What Are the Purposes of Strategic Thinking?
Exemplary leaders prioritize the cultivation of strategic thinking, understanding that this essential skill empowers them to make insightful decisions and actions about the future. Whether planning for the company’s long-term success or preparing to launch a new product next month, strategic thinking is indispensable in running any type of business or organization.
The most skilled tactical thinkers understand that the true purposes of strategic thinking are:
- Analyzing the environment that lies ahead
- Planning how to implement or execute specific required actions
- Problem-Solving from unanticipated issues or obstacles
Organizations can achieve their objectives when leaders help teams successfully embody each aspect of strategic thinking.
The 3 Purposes of Strategic Thinking
The three main purposes of strategic thinking are built around the following.
1. Analyzing
Analysis is a foundational aspect of strategic thinking. The ability to detect opportunities and potential risks is necessary for creating effective plans. These plans could be for a rollout of new technologies, understanding associated risks involved in an undertaking, or other important issues and decisions.
A team may employ different strategic analysis methods, but here are three of the most common approaches:
- SWOT: The strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats method is a great strategy tool for teams with minimal experience in tactical planning. It uses data to show what works and doesn’t for the business—and what to prepare for in the future.
- Four Corners Analysis: This method concentrates on big-picture results to ensure business growth. It prioritizes the company’s core processes, such as operational drivers, the current strategy, management assumptions, and team capabilities. Use this strategy to improve your business from within and stay ahead of competitors.
- Value Chain Analysis: Businesses use this strategy tool to identify the company’s competitive edge compared to others within the industry. Doing so makes it easier to produce or market a uniquely valuable product or service.
2. Planning
Once you have analyzed all the potential issues and variables that lie ahead, it is time to create a strategic plan. Planning is a great opportunity for collaboration and skill growth among team members.
After analyzing the business environment, the team develops several potential scenarios and corresponding plans. Together, the team members compare plans and work toward building a single overarching plan that pulls from the best concepts. The teams input helps to identify factors that affect a plan, such as the competitor environment, industry changes, and consumer behavior.
Implementation, the crucial next step is where the phases of strategic thinking (analysis, decision, and execution) truly shine through leadership. Even a well-crafted plan can falter without effective and efficient execution. A skilled leader demonstrates this by clearly explaining the distribution of tasks, setting expectations, and establishing deliverables for team members to realize the strategy.
Good leaders will listen to and addresses questions or concerns. This gives team members a chance to be heard before moving forward. As the implementation continues, a great leader is available to provide continual guidance, clarification, and maintain open dialogue as the plan unfolds.
3. Problem-Solving
Strategic thinkers balance big-picture goals with smaller action items to ensure successful execution. This is crucial because problems will occur during the planning and implementation stages. Variables change, and your team will need to be prepared to adapt.
Strategic thinkers focus on solutions instead of negative reactions when problems or obstacles emerge. A skilled leader discusses all possibilities with their team before choosing a solution. They also encourage their team members to exercise the pillars of strategic thinking during these discussions.
Depending on what occurred during the planning phase, a strategically minded team may have predicted potential problems and prepared solutions in advance.
Practical problem-solving strategies include:
- Trial and error: Instead of concentrating on finding a single solution, your team tries multiple solutions and notes the results. This is a good choice for complex problems without an established best practice.
- Working backward: This method requires your team to imagine that you have solved the issue and then work backward to reach that solution. Once the process is complete, a plan will emerge that can be put into place.
- Using a previous solution: Have any team members encountered a similar problem? You may be able to learn and build from a previous strategy to solve the current dilemma.
Read 5 Key Elements of Strategic Thinking Examples to guide your team during the problem-solving phase.
Improve Strategic Thinking for All Team Members
A team of strategic thinkers can significantly improve your business outcomes. Team members will be able to look at the big picture and brainstorm solutions more effectively.
Bridge skill gaps with CMOE’s targeted skill development solutions. Our 45 years of experience spans a wide range of industries and skill levels. We will empower your leaders and individual contributors to grow with our strategy development services.
