Our Approach -
The AIM Framework
&
The Ideas Lab

At Brilliant Thinking, we change the way our clients think. This is done via three programmes - The Retainer Model, The AIM Framework and the Ideas Lab. Each have different time frames, each have different outcomes.

THE RETAINER MODEL

As the name suggests, Felix joins you - the CEO or the Senior Leadership Team - on an ongoing basis - weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, whatever works. (Our longest client is 13 years and counting.) This means identifying your goals and dreams, working towards them, whilst also tackling the business-as-usual pain points and opportunities that come up along the way.

Brilliant thinking is put into practice every session. Pushing ourselves towards the goals that scare us because we had lost sight of the art of the possible. Lack of imagination is the biggest flaw we see in companies. That won't happen when we work together. Imagination will be your edge.

We believe we learn better and faster through the doing. We don't aim to change you as a person, we aim to change your company's fortunes and in so doing - we guarantee - you will change too.

Whilst the default is to hit the ground running, you might have a fixed or more fundamental problem you want addressed. In this case, instead of the retainer model, you might want a project-based approach. Then you would want our other models.

THE AIM FRAMEWORK

This is a shorter, more intense programme - tailored to your particular needs - which sees us take our clients from a 'Good enough' mindset to a 'What's the absolute best we can do here?' mindset.

The AIM Framework programme breaks down into:

AGITATION. We ask the difficult questions that take our clients out of their comfort zone, to break through the thinking they find themselves stuck in.
IMAGINATION. Then we put every idea on the table with a boundary-pushing brainstorm that arrives at bigger and bolder decisions.
MOTIVATION. Finally, we give our clients the confidence required - the shot in the arm - to go and execute on their new plans. Execution and accountability are key.

Where your people would benefit from team-building, this is also included.

This framework isn’t just a consulting approach—it’s a system for changing how companies think, decide, and act.

This is a longer programme. The AIM Framework lights the touchpaper for long-term change. However, we have to be realistic about the process of real systemic change: truly rewiring habits and brains requires something, frankly, deeper.

THE IDEAS LAB

We all know how common it is for a company to embark on a change, only for it to fall by the wayside as events engulf the company once more.

...And to change the way we think and act? That is more fundamental than structural reorganisation, more than new processes and procedures. To overhaul mindsets, to put in place a new culture, a new way of thinking, after years of increasingly narrower vision requires something deeper.

To this end, The Ideas Lab sees Felix Riley embedded part-time at your company for a limited period. Once there he runs an Ideas Lab which your brightest and best are rotated through - or any other configuration, as you see fit. Here, staff bring all and any company challenges to the lab to be thrashed out in the new, more creative brainstorming environment.

Crucially, The Ideas Lab is a profit centre.

The outcomes - bolder and more creative than before - are dedicated to interrogating your clients more creatively, to solving their problems more creatively, to identifying opportunities for them - and yourselves - more creatively. The Ideas Lab exists to transform the mindsets of your people and by doing so boost the bottom line.

Why an Ideas Lab?

Because research - and experience - has shown that to fundamentally change the behaviours and mindsets of a large group of people is not done in the learning, but is done in the 'doing'. It is something that has to be lived until it has become second nature.

How Long Does The Ideas Lab Last?

It can be anywhere from 4 months to 12. Felix can be embedded one, two, three days a week - depending on his availability and whatever realises the best outcomes for your company.

"I hear and I forget, I see and I remember, I do and I understand" -

Confucius

THE 80/20 RULE OF BRILLIANT THINKING

The 80/20 rule - the Pareto Principle - is true. 80% of your company's value - of your output's value - comes from around 20% of what you do. If that 20% is merely good enough, you'll get merely good enough results. If, however, it is full of brilliant thinking your company, profits, and employee morale will grow exponentially.

It would be exhausting for every last detail of your company to be brilliant - but that last 20% has to aspire to be. That's where the opportunities are - that's your edge. And that's where I come in. The AIM Framework allows you to re-examine and re-imagine what you are doing and how you are doing it to get a new, improved and revitalised approach to your business.

WHY US?

Brilliant Thinking is headed up by Felix Riley. Felix has worked in the City, launched and sold a start-up, sat on the Global Executive of an NYSE-listed brokerage, turned companies around, acted as a business strategist, coach and motivator to C-level execs for over a decade and, during a brief spell in copper mining in Zambia, had two meetings with President Banda to (successfully) negotiate a mining licence. He understands the realities of business.

Also... Felix was a comedy writer, briefly a stand-up, the writer on the Zoe Ball Radio 1 Breakfast Show, then, much later, had two thrillers published with Penguin. He has a creative mind and a creative outlook.

Felix has also been a regular contributor to Bloomberg News, CNBC Europe, BBC Radio 5 Live, as well as heading up City roadshows and giving countless speeches over his lifetime. He has strong communication skills.

WHAT CAN WE DO FOR YOU?

The AIM Framework and The Ideas Lab both start with thinking. It all starts with you and your team understanding what is limiting their thinking, why they are so cautious, then learning how to think of the best ideas possible in your space. Then you're working on brilliant ideas... And then you're getting brilliant results.

We help teams to do their best thinking - their brilliant thinking. We help scale up companies and organisations. We help underperforming companies become outperforming ones. We do this by changing how people think - motivating and teaching them to think bigger, to zoom out to see the bigger picture, then to zero back in on what really matters.

We do this through talks, workshops and ongoing programmes, by making time with leaders and key players to say, "Let's stop and do our best thinking - our brilliant thinking."

Clients have called Felix a creative disruptor, somebody who holds them to account, but they would also all say this - and we know this is a very odd dimension to highlight: Everybody Felix works with says that he make them feel more confident, happier, even. One client recently said, “Why don't you write a book called, ‘You’ve Got This’?”