What Does it Mean to Think Strategically?

June 14, 2020 Employee Performance and Coaching, Project Management

5. Asking Challenging Questions

Strategic thinking requires one to ask challenging questions – of themselves and their team – on a regular basis.

Challenging ourselves and our employees through difficult questions can dramatically enhance the quality of one’s analysis and sharpen decision-making for a given issue.

Here are some examples of challenging questions you may wish to ask:

Why is this the right approach?
If this doesn’t go our way, what will our next move be? What is our fallback plan?
What are we are missing here? What have we not considered?
Even if they require more effort, are there any other options that can improve the outcome?
What ultimately needs to occur before we can call this complete?

Even when there is no clear answer, continuously challenging yourself and your team is a highly effective approach to problem solving and project execution.

6. Welcome and Apply Innovative Ideas to Problems

Next on our list is the notion of applying innovative ideas to problem solving. Thinking strategically often drives one to seek better or more efficient ways of doing things, even if it means taking chances and calculated risks. Again, it’s about improving the outcome, if not for today, then for tomorrow.

Applying innovative ideas means:

Welcoming new ideas from the team
Trying new ways of tackling a routine issue
Being willing to take chances if there is reasonable confidence of success
Testing theories and not accepting norms as the end-all-be-all
Finding creative and adaptive solutions to a regular occurrence to make them more efficient.

To get your employees to think and act strategically, encourage them to take chances and explore new ideas. Even if they make mistakes, it’s essential they get comfortable taking calculated risks.

7. Define Goals, Identify Roadblocks and Seek Opportunities

Goal setting is not unique to strategic minds – all of us set goals every day. However, because strategic thinking drives you to look out beyond the immediate tasks, it also enables you to better define goals for yourself and others. Additionally, looking further ahead enhances your ability to identify potential roadblocks as well as possible enablers along the way.

Here are some ways you can improve how you identify goals, roadblocks and issues:

If we take a step back and look at the overall activity, what does “Good” look like to us?
What are our key risks? How might this go wrong?
What opportunities do we have to eliminate risks and make things go smoothly?
Where is the finish line and how will we know when we arrive?
Upon completion, how do we want to look back on this?

8. Develop and Apply Perspective

Observing and identifying trends throughout the course of business allows us to formulate perspective. Leaders can then use this perspective to look at a given situation through many lenses. In doing so, we can make quality and calculated decisions about future situations.

One can develop and apply perspective by:

Identifying historical trends and patterns that can be applied to other projects and activities.
Using experience and lessons learned to identify and predict future hazards.
Considering the last instance(s) of the current situation. How might we go about this differently?

9. Perform Comparative Analysis

Another core component of thinking strategically is to routinely and deliberately make comparative analyses that calibrate our actions with other data points.

For instance, if you’re planning a new project estimate, doing a comparative analysis would mean looking at prior projects to calibrate the data, the assumptions and the level of effort.

You can improve your ability to perform comparative analyses by considering these questions:

What other examples can you identify that compare to the current activity?
What tells you that this approach is valid?
Do the assumptions for the current task align with assumptions made in other cases?
How can we calibrate this information to ensure it is directionally accurate?

10. Deliberate Communication and Decision Making

The last core pillar of thinking strategically involves how you engage and interact with those around you. Strategic thinking requires a deliberate communication style to synthesize key messages. This includes framing the background, defining the current state, setting the stage, and casting a vision for where the team needs to go.

Here are some examples of deliberate communication that can organize others:

Focusing others: “Yes those details are important, but before we get to that, what’s the next step?”
Looking at what is to come (say, 6 to 12 months from now): “Ultimately, what do we want to happen? What can we do now to ensure that happens?”
Not dwelling on past and moving forward: “We are where we are, how do we take this information and proceed?”
Getting the team to think creatively: “We have several opportunities here. How can we capitalize on them to make this better next time?

Deliberate communication is as much about strategic thinking as it is great leadership.

How to Think and Act Strategically

Examining these core pillars illustrates that much of what it means to think and act strategically is about how we, along with our employees, approach and make decisions. It requires we think big picture, in order to look further out on the horizon at what is to come. By being future-oriented, examining alternatives, and welcoming new ideas, we can take inventive approaches that will enhance the end results.