You’re a Peer Support professional. How can you use strategic thinking to build a stronger team?

2 Know your context and stakeholders

Another aspect of strategic thinking is to be aware of the context and stakeholders that affect your peer support work. What are the policies, regulations, and standards that guide your practice? What are the needs, expectations, and preferences of the people you support and work with? How do you communicate and collaborate with them? By knowing your context and stakeholders, you can adapt your approach, tailor your services, and build trust and rapport.

3 Explore opportunities and challenges

Strategic thinking also involves exploring the opportunities and challenges that you face as a peer support professional. What are the trends, issues, and innovations that impact your field? What are the gaps, barriers, and risks that hinder your effectiveness? How do you cope with change and uncertainty? By exploring the opportunities and challenges, you can anticipate scenarios, identify solutions, and seize opportunities.

4 Apply critical and creative thinking

To be a strategic thinker, you need to apply critical and creative thinking to your peer support work. Critical thinking is the ability to evaluate information, arguments, and evidence objectively and logically. Creative thinking is the ability to generate new ideas, perspectives, and possibilities. How do you use both types of thinking to solve problems, make decisions, and innovate? By applying critical and creative thinking, you can enhance your reasoning, judgment, and imagination.

5 Reflect and learn from experience

The final element of strategic thinking is to reflect and learn from your experience as a peer support professional. Reflection is the process of examining your actions, thoughts, and feelings and how they affect your outcomes. Learning is the process of acquiring new knowledge, skills, and attitudes from your experience. How do you reflect and learn from your successes and failures? By reflecting and learning, you can improve your practice, grow as a professional, and share your insights.

Strategic thinking is a valuable skill that can help you as a peer support professional. By using strategic thinking, you can build a stronger team with your peers, supervisors, and other stakeholders. You can also enhance your effectiveness, satisfaction, and resilience in your role.

6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?