Strategic Leadership Starts with Strategic Thinking
Who are strategic leaders? There’s two answers to this question.
Who are strategic leaders? There’s two answers to this question.
First, strategic leaders are specific people—the executives who sit at the top of an organization. They comprise members of the board of directors, the top management team (TMT), and senior leaders who head major business units, functions, or geographies.
Second, strategic leaders are those managers who think and act strategically. They are known not buy their position, but rather their behavior. They, too, are strategic leaders but by action, not title.
Many leaders aspire to be both—more strategic in their day-to-day work as well as senior leaders rising in their organization. We assert that focusing on the latter—becoming a more strategic leader behaviorally—is the best path to achieving the former—a strategic leadership post. So how does one get from the backroom to the boardroom? According to the authors of Becoming a Strategic Leader: Your Role in Your Organization’s Enduring Success there are three individual skills that are required:
Strategic thinking. The intellectual and social process skills needed to enable a broad understanding of the organization and how it fits (and evolves) with its environment.
Strategic acting. The actions necessary to drive the organization toward its desired future destination despite challenges, obstacles, setbacks, and uncertainties that arise along the way.
Strategic influence. The behaviors needed to gain commitment from stakeholders, both inside and outside the organization, to compel progress toward strategic outcomes.
While each of the three are essential, strategic acting and influence will be of limited value if they are taken absent effective strategic thinking.
Senior leaders are expected to have the conceptual skills needed to not only survive, but thrive in the fast moving VUCAD world—volatile uncertain, complex, ambiguous, and digital. Anyone who wants to ascend the corporate latter will need to be a proven strategic thinker well before they step into those roles.
If you’d like to learn more about strategic thinking, check out the Twelve Skills brief Mastering Strategic Thinking.
Serious about improving your strategic skills? Get the companion guide to the Twelve Skills book the Twelve Skills Strategic Thinking Workbook. Packed with thought provoking activities, hands on exercises, and bonus material, it’s a proven way to boost your knowhow. Best of all, IT’S FREE!
Get your own complimentary copy here.
Think Before You Think Strategically
This might seem like an odd title for a post: Think Before You Think Strategically. You might be asking yourself, “Isn’t this what strategic thinking is all about? Changing the way I think?” It is. But to understand how to improve your approach to analyzing data and information, it helps to take the time to think about how you go about thinking in the first place. Unfortunately, people skip this activity to their detriment. Thinking about how you think—or metacognition as it’s known—is a key ingredient to thinking more effectively.
This might seem like an odd title for a post: Think Before You Think Strategically. You might be asking yourself, “Isn’t this what strategic thinking is all about? Changing the way I think?” It is. But to understand how to improve your approach to analyzing data and information, it helps to take the time to think about how you go about thinking in the first place. Unfortunately, people skip this activity to their detriment. Thinking about how you think—or metacognition as it’s known—is a key ingredient to thinking more effectively. If you’re interested on improving your own metacognition, here’s a few helpful hits to start you thinking.
People Often Aren’t as Smart as They Think. Do you know anyone who, no matter what you say to them, responds with “I knew that already”? There’s a possibility they did, but it’s more likely they’re suffering from a cognitive bias know as the Dunning-Kruger Effect. There’s ample research that shows when people are polled about things like driving, their health, and other behaviors, they rate themselves as well above average. People who are overconfident are especially prone to this bias. A dose of reality is a good starting point for upping your thinking.
You Can Improve Metacognition. Virtually everyone can improve how they think, if they try. There are a variety of resources available to assist. Prompts geared toward planning, monitoring, and evaluating highlight what you’re thinking in real time and encourage reflection when you’ve finished. Other techniques such as polling, conducting self and/or group assessments are beneficial practices too. Keeping a learning or reading log can be especially beneficial.
How You Organize Information Matters. If you do keep a learning log, one of the most effective approaches to structuring how you engage with, and process information, comes from the Cornell Note Taking System. As basic as this sounds, it’s a very effect tool that improves understanding and retention. Sound a little ‘old school’, note taking that is? Maybe. But research shows that writing notes by hand is more effective than with a computer. That said, the Cornell Note Taking System can be adapted for tech users as well. If you’re interested in learning more, The Learning Strategies Center at Cornell offers a free, publicly available online course in Canvas. Even if you’re not interested in taking the course, there’s helpful videos to watch on the site.
