Strategic thinking is the ability to decide which opportunities are worth an investment your time, money and effort, and which are not. It is the ability to select key activities to focus on in specific areas and sideline or abandon the rest. That sounds pretty simple, but in reality many myths persist in the context of strategic thinking. Nick Tasler recently warned against three of them in his article on the Harvard Business Review website.
Myth 1: Strategic thinking is about productivity
"Productivity is about getting things done. Strategic thinking is about getting the right things done well," explains Nick Tasler. If you really want to think strategically you have to be ready to leave work unfinished when it turns out that it is not strategically important. You must be also be able to explain this to others who have invested a lot of time, energy and often even money in that work.
Myth 2: All projects are important
Try to make a list of all the projects you are working on in a team and identify those you consider unimportant. Most teams fail to cross out any project in this exercise because all of them are "important" in some respects. Debates about what is important are, therefore, useless. As a team leader, focus on the strategic contribution of individual projects for the company.
Myth 3: Strategic thinking is only a theory
Strategic thinking is not just a series of ideas in your head you think about, it must be followed by strategic action and specific activities.
-Kk-