of the field, and an outsider may burst
into the lead. Depending on how far the race has progressed,
you begin to get a feel for the result. Except that there is no
finishing line, because the future goes on forever. Hence you
are constantly revising the odds, coming up with new sce-
narios and revising the flags. Let me give some examples. In
1986, we said the flag to indicate a more positive future for
South Africa was negotiation between the National Party and
the ANC. It was a precondition for our High Road scenario.
At the time, the flag was firmly down, so the odds were slim
and most people thought we were heading for the Low Road.

13
 Then things began to change and a series of mini-flags start-
ed popping up, culminating in the release of Nelson Mandela,
which was a gigantic flag. The High Road scenario moved from
a remote possibility to odds-on favourite.
Then again, in mid-2001, Chantell and I said in The Mind of
the Fox that the flag for a major terrorist strike on a Western city
was firmly fluttering in the breeze, as terrorist organisations
now had access to information about assembling weapons of
mass destruction. The event occurred three months after we
published the book, but not in the way we envisaged.
More recently, we identified the flag for a possible global
recession to be declining asset values in America, since Ameri-
can consumers were only spending more by borrowing more
because they were worth more. In January 2007, the flag went
up for the first time when the price of property in the US
started to decline. After six months of continuing decline, we
were giving a 50% probability to a Hard Times scenario.When
Wall Street turned later in the year, we upped the figure to 80%.
In 2008 and 2009, the scenario became a 100% reality.
Now the flag is around nations defaulting on their sover-
eign debt. If they do so, we are in for a Perfect Storm. On the
other hand, should the flag stay down, we may be at the start
of a global recovery.
One final point: The connection between the flags and the
subjective probabilities for the scenarios can never be precise.
We say 10% is a wild card, between 10 and 20% a slight possi-
bility, 20–40% a definite possibility, 40–50% a strong possibility,
50–70% a probability, 70–90% a strong probability and above
90% a near certainty. That way the odds we are giving are
realistically approximate.
The trick is to identify the right flags and to monitor them on
a daily basis for any change in their disposition. That is what
makes a foxy futurist, but there is one other essential charac-
teristic, which I shall talk about next week.

14