Anne Hutchinson one of the early American feminists is quoted as saying, “I have been guilty of wrong thinking.” She is not alone—most of us have. Take the time to explore your own cognition and your ability to think well and strategically will improve.
If you’d like to learn more about strategic thinking, check out the Twelve Skills brief Mastering Strategic Thinking.
Serious about improving your skills? Get the companion guide to the Twelve Skills book the Twelve Skills Strategic Thinking Workbook. Packed with thought provoking activities, hands on exercises, and bonus material, it’s a proven way to boost your knowhow. Best of all, IT’S FREE!
Get your own complimentary copy here.
Tools to Get Started with Strategic Thinking
If strategic thinking is so important, why don’t more people do it? Here are a few ideas on how to jumpstart strategic thinking for yourself and, as importantly, for your team.
If you’re reading this post you probably agree strategic thinking is an essential leadership skill. We at Twelve Skills concur. But it begs the question, “If it’s so important, why don’t more people do it?” There’s a few reasons we’ve come across in our work that are often offered to explain the malaise:
No time—“I just don’t have time to”
No direction—“No one told me to”
No idea—”I don’t know where to start”
Unfortunately, if you really want to get better at strategic thinking you’ll need to:
Find the time—you have more time than you think
Seize the initiative—great leaders make things happen on their own
Engage in skill building—because everyone can improve
Here are a few ideas on how to jumpstart strategic thinking for yourself and, as importantly, for your team:
Understand your context with PESTLE Analysis: Work with your team to define the context you work in. What key factors are shaping your competitive environment? Where might change drivers be coming from? Use the PESTEL analysis to explore your Political, Economic, Societal, Technological, Legal, and Environmental variables. See if the industry analysts agree with you by comparing your work to published analyst reports.
Explore future trends with the Time Cone: Brainstorm the impact of trends from your PESTLE analysis using the Time Cone. Consider what might happen over the short, medium, an long-term horizons. Try to picture, as tangibly as possible, what different futures might look like. And don’t be afraid to look outside your competitive arena to detect potential disruptors or inflection points beyond your normal periphery.
Set up Futurist Discussion Groups: Nature abhors a vacuum, so don’t work in a one. Gather your team to discuss and share what you’re learning together. Prepare for group work by engaging with sources such as pod casts, think tanks, and analyst reports. Facilitate robust dialogue about future trends and what you could be doing now to prepare for their impact.
These are great strategic thinking starting points for any individual. If you’re a team leader or Learning & Development manager, these can especially be powerful tools to help develop talent—and engage senior leaders on topic they’re concerned about. No matter your role, strategic thinking is everyone’s job.
If you’d like to access tools like the Time Cone for yourself or your team, get the companion guide to the Twelve Skills book the Twelve Skills Strategic Thinking Workbook. Packed with thought provoking activities, hands on exercises, and bonus material, it’s a proven way to boost your knowhow. Best of all, IT’S FREE!
Get your own complimentary copy here.
Four Steps to Thinking More Strategically
Senior leaders often wish their managers were more strategic. But it’s hard to think big thoughts when you have operational alligators snapping at your feet every day. Assuming you can shake them loose, the key question then is, ‘How do I get started?’ Here’s a four-step process you can follow to get going.
Senior leaders often wish their managers were more strategic. But it’s hard to think big thoughts when you have operational alligators snapping at your feet every day. Assuming you can shake them loose, the key question then is, “How do I get started?” Here’s a four-step process you can follow to get going.
Gather: Start by collecting and reviewing strategic information pertinent to your business: analyst reports—what the experts are thinking, shareholder reports—what your leaders are saying, articles written about your organization and your competitors—what the observers are seeing. Data like annual reports, employee surveys, customer information, are all great sources most managers have access to. Start there.
