Courageous Thinking: Where data-driven research and strategic planning informs and inspires positive change.
Indecision. Lack of Clarity. Fear. They all can play a role in holding back any organization achieving its full potential. Courageous Thinking is strategic planning process that is designed to align teams around positive change and address barriers to success.
The Courageous Thinking process involves a proven two-day planning session with key stakeholders. Using insights from distilled from Big Data Magnet’s data-driven research, Courageous Thinking defines key metric and competitive benchmarks to create business road-map to transform any business.
Courageous Thinking is a proven process that has helped a variety of organizations from governments, start-ups and established companies looking to pivot towards better future. If your team is looking for meaningful transformation, please contact peter@courageous-thinking.com. Let us know how we can serve your needs.
Courageous Thinking. Powered by Data-Driven Research.
Step One:
Market Analysis: The first step of the Courageous Thinking process is to identify current target market needs, and the extent to which those needs are currently met by competitive products. This step leverages our research-based business insights and competitive analysis which in tandem help define competitive benchmarks.
Step Two:
Competitive Landscape: Second, we look at what existing organizations are doing well (or not so well) to serve the market. This creates a framework that identifies market gaps and opportunities. This step opens the door to explore market an array of market opportunities. We focus on clear differentiating your product in the eyes existing and future consumers. Examples of differentiation include price point, target market and key product features/benefits.
Step Three:
Two-Day Strategic Planning Session: Third, we guide your company stakeholders through a two-day process to articulate new market opportunities and how to capitalize on them. The process is designed to surface current barriers to success and what resources are required to grow market share or create entirely new markets. Team members are challenged to see beyond current competitive metrics and create a new vision for delivering meaningfully differentiated products.
Courageous Thinking: Powered by data-driven research.
Clear Vision:
In collaboration with your stakeholders, a Business Roadmap will be produced. The roadmap will define how to better compete via a unique product offerings and highlight required product development steps and milestones.
Team Alignment:
Stakeholders will have a clear understanding of how the organization and their respective teams need to evolve to better meet future market needs.
Strategic Plan:
We will create a Strategic Plan to articulate steps and key performance indicators (KPI's) as well as the resources required for success.
10 Sources of Inspiration for Courageous Thinking
1) Los Angeles: a data-driven approach to fightng the Corona Virus
April 30th, 2020. Los Angeles Mayor, Eric Garcetti has announced “LA is now the first major city in America to offer free Covid-19 testing". Mayor Garcetti along with Governor Gavin Newsom got out of the gate early with a unified plan to flatten the curve on March 19th. Both Mayor Garcetti and Governor Newsome have since placed a sharp focus on a data-driven approach to research and broaden our understanding of how to best battle the corona virus.
The synchronized state/city approach has worked. Despite California’s sheer size and diverse population, the State’s confirmed Covid cases and deaths have remained relatively low when compared to other states who were slow to protect their inhabitants.
Both Mayor Garcetti and Governor Newsome have been lock-step in their belief expanding Covid-19 testing as a critical milestone that needs to be met before stay at home orders can be modified.
Initially, Mayor Garcetti was considered to have a more conservative, wait-and-see leadership style, however, Garcetti has demonstrated Courageous-Thinking with his Mantra “When it feel wrong, it’s right. When if feels right, it’s too late!”
Garcetti was elected on his vision and platform for creating a safe, livable, and prosperous city. We applaud Mayor Garcetti’s clear eyed, data-driven decision-making approach to dealing with Covid-19 and the current crisis.
2) Tesla's Category Slayer: The Cybertruck
Tesla CEO Elon Musk just unveiled the company’s first electric pickup truck, also known as Cybertruck, at an event in Los Angeles, California. The stainless steel clad truck will come in three versions with 250 miles, 300 miles, and 500 miles of range, respectively. With a relatively low starting price of $39,900, Elon Musk has yet again demonstrated Courageous Thinking in taking established market leaders Ford, GM and Toyota.
The reveal of the pickup included a tug-of-war with a Ford F150 and race with a Porsche 911.
3) The Next Big thing from Disney: Disney+
The world’s largest media company demonstrates Courageous Thinking with the launch Disney+, its digital content streaming platform designed to compete against Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime.
Disney Plus officially launched Nov. 12. It costs $7 a month in the US, or $70 if you prepay for a full year. The monthly rate is half the price of HBO Now and the forthcoming HBO Max. It's also a discount compared with Netflix's cheapest tier at $9 a month. Disney also struck a deal with Verizon to give the carrier's unlimited wireless customers a year free.
Jon Favreau appears to found a magically blend of Star Wars mythology told in a western serial style that leaves fans craving more with each episode. The new form factor feels both fresh and familiar, breathing new life into the 40 year-old franchise.
Disney has called Disney Plus the future of the company. It's the entertainment giant's streaming service for almost everything it's ever created or bought, taking on Netflix and an emerging crop of rivals like Apple TV Plus and HBO Max.
