Tools for Effective Strategic Thinking
In order to engage yourself in strategic thinking, it is necessary to think and reflect on the big picture, players and on the forces available in your competitive environment. Be hopeful for the future. Right brain should be used for wisdom and intuition, and left brain should be used for planning. As stated by Sir Isaac Newton, “truth is the offspring of silence and meditation.”
Here are some tips and tools for the effective strategic thinking:
- You need to think of setting up the barriers to protect your business, relationship between your consumers, suppliers and the distributors. You should be careful in giving away your capital.
- You should provide sufficient information to your leaders regarding the market, customers, new technologies and the competitors that can have an impact on your business. One of the essential elements in strategic thinking is having desired information that can help leaders in increasing their thinking beyond day-to-day.
- You should connect the managers with the mentors. The most effective tool to develop your strategic thinking skills is that you are led by someone who is highly strategic. A good mentor is known because of his capabilities of keeping people focused on their strategic objectives.
- The individuals need to be informed of what is taking place inside the organizations. Effective strategic thinking needs shared information across all levels; in this way cross-sectional teams can also work on the core strategic issues and their contribution needs to be shared across the organization in order to achieve better results.
- Well written organizational philosophy, mission and objective statement need to be communicated through the organization. People and groups need to comprehend more extensive hierarchical technique keeping in mind the end goal to remain engaged and consolidated into their own plans and procedures.
- Reward strategic thinkers who help to keep away issues, discourage emergency management in organizational culture, and energize expecting opportunities. For instance, the director is compensated for having the capacity to rapidly produce a few responses for the given issue and recognizing the solution with the long-term benefit for an organization.
- Share foresight with workers by fusing it into preparing and developing programs; explain the meaning of strategic thinking to individuals, and urge them to ask "why" and "when." When a director proposes strategy, the manager can request to ask the fundamental strategic objective of the activity, and the certain effect on inside and outside stakeholders.
- Be vigilant of being overconfident. In spite of the fact that certainty can be praiseworthy in many situations, excessive certainty can create conflict with regard to making sound judgments. You must know about different options and perspectives but do not wind up blinded to them in view of an inclination to be careless.
- Development of strategic approach is not an easy task, but its outcome can form the difference between an average and exceptional leader. You need to create thinking space. Appreciate the leader to set time for strategic thinking at least on a monthly basis. Utilize this opportunity to reproduce, research, thought and dream, not to "do" things. Few leaders require a little help to utilize the time for the given task. But once they begin this training, they treasure the time and monitor it defensively.
- You need to employ new ways of learning and thinking like a divergent and convergent thinker. The divergent thinker envisions the future and any opportunity towards any direction, and intentionally separates it from the ordinary while suspending feedback and judgment; the outcome is based on a large number of thoughts, even wild ones. Whereas the convergent thinker reduces the number of options to the most preferred choice through the logic, reasoning, analysis, argument and criticism. Less appealing possibilities are removed in order to choose and form the path forward.