Analyze: Next, review this information in depth—that’s what analysis is. Make notes, create summaries—use a tool like a mind map to structure your thoughts. It’s not enough just to explore collected information, you need to structure it to identify trends, patterns, exceptions, major shifts, any insight that might stimulate your thinking about the future.
Project: Then, shift from analysis to creativity. Send your mind into the future by imagining what a future or futures plural could potentially look like. Envision a world where technology plays an even greater role than it does now, where work is vastly different, where existing energy sources yield to new ones, where no language or travel barriers exist, and collaboration is truly global. Picture different scenarios and how they might affect your organization. Shell is a company renowned for their multidecade scenarios—watch how they do it here—Shell Scenarios
Strategize: Finally, consider what actions you would take right now if you were a senior leader preparing for the future you see. Identify what would need to change today to be ready. Think about your products, services, workforce, investments, policies, competitors, stakeholders—any facet of organization life that would need to adapt to prepare for the eventualities of a new frontier.
Does this sound like something you can’t fit into your daily schedule? Good, don’t try. Set aside a time and place for this kind of reflection. Make it a habit and you will benefit from it. Imagine the value when a group of managers do it regularly—or an executive team.
If you’d like to learn more about strategic thinking, check out the Twelve Skills brief Mastering Strategic Thinking as well as all of the other Twelve Skills topics.
Serious about following the process highlighted in this post? Get the companion guide to the Twelve Skills book the Twelve Skills Strategic Thinking Workbook to get started now. Each activity follows the steps to help you boost your strategic thinking skills. Best of all, IT’S FREE!
Get your own complimentary copy here.
What the Best Strategic Thinkers Do
Improving your strategic thinking might sound like a daunting task. With an ever-swelling ocean of information swirling about, it’s dizzying just imagining where to begin. The good news is becoming a great strategic thinker doesn’t start with endless web searches or petabytes of data to get going—it begins with simply setting time aside to think about the future.
Improving your strategic thinking might sound like a daunting task. With an ever-swelling ocean of information swirling about, it’s dizzying just imagining where to begin. The good news is becoming a great strategic thinker doesn’t start with endless web searches or petabytes of data to get going—it begins with simply setting time aside to think about the future.
That sounds easy but it isn’t. When people hear this advice, their response is often: “How do I set aside time to think about the future when I can’t even find time to finish the work I have today?” Here’s three simple steps you can follow to begin carving out the time you need.
Make a Commitment. You’ve probably heard the phrase ‘a journey of a thousand miles starts with the first step.’ But even before you take the first step, you’ll need to make a commitment for the journey. A commitment says—to you especially—becoming a stronger strategic thinker is a priority. The demands of operational work will always crowd out strategic thinking, putting the important at the mercy of the urgent. Those who excel at peering into the future deliberately set aside time today to contemplate what it might look like.
Find a Place. Not everyone does their best thinking in the same way or even in the same place. Some people can find solitude and peace of mind amidst the backdrop of a busy coffee shop. Others need the silence of a library to gain the clarity they need. Regardless of whether your best work is accomplished in the presence of a barista or alone in a quiet study room, locate a place where you can retreat and let your imagination run free.
Set a Routine. It would be wonderful if during your first thinking session you conjured your company’s next big product idea. Wonderful yes; likely, no. Becoming a great strategic thinker requires a routine. To start, block a time as short as 15 minutes on your calendar, every week, (and hold it no matter what) to start developing your point of view about what the future may bring.
As romantic as the blinding flash of insight sounds, most great ideas don’t come that way. It took Thomas Edison thousands of experiments to develop the incandescent lightbulb. Hopefully, your greatest discoveries won’t require that long; but like Edison, they’ll need commitment, a familiar place, and a regular routine to turn your thoughts into your own breakthrough thinking.
If you’d like to learn more about strategic thinking, check out the Twelve Skills brief Mastering Strategic Thinking as well as all of the other Twelve Skills topics.
Serious about improving your skills? Get the companion guide to the Twelve Skills book the Twelve Skills Strategic Thinking Workbook. Packed with thought provoking activities, hands on exercises, and bonus material, it’s a proven way to boost your knowhow. Best of all, IT’S FREE!
Get your own complimentary copy here.