Hey :)
I’ve realised over the years that I rely on a small handful of mental models again and again in my work.
I’ve realised over the years that I rely on a small handful of mental models again and again in my work.
Not because I read them somewhere and decided to adopt them, but because I kept bumping into the same problems with clients and needed a way to think clearly when things felt stuck.
One of those models is inversion.
I come back to it a lot. Almost daily.
The pattern usually looks something like this.
Someone wants to change something in their business. Create something new. Innovate. Simplify. Grow. Reset. Pick your word.
But almost immediately, the conversation gets constrained by the past.
“What we’ve always done is…”
“This won’t work because the team…”
“We can’t do that because this person wouldn’t be able to…”
“That would break the way the business currently runs.”
And before we’ve even explored what’s possible, the future has been quietly vetoed by history.
What’s interesting is that people don’t think they’re stuck in the past. They think they’re being realistic. Sensible. Responsible.
But what they’re often doing is allowing the current shape of the business — or decisions made years ago — to dictate what’s possible next.
That’s where inversion comes in.
Instead of asking:
“What can we do given how the business works today?”
I’ll often slow things down and flip the question entirely.
“What does the future of this business actually need?”
“If we were building for where this business needs to be in a year or two, what would that version of the business require from us today?”
“If we could temporarily forget how things currently work, what becomes possible?”
That single switch changes everything.
Because now the present is no longer sacred.
Roles can change.
Processes can be broken.
Assumptions can be questioned.
People might need to grow into something new — or accept that something old no longer fits.
And yes, that can feel uncomfortable.
But it’s also where real innovation lives.
What I see time and time again is that people try to create the future without disturbing the present. They want change that doesn’t force any meaningful change.
And that’s usually why they stay stuck.
When you design from the future back, instead of the past forward, you give yourself permission to create solutions that actually serve where you’re going — not protect where you’ve been.
This comes up whether I’m working with a leadership team, a founder, or someone internally. The moment someone genuinely starts thinking, “What does the future version of this business need?” the conversation opens up.
Energy changes.
Ideas expand.
Constraints loosen.
Not because the problems magically disappear — but because the frame has shifted.
For me, that’s what a good mental model does.
It doesn’t give you answers.
It gives you a better way of asking questions.
And inversion — especially future-back thinking — is one of the simplest, most reliable ways I know to help people stop negotiating with the past and start building something deliberately.
🗣️👀
Chris.
Chris.