A Playbook for Thinking Clearly at C-Level
“When the stakes are high and the variables messy, strategy is less about having the right answers than using the right lenses.”
Welcome to The Executive Mental Models Series—a blog-cum-training journey designed to weaponise clear thinking for CEOs, founders, and rising C-suite leaders. Over the next few months we’ll unpack 150 time-tested mental models drawn from physics, psychology, finance, biology, engineering, and systems theory, then translate them into everyday executive moves you can deploy before the next board pack lands on your desk.
Why Mental Models—Why Now?
Global supply chains are rewiring, AI is rewriting cost curves, and capital markets are pricing risk in real time. In that turbulence, title and tenure no longer guarantee sound judgement. What separates the leaders who compound advantage from the ones who chase headlines is their model stack—the latticework of conceptual tools they lean on when data is incomplete, politics are charged, and timelines are brutal.
Think of mental models as portable algorithms for reality:
- First Principles Thinking slashes through legacy assumptions and lets you rebuild problems from the bedrock of physics and economics.
- Inversion forces you to hunt for failure modes first, immunising strategy against blind spots.
- Bayesian Updating turns new information into calibrated probabilities instead of knee-jerk pivots.
Use a single model and you occasionally look smart; layer them and you create a thinking flywheel that compounds like equity returns.
The CEO Framework
Having navigated internationally, recessions, product meltdowns, and geopolitical curveballs, and now mentoring ambitious executives, I have written this to support you to do the same without wasting a decade of tuition-fee mistakes. Each post will follow a simple scaffold:
- Model in a Minute – a tight, jargon-free definition.
- Boardroom Application – how the model shows up in capital allocation, organisational design, M&A, or crisis management.
- Case Snapshot – a real or anonymised vignette from my 30-year “Integrator” career, highlighting both triumphs and scar tissue.
- Practice Drills – reflection questions, meeting prompts, or spreadsheet hacks so you can road-test the model this week.
- Failure Mode & Mitigation – the most common ways smart people misuse the model—and how to avoid them.
How to Engage
- Read & Reflect – Each article stands alone, but taken together they form a curriculum you can re-visit when a fresh challenge appears.
- Flashcard Deck – I’ll release an Anki-formatted deck so you can cement concepts with spaced repetition.
- Workshop Kits – For CLOs and HRDs, downloadable facilitation guides will let you run 60-minute lunch-and-learns or half-day off-sites.
- Miro Map – A living mind-map will visualise relationships between models so your team can see how, say, Systems Leverage meshes with Second-Order Effects.
What’s Coming Next
We start where every robust strategy begins: Foundational Thinking Models. The inaugural deep-dive will explore First Principles Thinking—why engineers love it, why most executives only pretend to use it, and how you can bake it into your annual operating plan without blowing up delivery deadlines.
After that, expect weekly drops covering:
- Probabilistic Reasoning & Risk
- Behavioural Economics & Bias Antidotes
- Systems & Complexity
- Strategic Finance & Optionality
- Execution & Feedback Loops
Sprinkled throughout will be guest insights from neuroscientists, fighter-pilots-turned-VCs, and turnaround specialists—because cross-pollination multiplies insight.
Join the Conversation
Great mental models improve with friction. Push back, add nuance, or share a field test—whether in the comments, on LinkedIn, or via the Q-Factor newsletter. Together we’ll build a collective digital brain, one model at a time, and stack the odds in favour of thoughtful, ethical, high-leverage leadership.
Ready? Sharpen your curiosity and clear your calendar for 10 minutes—First Principles Thinking drops next.
