How to become more strategic

The ability to think, plan and act strategically is a critical skill for success in business, but little guidance is provided. So how do you become more strategic? To answer this question, consider these two scenarios

Scenario 1: Lucy has been in the company for 12 years. She arrived as a new graduate and got to grips rapidly with her role, becoming a real expert, someone who people around her rely on. She is an asset to the business, an immensely hard worker, and great things are predicted for her. However, she’s been up for promotion a few times recently and has been knocked back each time. She’s becoming disheartened and is thinking about moving on. The feedback she received from the most recent interview was that the panel thought she was fantastic but didn’t think she was quite ready to move up to the next level – she’s “not strategic enough”.

Scenario 2: the business improvement team are a great bunch of people. They can be counted on to drop everything when the production line goes down and will work all hours to get things up and running again. They are super busy, and unfortunately, some of their longer-term projects haven’t progressed much over the last few months. The industry is changing rapidly, and new technology is coming on stream soon. The CEO is concerned that the business won’t be able to keep up with the competition and needs the team to stop the constant firefighting, and “be more strategic”.

In both scenario’s what we are witnessing is a skills gap, and it’s a gap that I have seen frequently in organisations. Here are hard-working, intelligent people doing their very best to deliver, but the results are falling short, either for the business or their own career trajectory. It’s not about a lack of effort or ability, but it is about where that effort is directed.

In two recent large scale training needs analyses I have carried out, the skill identified as the most important for the future success of the business was the ability to think, plan and act strategically, and that’s the skills gap we are talking about here. I have teamed up with the experts in bite-sized productivity training, Emailogic, to co-design a pacey and interactive training session that is specifically targeted at this skills gap: How to Think, Plan and Act Strategically. We believe that this is a training need that has been largely neglected up until now; what people receive is the vague feedback we saw earlier, to “be more strategic”, but get little guidance on what that means in practice and how to build their skill set.

In the training session, we start by clarifying exactly what we mean by being strategic, and how this differs from being in an operational mode. This is important as very few of us can afford to be strategic all the time - we need to be able to shift between these two modes consciously and purposefully. We emphasise strategic thinking, and underline that it doesn’t necessarily require any specialist knowledge, but it does involve a shift in horizons and perspectives. Strategic thinking does need dedicated time; but quality is more important than quantity here. And strategic thinking is often better done with others, more brains produce more ideas and gain more insights. We unpick and de-mystify strategic planning, stressing that a simple plan, clearly communicated, is better than a thousand complex and over-researched plans compiled by expensive consultants. The final part of the equation is acting strategically, which means retaining focus and discipline, choosing what to do and what to say “no” to, avoiding the “busy fool” syndrome.

3 top tip’s to be more strategic:

? Make time for thinking – build it into your daily, weekly or monthly routine.

? Open yourself up to external influences – this will spark the best ideas

? Make sure you know how your day-to-day tasks and activities link to your organisation’s longer terms goals and plans.

To find out more about the training session ‘How to Think, Plan and Act Strategically’ and discover how we can tailor it for your business, call one of the friendly Emailogic team on: 0203 154 6611 or email us on [email protected]

Written by Olivia May, Emailogic Associate