CONTEXT – Demanding Creative Change

My heart goes out to all in the path of Hurricane Ida and the raging wildfires on the West Coast. Even if you are not in the direct path, the impacts of these disasters are far and wide. For example, the smoke moves to make air quality unsafe to be outside even if you are located miles and miles away from the fires.

These two catastrophic events impact many ~ everyone having little to no control over the situation. They have to pay attention to these dynamic situations to make life-saving decisions.

7 Week Strategic Thinking Exercise

We continue the Strategic Thinking Exercise from last week. Check out the prompt below for journaling, contemplation, and discussion. This exercise works for you as an individual, a focused team, or an entire organization/business.

?Week 2: CONTEXT

This week of the Strategic Thinking Exercise, I invite you to take stock of your context - all those things happening around you/your organization or business.

Prompt for CONTEXT

• What do I/we notice around me/us?
• What do you see from the corner of your eye that is not yet in your face, but emerging from the distance?
• What's happening around me/us that demands creative change?

Think of all the astounding context we have lived through over the last 18 months+. What's most amazing is that it has driven innovations and new approaches because people were attentive to their immediate and dawning contexts.

A few tips:

1. Many voices help you see more, especially if they are coming from different vantage points. Lean in to others that have a different view point than you so you all see more of the context around you. If you hire an expert to do a "study" of your context, you still need to weigh in on what those findings mean as a practice of owning your way forward with strategic action. Studies can bring some of your context to light, yet I invite you to involve many perspectives to take a fill 360-view of your context (and it costs you nothing to contemplate these prompts).

2. This look at your context is not boxing things into a SWOT analysis. This exercise is observing and listening: What is happening around me/us? So, what might be the implications of your observations? Now, what might this all mean for strategic action?

3. Within uncertainty and rapid change, do this contextual awareness exercise often. Otherwise, your strategic action will trail change and likely be irrelevant to your context.

4. Important to know: Context is not good or bad – it is what is happening. That’s all.

Up for next week is CHALLENGE.

I'd love to hear from you as to your context that is demanding creative change. That's the key. It could be both uncomfortable and exciting.

Strategically yours,