Thinkware Horizon · Choosing a New Direction
For years you optimise, head down, and it works. Then you look up and ask where the company is going.
A strategic engagement for a CEO and core management team whose way of winning has stopped working. Together you design the thinking that finds the new direction, and the company owns it.
- Who
- CEO and core management team
- Length
- 4–6 weeks
- Where
- Hybrid: in-person sessions and remote work
How a company reaches the horizon
Head down
The business runs well. Like a cyclist on a good road, you optimise and get a little faster every year.
A noise ahead
A market signal, an unforeseen situation, a business that is getting old. Something makes you look up.
The horizon
Your gaze rises and you see that you could ride somewhere else entirely. Now you have to decide which direction to take. Thinkware Horizon starts here.
Tuning
Put an extra wing on the Formula 1 car. Same race, better lap times.
Horizon
Decide which race to enter. Shifting up a gear stops helping, and the team has to choose where to drive the vehicle.
How Cirque du Soleil left the circus business
An example from the strategy book Blue Ocean Strategy.
Circuses before
- Paid more for the best acrobats
- Added a second ring so the audience could choose
- Kept the animals, the most expensive part of the show
- Sold to the same low-paying family audience
Each improvement cost more, and the ticket price stayed the same.
Cirque du Soleil
- Took the animals out
- Gave each show a theme, and tuned costume, music and act to it
- Became theatre as much as circus
- Drew an audience willing to pay theatre prices
The idea took off as soon as it reached the market.
The old circuses maximised what they already had, and it pushed them out of business. The better your way of winning worked in the past, the harder you find it to let go.
How the work runs
A talk with the CEO
One or two hours. What has worked in the past, what no longer works, and the signal that told you to look up. Why not go back to what worked?
The team in one room
Thomas asks the same questions again in the first session. Everyone speaks, everyone listens, nobody talks too long. People usually find out that a colleague has been thinking the same thing.
One thinkware tool
Thomas takes the dominant idea and puts it into a tool that suits it: Six Thinking Hats, a SWOT analysis, or a written brainstorming method. The team’s thinking condenses into something you can build a strategy from.
When an idea is already on the table
You get to an alternative strategy fast, then assess its risks and opportunities. The work has to stay practical, with energy, and someone has to hold the room when a conflict breaks out.
When nobody can see where to go
The open path: generating ideas from nothing, and helping people stop wanting to repair what broke. This is harder, and Thomas cannot tell you in advance what the team will find.
The strategy is yours. So is the way you reached it.
Thomas facilitates the creative effort; he does not bring the answer. The thinking tools have to feel natural to the people in the room, because the company keeps using them after he leaves. With Tuning you own the result. With Horizon you own the design of the thinking too.
A question to bring to the first conversation
“What signal made you look up and question where the company is heading?”
Frequently Asked Questions
Fit, format, fee and how to begin with Thinkware Horizon.
When should an organization choose Thinkware Horizon?
When a business that has been running well looks up and sees that its way of winning has stopped working. An unforeseen market signal, a business model that is getting old, or improvements that keep costing more without returning more. The CEO and core management team then need to decide where to take the company, not how to run it better.
What is thinkware?
Designed tools for thinking. Pliers and wrenches help you fix mechanical things; thinkware helps a team think. The Pareto principle, the OODA loop (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act) and Six Thinking Hats are examples. None of them tells you what to build, they help you work out how. In Thinkware Horizon the team shapes the thinking tools it needs for one change of direction, and the company keeps them.
Do we need to know the new direction before we start?
No. If an idea is already on the table, the team gets to an alternative strategy fast and then assesses its risks and opportunities. If nobody can see where to go, the work starts with open idea generation, which takes longer and is harder to predict. The first conversation with the CEO shows which path you are on.
What is the timeline and working format?
The engagement typically spans 4–6 weeks. Working formats are tailored to the executive team and may combine in-person working sessions with remote iterations as agreed during scoping to test alternatives and observe how decisions meet reality. Travel and accommodation for any in-person meetings are agreed separately.
How do we begin?
Start from the signal that made you look up, guided by the question: “What signal made you look up and question where the company is heading?” Submit an enquiry to schedule an initial diagnostic dialogue with Thomas.
Submit a Nonbinding Enquiry
Start a confidential conversation with Thomas Bothe about Thinkware Horizon. There is no automated booking and no financial obligation.