Embrace the strategic thinking mindset

- We spend a lot of our lives being told what to do. You're not going to do very well in grade school if you're constantly questioning the teacher and asking, "Why are we doing it this way? "Wouldn't it be easier to do it this other way?" So it can be hard to rewire ourselves once we graduate and enter the work world. In fact, for quite a while, it doesn't even seem necessary. What you're praised for and promoted for in the early days is being able to master tasks quickly and execute what you're told to do. Write that report according to the standard format? Check. Design that PowerPoint, process that customer claim, get that mailing out the door? Check, check, check. But your success at doing what you're told is actually misleading. It's great in the early days, but if you keep doing it, your career is going to stagnate, stall, and eventually decline. What's useful in the early part of your career and absolutely mandatory later on is the ability to embrace strategic thinking. And what I mean by that is asking higher-level questions that keep the future and your priorities in mind. A tactical question is, how should I do this? Strategic questions would be things like, should I be doing this at all? What should I be doing that's most likely to help achieve the result I want? Strategic thinking is mandatory for leaders, because it enables you to be sure you're moving in the right direction. So if you want to lead, whether it's an organization or a team, or even just your yourself effectively, it's a skill you have to cultivate. So, how do you do it? First of all, recognize that it's not a one-time activity where you create a strategy and follow it forever. Because conditions change, your strategy needs to change with it, and that means strategic thinking, reevaluating new information, and adapting accordingly needs to become an ongoing way of life. Second, get in the habit of strategic thinking by using this quick framework which I call CAN, C-A-N. Ask yourself regularly: clear, am I clear on what I should be doing right now? Align, does it align with the long-term priorities that I or my team have identified? New information, is there new information that ought to be considered, like a change in market conditions or new technological developments? Taking a quick pulse regularly and answering those questions will enable you to ensure you're moving in the right direction and not missing something important. To further cultivate the strategic mindset, think about how you can leverage the following activities. Questioning assumptions. Why do we do it that way? If you can interrogate habits and practices in a targeted way, you can often uncover new ideas and efficiencies that others simply have never thought about. Why are we filling out two forms? Couldn't they actually be combined? Wouldn't orientation be more efficient if the second half took place in a field office? Whatever it is, sometimes asking targeted questions can unlock great potential. Next is observing. So much of modern corporate life is about doing, about moving faster, quicker, and making more things happen. Of course, there's a place for that, but that bias means we're also missing opportunities on the other end. If we spend all our time doing, it means we're not really in a position to observe others, whom we can learn from, or ourselves, which means we can't properly refine what we're doing. Even more critically, we're not observing the big picture, the macro trends and the way the pieces of organizational life fit together. Seeing that, seeing what others aren't even looking at can often give you unique insights about where and how you and your company can gain strategic advantage. Finally, there's reflecting. For my book "Stand Out," I interviewed David Allen, the productivity guru and author of "Getting Things Done." He told me something interesting. To have a breakthrough idea, it doesn't take time, it takes space. What he meant was that a sparkling insight can happen in an instant. We've all experienced that sometimes, but it happens too rarely because we're too busy and too preoccupied to let it happen. We have to clear the decks mentally, and that means learning to be present and reflect on what we've experienced, kick around new ideas, and sit with our thoughts. That's how creativity happens. Questioning assumptions, observing, and reflecting are how we can begin to adopt the mindset of strategic thinking.