Strategic thinking: what it is, characteristics and how to enhance it

In all areas of life we ​​set goals for ourselves. Whether in the business world, in school or in life itself, we want to achieve our goals, but we do not know where to start or what the path will be like.

Like everything in life, a strategy must be followed, a guideline that helps us to be clear about whether or not we are making progress in achieving our goals. We must have a plan, but that plan will not emerge by magic, it must be considered.

Strategic thinking It is an approach, a cognitive style if you prefer to call it that, in which the current resources to see how they help us to get closer to the goal we have proposed. Let's take a closer look at it.

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What is strategic thinking?

Strategic thinking it is an approach, a style of seeing and processing things when it comes to moving forward a project or reaching a goal. With it, an end is proposed, analyzing the means available to achieve a goal or proposed objective and, later, arrange them in such a way that they allow in effect to achieve the ends raised. This type of thinking implies trying in the best possible way the resources to achieve the objective with the least time, personal and material cost and, in turn, obtaining the maximum benefit.

This is a concept that has become very important in the field of marketing, although it can be applied in other more beyond the field of business and work, such as education, military or even daily life and personal. We can use it in language learning, to make more friends, get a promotion, join a marching band... It is useful for practically any area that we can think of because it is an approach that focuses on today, today, but with a future perspective.

As its name suggests, this type of thinking involves a strategy with a coordinated action plan focused on achieving a goal. To think strategically we need a dose of realism, a minimum capacity for reflection, synthesis and, of course, overview to see if what we are doing is going well or not, in addition to maintaining a flexible mentality, capable of reorganizing the media when the objective changes or unforeseen events arise. These abilities are not acquired by magic, but must be developed through practice.

Characteristics of this type of thinking

Specifying exactly what strategic thinking is is not easy, since it is not something that can be learned from a manual or that there are clear guidelines to follow. It is not something theoretical, but something that has to be learned and that, with practice, becomes a habit, a lifestyle and way of dealing with the goals one sets for oneself. What we can comment on are its main characteristics that can be defined in four "knowledge":

1. Know where you want to go

Strategic thinking It implies being clear about where we want to go, that is, having a clearly defined objective or purpose. In case of not having it, our strategy completely loses its meaning.

2. Know where we are

It is necessary to know where we are to know if we are progressing. For it we must develop the capacity to define what the current situation is and how far we are from the goal we have set for ourselves.

3. Know how to define the way forward

This could be considered the central aspect of strategic thinking that involves designing how to get there.

4. Know how to self-assess and correct

Nobody knows how to do things perfect the first time, that's why It is necessary to be a bit flexible and know what changes we must incorporate in what we are doing to be successful. If it is necessary to change the course that we have taken, it is better to do it rather than to stubbornly follow a path that leads nowhere.

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Useful skills to develop strategic thinking

Strategic thinking, by its nature and as we have defined it, can involve a wide repertoire of skills as extensive as you want to do. It may require logic, intuition, metacognition, high intrinsic motivation, imagination, analytical and synthetic ability, argumentation, observation ... In short, a wide range of actions closely related to the executive functions.

In fact, and in relation to all these skills, we can say that chess is a good game to develop strategic thinking since all these capacities are put to the test.

But we can say that, grouping these skills into specific functional capacities, We can highlight some that allow us to make the path that leads us to the achievement of the goal a shorter and more successful route. These skills that allow you to become skillful in the elaboration of strategies we can say that there are, mainly, three.

1. Give up the ineffective

As we have mentioned before, you should not keep doing something that is quite likely not working. You cannot continue with a strategy that is not working with the belief that at some point it will be useful.

If it doesn't work, it is best to throw it out, no matter how much effort we put into it. You have to have an open mind and be willing to change course, even if it involves some uncertainty, but uncertainty is better than continuing with the certainty that it will not work.

2. Question formulation

In strategic thinking it is essential to know how to formulate the necessary questions, being almost more important than the answers that can be obtained. If it is possible to define the question, what we want to solve with our project or intervention, it is possible to focus the action plan very much and the chances of success are increased. since we run less risk of straying from the path.

3. Detection of key points

It is necessary to learn to identify what is important to our strategy and project from what can be random or a nuisance or inconvenience. You must know how to see the decisive factors, those aspects that may represent an opportunity for our project to prosper or advance as a minimum.

Strategic competences according to Liedtka

Jeanne Liedtka is a researcher at the University of Virginia's Darden Graduate School of Business who has studied the phenomenon of strategic thinking. According to her, the main attributes of strategic thinking in practice resemble competencies, of which she highlights five:

1. Systems perspective

Refers to the ability to understand the implications of strategic actions. A strategic thinker has a mental model of the complete system that he wants to create, from the start to finish, the role you want to develop within it and understand the competencies that contains.

2. Focused attempt

It is the approach that allows individuals within an organization or a project to gather and harness their energy, focus on what is important, avoid distractions and concentrate for the time necessary to achieve the goal.

3. Think in time

It involves being able to take into account the past, present and future at the same time, aspects that should influence decision-making and accelerate processes in case they become urgent. Possible future scenarios should be planned.

4. Hypothesis-based thinking

In strategic thinking both creative and critical thinking are combined, since both ways of thinking and making decisions influence and shape the strategies to be taken. This competence is, basically, the incorporation of the scientific method in the design of strategies.

5. Smart opportunity

With this term Liedtka refers to being receptive to good opportunities. Although the strategy acquires a form already from the beginning of the process, changes that may occur or new data and resources that have gone through should not be ignored. appearing, which can greatly improve the process and it would not be wise to discard them for the simple fact that they were not taken into account when designing the first strategy.

Bibliographic references:

• Liedtka, J. (1998). Linking Strategic Thinking with Strategic Planning. Strategy and Leadership, 26 (4): pp. 30 - 35.
• Schoemaker, P. (1995). Scenario Planning Archived 2011-12-15 at the Wayback Machine.: A Tool for Strategic Thinking. Sloan Management Review, 36 (2): pp. 25 - 40.
• Graetz, F. (2002). Strategic Thinking versus Strategic Planning: Towards Understanding the Complementarities. Management Decision, 40 (5/6): pp. 456 - 462.