“In essence, we were now hastening the disruption of our own business, and the short-term losses were going to be significant,” Iger wrote about this pivotal moment in his autobiography, The Ride of a Lifetime.
4) Hero: Chef Lukasz
Polish Chef, Lukasz, demonstrated Courageous Thinking when he grabbed an 5 foot long ornamental Narwhal tusk to subdue London Bridge knife attacker. With the help of another bystander who also battled the knife attacker with a fire extinguisher, the two heros were able to thwart the attacker. Despite numerous injuries, Chef Lukasz engaged the knife wielding terrorist until the arrival authorities. Our condolences to the three innocent bystanders who succumbed to wounds sustained in the attack.
5) One Brick at a Time: Plasticube
Abhishek Banerjee, 22, a construction engineering student at Jadavpur University, has been shortlisted for this year’s Young Champions of the Earth Award, for his Courageous Thinking in the development of the Qube, a construction brick designed of recycled plastic.
It is estimated India throws away over 25,000 tons of plastic waste every day. Around 40% of it is left uncollected. "We're building something sustainable, literally out of garbage," Banerjee says.
Along with his classmates Agnimitra Sengupta, Ankan Podder and Utsav Bhattacharyya, Banerjee created Qube in 2017. The brick, called Plastiqube -is an environmentally friendly alternative to kiln-fired clay bricks that currently require the burning of over 40 million tones of coal per year.
http://www.globalconstructionreview.com/innovation/young-engineer-invents-brick-made-waste-plastic/
6) Ever Evolving: Alphabet
Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin are relinquishing control of parent company Alphabet to current Google CEO Sundar Pichai. As announced in a joint letter, two men will remain employees of Alphabet and retain their seats on the board, but they will no longer oversee the company’s sprawling, almost trillion-dollar empire they created while at Stanford University more than 20 years ago.
Page and Brin continue to demonstrate Courageous Thinking in their willingness to restructure, adapt and evolve Google to meet new challenges.
https://blog.google/inside-google/alphabet/letter-from-larry-and-sergey
7) Facing Walls Head-On: Banksy
One of the most renowned street artist of this generation, Banksy pushes the boundaries of political and social activism in places like London, New York City, Palestine, Disneyland, Paris and Sydney. His work is usually a critic of current society or social norms. His 2019 Christmas Card is demonstrates Courageous Thinking with its provocative questioning of the roots of Christian values and how those value apply to present day geo-political challenges.
8) Courageous Inhabitants Makes for Courageous Cities
Insurify, the online insurance marketplace has tapped it 2 million insurance applications in order to rank America’s most Courageous cities. Their critieria involved applicant’s listed occupations and if anyone on their policy is an active or veteran of the Armed Forces. From this data, Insurify’s data scientists found the number of applicants in each city with careers in public safety (such as firefighters, park rangers, law enforcement, and emergency medical technicians), in high-risk jobs with a high benefit to society (such as electrical power line installers or structural metalworkers), and current or past members of the Armed Forces. Insurify’s data scientists then found the cities with the highest rates of courageous citizens by comparing those numbers to the total pool of applicants in each city.
We applaud Insurify’s data-driven Courageous Thinking.
https://insurify.com/insights/2019-most-courageous-cities-awards/
9) Stadia: The Courage Powered Gaming System
On November 19th, Google Stadia video game platform launched with 22 games at an initial price of $130 for a hardware starter-kit and three months of premium service, and $10 a month afterwards. The platform is completely cloud-based, doing away with any physical media in the form of CD’s or cartridges.
The system relies on Google’s considerable cloud storage, processing and data delivery stream games in real-time. “We have a plan that includes building out a few different first-party studios,” Raymond said. The eventual goal is to release Stadia-exclusive games that can take advantage of the unique cloud computing infrastructure behind the platform. That includes improved physics simulations, integrations with Google Assistant, and potentially larger-scale environments that can’t be rendered today using just a single console or PC.”
Google’s Courageous Thinking in the development of Stadia has paved the way for a new era for video game enthusiasts.
https://www.polygon.com/2019/12/6/20996049/google-stadia-destiny-2-works-grinding-latency-lag-travel
10) Reconciling Faith with Politics: Nancy Pelosi
“Do you hate the president, Madam Speaker?” a reporter asked Nancy Pelosi, the top Democrat in Congress, as she walked away from her podium to end her weekly press conference. Pelosi turned on her heel to address the reporter directly, “I don’t hate anyone,” Pelosi said, citing her Catholic upbringing. “I still pray for the president,”
Regardless of Political bent, Pelosi direct response showed both Courageous Thinking in that despite obvious political differences, her religious beliefs demand empathy from her, even for her greatest political foe.
https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/pelosi-fumes-i-dont-hate-anybody-i-was-raised-catholic-54278
