The reason why I am curious about asking Executive Leaders what Strategic Thinking means is because it has so many different meanings to different leaders.

First, Strategic Thinking is different than Strategic Planning!

For now, I will leave out what Strategic Planning means and focus on creating clarity about what Strategic Thinking means.

At Awesome Journey Strategic Thinking means: “The purpose of Strategic Thinking is to make conscious choices that will give your organization Sustainable Competitive Advantages by taking a long-term view (3 years to 10 years) to become successful at achieving a vision, a goal or a commitment.”

The Four Components of Strategic Thinking are:

Direction

Question: Where are we going?

A Strategic Thinker is constantly asking themselves where are we going (get focused), along with: does everyone in the company know the direction of where we are going (creating clarity)?

Why is creating clarity of direction so important to being a Strategic Thinker? Because all organizations only have so many resources (people, time, capital) to create the future they want. If everyone in the organization is clear about the direction, then the leadership team can align the organization’s resources to execute the strategy well.

Differentiation

Question: What makes us different? How will we be successful?

When I am thinking strategically, I am constantly looking and listening for information that will support the organization being different. A quality strategic thinker is constantly seeking what we call, “market understanding” to gather intel (data) to support the question of “How will we be successful?” The three pillars of “market understanding” are:

1. Major trends
2. Client insights
3. Competitive analysis

Discipline

Question: What data & details do we care about to support us in being successful?

A quality Strategic Thinker is constantly asking themselves what data & details do we as an organization need, to focus on, to be able to execute our strategic plan with velocity. Three key areas that a Strategic Thinker focuses on as it relates to being disciplined (data & details) are:

Counting

What data are we reviewing in our organization to ensure that our business is healthy?

1. Finances
2. Sales
3. Operational Excellence
4. Client Feedback

Project Management

Flawless execution is really all about being disciplined to quality project management! What is the data telling us about project management? Are projects on budget? Are projects on time? What projects are working well and which projects are not working well?

Processes

Are the organization’s processes and systems making it easy for staff to deliver extraordinary service to our clients?

Patience

Two key components to being patient with a Strategic Plan (a long-term plan of 3 to 5 years) being executed are:

Trust

Question: Where do I need to exercise trust such that I can be patient that our long-term strategic plan is being executed?

1. Trust my listening
2. Trust my team
3. Trust our processes (ie. Decision Making & Communication)
4. Trust my expertise
5. Trust our product and service offering
6. Trust our data
7. Trust your intuition by testing your promptings

Space

Question: Where do I need to create space (be patient) to allow things in our organization to grow and develop?