The 4th Option Coaches Network
Be a Trusted
Strategic Advisor
Help clients design strategies that deliver bold results.
Master a proven methodology.
Our coaches achieve tangible results for their clients:
Annual growth rate acceleration
Incremental annual revenue created to date
Join the community now or sign up for a free trial session
Our coaches achieve tangible results for their clients:
Annual growth rate acceleration
Incremental annual revenue created to date
Trusted by today’s leading corporations
The 4th Option Network
The 4th Option Network is a global community of strategy business coaches. We are trusted strategic advisors committed to helping business leaders generate breakthrough strategic options, build bolder strategies, and execute with strategic clarity. Collectively, we have generated far in excess of $2.5 billion in incremental annual revenue for clients by applying strategic tools and frameworks proven to work.
Whether you are an independent business coach, a consultant inside and established firm, or a change maker, explorer, or intrapreneur inside an established organization, we invite you to join us.
Tools, insights, and peer support to reach your full coaching potential
- Monthly virtual “Junto” with Kaihan and peers to network and learn
- Members-only platform filled with a portfolio of strategy tools, guides, and tactics
- Live access to Kaihan Krippendorff and other strategy thought-leaders
- Chances to share feedback and tips with peer coaches
- Deep-dive, targeted training in key tools (e.g., in strategic tools and methodologies)
- Monthly briefs on the latest trends, books, and concepts in strategy and innovation
Why experienced coaches join
- Generate breakthrough ideas
- Build bolder strategies
- Be the disruptor, not the disrupted
- Stay on the cutting-edge of strategic thought
- Master proven tools and techniques
- Build your strategic repertoire
- 4th Option Practitioner designation
- Content and collateral to market your practice
- Collaboration and sub-contracting opportunities with other coaches
- Clarify strategic objectives
- Make the right strategic choices
- Execute with clarity
- From Kaihan Krippendorff’s Outthink the Competition
- From Kaihan Krippendorff’s Driving Innovation from Within
- From today’s leading strategic thinkers and authors
- Start with tools, guides, and agendas that work
- Spend less time preparing … more time delivering
- Serve more clients in less time
- Direct access to Kaihan (through monthly live sessions and an active community chat)
- Updates on the latest in strategy
- Stay connected with today’s leading strategic thinkers and authors
- Use strategy to create greater freedom and flexibility
- Help clients realize higher order goals
- Surround yourself with top-tier strategy coaches
- Share insights and best practices
- Get tips and advice from people who have your best interest at heart
Who is this for?
The 4th Option Network is designed to serve:
- Business coaches who want to bring more value to their clients.
- Facilitators who work to future-proof their clients’ ventures
- Trainers and team coaches eager to learn the latest facilitation techniques.
- Strategy and innovation experts who see possibilities where others see roadblocks.
4th Option (n.): The option beyond the obvious strategic options
The idea that led Wal-Mart to build stores in rural America when the common wisdom was to build in cities with street traffic
The idea that led Apple to focus on design and aesthetics when other computer companies were focused on performance
The idea that Dell to sell computers directly to consumers when all computer companies sold through dealers
The idea that led Tesla to offer a high-performance electric vehicle when the industry was convinced EVs needed to start at the low-end
The 4th Option is the source of all advances in strategy and performance.
The 4th Option Framework
Based on Kaihan’s best-selling book, Outthink the Competition, the 4th Option Framework has been applied to over 400 companies from start-ups to mid-market growth to Fortune 500 corporations. On average it accelerates growth rates by 50% and collectively has generated over $2.5 billion in annual new revenue. Its tools help you address five phases, and correct five common pitfalls, of the strategy process.
Different thinking is only needed when you have a problem you cannot solve with the current way of thinking. So, when you set up your strategy discussion, start by setting an impossible goal.
We all tend to look in the same areas of the problem for a solution. Marketers look at marketing strategies, technologists at product innovations, and human resource people at HR strategies. None of us are immune to the pull of the familiar. So, before you start ideating, step back, dissect the problem, and focus your team on the less-obvious points of leverage. As part of this process, during our Outthinker workshops, we help you apply a framework of eight places to look called the “8Ps:” product, pricing, placement, promotion, positioning, processes, physical experience, and people.
The more ideas you generate, the more likely you are to find a breakthrough idea. Unfortunately, too often we narrow down too early, so have too few ideas to pick from. By applying “strategic narratives” – essentially patterns of strategy – to your problem, you can naturally generate a greater number of more innovative ideas. During our Outthinker workshops, we help you brainstorm ideas by walking you through a catalog of 36 strategic narratives such as move early to the next battleground, coordinate what is uncoordinated, or create something out of nothing.
Having brainstormed many potential strategies, the next step is to sort through and select which ideas your team will advance with. Because your most disruptive ideas will initially look impossible (remember Roger Martin’s warning that you can kill off any new idea by asking to “prove it”), you need to sort through your ideas in a particular way, giving your team time to suspend judgment on the seemingly “crazy” ideas. You will often find that an idea you were about to laugh off as a joke actually reveals itself as remarkably promising in just ten minutes of exploration.
The key difference between successful serial innovators and frustrated ones is that the successful ones view the political challenge as part of the problem-solving process. So the final stage, as you are working with your team, is to lay out an influencing strategy: identify the stakeholders (investors, partners, colleagues, gatekeepers) you need and thinking through how to get them on board.
Ambitious coaches love the community
About Kaihan
Kaihan Krippendorff is the founder of Outthinker Networks, a global think-tank of chief strategy, innovation, growth, and transformation officers and executives of large public, private, and Fortune 500 companies.
A former McKinsey consultant and author of bestselling books including Outthink the Competition, Driving Innovation from Within, and Proximity, Kaihan is recognized by Thinkers50 and Global Gurus as one of the top 20 global management thinkers in strategy and innovation.
Known for rigorously researched tools and engaging programs, Kaihan is an innovation catalyst and sought-after strategic advisor for some of the world’s most recognizable companies including Aetna-CVS, JP Morgan, Lockheed Martin, Bank of America, Procter & Gamble, IBM, and Yahoo!. His work has created in excess of $3.0 billion of new annual recurring revenue.
Kaihan is host of the Outthinkers podcast, The Chief Strategy Officer Podcast, and Strategy at Scale podcast. His ideas are frequently published in Harvard Business Review, Fast Company, and other leading media outlets. He teaches strategy and innovation for Wharton Executive Education, Florida International University, NYU, and other programs across the globe. Kaihan is an advisory board member of two technology startups.