A Five-Step Approach to Sharpen Your Strategic Thinking Skills

One of the biggest hurdles to overcome as you ascend in leadership is the transition from tactical doer to strategic thinker. It’s the paradox of leadership success. Your ability to execute is how you’ve always gotten results. The reward for good performance is the opportunity to take on more responsibility. Yet, as your career accelerates and you move up in the leadership ranks, your ability to think and act strategically is the price of entry and a key to success.

We work with a lot of leaders who know they need to strengthen their strategic muscle, but they’re not even sure what strategic thinking is, let alone how to improve it. Where do you begin?

First, let’s agree on what strategy is. We think of it as deciding where and how you will win. The key is understanding how you decide. What do you need to know? Where do you find it? What is the thought process? The inherent complexity and uncertainty combined with the risk of unintended consequences can stump people. 

Here’s the good news, with practice you can improve your ability to think strategically. So, let’s break it down. Here are five steps you can take to hone your strategic thinking skills:

1. Let go of busyness and walk away. This first step is foundational to all the rest. The familiarity and comfort of solving today’s problems and getting things done is where you’ve always succeeded. It’s the safe zone. So, you convince yourself there’s no time to step away. On the contrary. If strategic thinking is your goal you must master your ability to break free periodically from the day-to-day in order to think more broadly, beyond your functional area and onto the  bigger picture. When he was running Microsoft, Bill Gates was known to take entire weeks off to ruthlessly prioritize and ponder solutions, not deal with problems. If Gates can let go of busyness to reflect so can you.
   
2. Make time to learn by looking outside. When companies get tripped up or feel blindsided by a strategic shift in the market it’s often because they were not paying attention. Insular thinking is the culprit. While they were focused internally, opportunities and shifts were signaling externally. When is the last time you raised their head to look at industry and economic trends that effect your business? What about the competition? Who’s winning market share? How are customer needs changing? Strategic thinkers make it a regular practice to look outside. This act alone fuels learning that in turn stimulates new ideas and innovation. Try it. You might be surprised by what is kindled.
   
3. Pressure test assumptions and biases. The death nell for a strategic idea can be our own predispositions and beliefs. “We’ve always done it this way.” “We tried that, and it didn’t work.” Strategic thinkers recognize that all perspectives are valid. They purposefully consider a spectrum of viewpoints, from the optimists and dreamers to the contrarians, and everything in between. They listen attentively with an open mind and ask insightful questions that challenge  people to think more deeply, validate presumptions and verify the facts. Strategic thinkers also know that short-term thinking can become a barrier to forward momentum, so they carefully and intentionally consider opportunities through the lens of long-term risk and reward.
   
4. Interpret patterns and connections.  As you adopt the disciplines of walking away, looking outside and challenging assumptions, it’s imperative that you take time to step back and pay attention to emerging patterns and themes. Ask yourself – What do I see? Are there commonalities or connections? Is there anything we can leverage? Harvard Business Review says strategic people create connections between ideas, plans, and people that others fail to see. This step of identifying and interpreting patterns and discovering connections will give you the 20-20 vision to find the critical clues to strategic opportunity.  
   
5. Find a partner. This is the most effective way to accelerate your progress. Who do you know that is proven to be a strategic thinker? Enlist them to be your accountability partner. It needs to be someone who’s invested in your success and able to observe your behavior on a regular basis. Let them know that you’re working on your own strategic thinking skills. Ask if they would be willing to provide feedback and tips along the way. Establishing this type of feedback loop will pay dividends and fast-track your strategic growth.

Each of these steps requires practice. If something doesn’t come naturally it can become a discipline like any other. No one step is more important than the others. Rather, all five together provide a comprehensive approach to improving your strategic thinking skills. Remember, habit precedes mastery. Make strategic thinking your habit.