Your Best Strategists are Systems Thinkers

Increasing complexity and connectedness require this skill.

The world is becoming more complex every day, and the rate of change is also increasing, which means that the speed of commerce and globalization only add to the complexity we need to cope with.

This increase in complexity has a direct impact on strategy development. We create?strategies to chart a path that allows our organization to win in the market?and create success for our people.

Creating strategies, especially long-term plans, is critical to every organization's success. That's why creating those strategies usually falls to members of the C-suite and other executives. After all, the people at the organization's top have the best macro view of the business, right?

Probably not.

The truth is?that only some people are wired to think the way you need to develop viable strategies?that account for all the complexity in the world. Despite countless people claiming they are strategic, it's a rare skill. And it might be time for you to change up the team members you rely on to develop your strategy.

Let me explain.

A Complex Landscape

The core of a good strategy is first developing an understanding of the landscape you are creating your strategy around. This is the canvas on which you are painting your strategy.

If you want to paint an accurate picture of your market, you need to find people in your organization who are skilled at systems thinking, which is strategic thinking.

In other words, you need to incorporate all the variables that impact your market, like price, competitors, regulation, technology, human capital, and how they depend on each other and interact. If you want it to succeed, this messy mix must become your strategy's backdrop.?

It's a challenging task that's become increasingly difficult as the world has become more complex. Things used to be more accessible when the pace of change was slower. If you were off a bit, you could often adjust.

But that's not true today. To build a quality strategy, you must create an accurate system for the world around you to gauge whether your strategy will work.

The better the mental model of the world you have because of systems thinking, the better your strategy will be.

Help Wanted: Systems Thinkers

But now we need to address the elephant in the room. Most people need to improve at systems thinking. It's essential to understand the distinction between someone's intellectual capacity and their ability to understand how a wide range of variables and dependencies will continue to change over time.

The more you can understand these dependencies over long horizons, the better off you will become. But this is different from how most people are wired.

Let's think through an example. Let's say your business strategy involves shifting away from brick-and-mortar sales into online selling. How many on your team can digest and process the many issues involved with this shift over time, such as dealing with more complicated logistics, a different regulatory environment, people, and technology issues? These issues are interconnected and will continue to play out over multiple years.

Part of your job as a leader is to?assess which team members have the mental complexity?and systems thinking to paint this picture. Unfortunately, this skill cannot be learned. It's a gift; you either have it or you don't.

Part of the problem is that this skill is separate from titles. Your VPs, who might have bigger jobs, might be wired differently.

However, your organization may have people who can think through complex variables more deeply. It's your job to find them.

You need to find ways to identify your best systems thinkers and ensure they are involved in setting your strategy. For this search, the title doesn't matter.

A Different Way to Think About Strategy

The key takeaway is that the secret to building a winning strategy is leaning hard on systems thinking to help you chart out a complex world and how your organization can thrive. However, only some have the skills of a systems thinker, which is why many strategies fail, especially in the long run.

If you want to chart your path into the future successfully, the more systems thinkers you can put on the team, the better off you will be.