Are You a Strategic Thinker?
Most of us are just plain busy. At least that is how we appear to others. We have started to think of busyness as a badge of honor.
Busy Busy busy…buzzing around like a bee. BUT being busy is different from being productive.
In a recent study when most executives were asked what they should be doing more, 97% said that they should be doing more strategic thinking.
BUT when asked a follow-up question to establish how much of their time was spent doing it, 96% said they did not have time to do strategic thinking.
WOW!!!
The leaders of teams and companies realize that strategic thinking is important BUT can not find the time to do it. We can only conclude that those are empty words and that strategic thinking must not be a priority.
What ends up happening is that instead of strategic thinking they operate at the tactical level. Just get something done. It does not matter whether it is the right thing or not. Although they will never admit it. Most executives operate on just doing the next thing that needs to be done.
I believe that one of the reasons that we tend to not have time for strategic thinking is because often we operate in a digital world. Strategic thinking requires us to enter an analog world. It requires a quiet spot with a piece of paper and pencil/pen. Strategic thinking requires not being interrupted for a large block of time. Time long enough for one to think through options and be able to consider what-if scenarios.
As Richard Feynman wisely teaches us, we need to be able to ask ourselves better and better questions. Because questions force us to keep thinking. To explore the solution space. Once we believe we have the answer, we have narrowed that space to a point- a solution point. It might not be an optimal solution BUT a local one that satisfies the criteria at the moment.
So I am not surprised when I read the statistics. This type of thinking requires an effort that most have forgotten how to do. Thinking on paper is a lost art. Strategic thinking is an art that is more important today than ever before. I believe that Strategy is 80% of the game and Execution is 20%.
Recently while doing strategic thinking I asked myself a question, is the layout for the system that our team is designing optimal. After some soul searching I realized that we had made many assumptions to get to a good enough solution. BUT that solution is not necessarily the optimal one. Maybe we need to go back and get rid of some of the assumptions and reconsider the solution space?
Reconsidering might require time and money BUT ultimately save time and money. Without that pause to reflect, a good enough solution would win and we would progress towards execution without knowing what a great solution looks like or even an optimal one.
My four cents…
