Is strategic thinking alive and well in your business?

Strategic thinking is hard. It needs to be cultivated.

→ This is the first in a 7-part series on building strategic capacity in your organization. Read Part 2 here.←

THINK ON IT: Is strategic thinking alive and well in your business? 

Think back to the last time you made a decision for your business. It could have been two minutes ago, honestly. But think about the last time you had to evaluate an option and make a choice to go in one direction or another. 

Did you run it through your strategy first? 

Do you even have a strategy to act as a filter to run choices through? 

If you don’t have a clear strategy and you’re not using it to help make decisions, then you’re reacting, not acting. Opportunism has become your business strategy. 

And opportunism is — in reality — the chief enemy of strategy.

When you have tactics but no clear strategy, every opportunity feels like one you should take because it feels like you should be reacting to everything that comes your way. But you can’t make progress toward a clearly defined vision or in keeping with a brand promise if you run your business helter-skelter in every direction just because that direction looks good at the present moment in time. 

Strategic thinking is the opposite of opportunism. Strategic thinking looks like having a plan and tactics to support that plan, then running every opportunity through the filter of “Will this help us advance our mission and meet our goals?”

If the answer isn’t yes, then it is not a strategic move. 

Strategy should be a dynamic force in your business, not a static one. While you don’t shift strategy every day, it is tested every day. Strategic leaders assess their operational decisions through the lens of strategic impact.

Building a consistent habit of strategic thinking throughout your company isn’t easy. It’s natural to gravitate to the easy solution or opportunity that presents itself, regardless of the impact it may have on your longer term objectives. 

To guard your strategy, your team needs to be honing their strategic thinking skills. In future posts, we’ll be diving into how to do that.

Wondering how to assess the level of strategic thinking in your business? Paid subscribers, read on to discover three sure-fire indicators of healthy strategic thinking. (Become a paid subscriber.)

“The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do.” — Michael Porter, Ph. D., Economist & Researcher 

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