Zebras and Cheetahs: Look Different and Stay Agile to Survive the Business Jungle

Chapter 1

The Concrete Jungle

This Book’s Purpose

Two men—whose names you’ll discover later—found themselves at a crossroads in their lives and careers. Upon coming together, they experienced a collision of knowledge, their pasts, and their hopes and dreams for the future. They also discovered that their educational and professional experiences gave them mutual perspective and common ground. As such, they decided to build what many desire to build: something to call their own, but more importantly, something that could impact other people in a powerful way. What emerged from this collision was a Lead that will help individuals change their perspectives, adopt new mindsets, and provide clarity and focus by causing dominant aspirations to become a dominant focus within people and organizations.

If you’re not familiar with the terms dominant aspiration (and subsequent dominant focus), don’t worry; you’ll become acquainted with them soon.

The purpose of the book and the Model it describes is to help you formulate that dominant aspiration and focus, specifically by providing a new perspective about how people should be leading and performing within twenty-first century organizations. It will introduce you to a system that, when fully implemented, will give you peace of mind in the knowledge that you have done what you were hired to do: lead and create a battle-tested tribe of people. Yes, we said battle-tested. However, you’ll have to wait to the final chapter to entirely understand ...