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

Chapter 5

The Zebras and Cheetahs Model: Making Growth Simple, Engaging, and Fun

Now that you are equipped with a compass, guided by unique perspective and mindset, and driven by a dominant focus, you are able to take on the concrete jungle’s challenging landscape.

But having the compass only acts as a guide. It’s not time to spring into action! To ultimately become a Z&C Leader, you must first shape public perception by leveraging the channels around you to successfully highlight your unique perspective, education, experience, and qualities. You must become more than the person carrying the compass; you must also use it to devise a map that persuades and allows others to follow you through the concrete jungle. In essence, you must become a person that others have heard about and need to know.

In this chapter, we turn you into a concrete cartographer—that is, we teach you how to use the Z&C Model and the compass to create a map that will effectively lead your tribe in the concrete jungle. We give you five simple yet effective map-making tools that are simplistic and effective to create the Model. But before we do, let’s introduce some concepts that will help you become a good mapmaker.

Shine Bright like the Sun

Most people know of Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543), the Renaissance-era astronomer who first proposed that the Sun, not the Earth, was the center of the universe. His book, On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres, is considered the foundation of modern astronomy and ...