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

A summary of the characteristics of strategic thinking, and tips on how to develop it.

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

Like everything in life, we must follow a strategy, a guideline that will help us to be clear whether we are moving forward or not in achieving our goals. We must have a plan, but that plan will not magically emerge, it must be meditated.

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

What is strategic thinking?

Strategic thinking is an approach, a style of looking at and processing things when it comes to moving forward with a project or achieving a goal.. It involves thinking about an end, analyzing the means available to achieve a proposed goal or objective and then arranging them in such a way that they will in fact make it possible to achieve the proposed ends. This type of thinking involves making the best possible use of resources to achieve the objective with the least time, personnel and material cost and, in turn, obtain the maximum benefit.

This is a concept that has become very important in the field of marketing, although it can be applied in other fields beyond business and labor, such as education, the military or even daily and personal life. We can use it in language learning, to get more friends, get a promotion, get into a band... it is useful for virtually any area that we can think of because it is an approach that puts the look at today, today, but with a future perspective.

As the name implies, this type of thinking involves a strategy with a coordinated plan of action focused on achieving a goal. To think strategically, we need a dose of realism, a minimum capacity for reflection, synthesis and, of course, a vision of the big picture to see if what we are doing is going well or not, as well as to maintain a flexible mentality, capable of reorganizing the means 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 way of life and a way of dealing with the goals you set.It is not something theoretical, but something that has to be learned and that, with practice, becomes a habit, a way of life and a way of dealing with the goals one sets for oneself. What we can comment on are its main characteristics, which can be defined in four "knowledges:

1. Knowing where you want to get to

Strategic thinking implies being clear about where we want to get to, that is, having a clearly defined objective or purpose.. If we do not have it, our strategy loses its meaning.

2. Know where we are

It is necessary to know where we are in order to know if we are making progress. In order to do this, we must develop the ability to define what we are doing. we must develop the ability to define what the current situation is. and how far we are from the goal we have set for ourselves.

3. Knowing how to define the path to follow

This could be considered the central aspect of strategic thinking, which involves designing how to get to what we have set out to do.

4. Knowing how to self-evaluate and correct

No one knows how to do things perfectly the first time, that is why it is necessary to be a little flexible and know how to It is necessary to be a little flexible and to know what changes we must incorporate in what we are doing to be successful.. If it is necessary to change the course we have taken, it is better to do it than to be obstinate in following a path that does not take us anywhere.

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 wish to make it. It may require logic, intuition, metacognition, high intrinsic motivation, imagination, analytical and synthetic capacity, argumentation, observation? in short, a Wide range of actions closely related to 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 abilities are tested.

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

1. Renouncing the ineffective

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

If it does not work, the best thing to do is to discard it, no matter how much effort we have put into it. Keep 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 is not going to work.

2. Formulating questions

In strategic thinking, it is essential to know how to formulate the necessary questions, which are almost more important than the answers that can be obtained. If we are able to define the question, that which we want to solve with our project or intervention, we can focus the action plan and increase the possibilities of success Since we run less risk of deviating from the path.

3. Detection of key points

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

Strategic competencies 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.

This refers to the ability to understand the implications of strategic actions. A strategic thinker has a mental model of the entire system he wants to create, from start to finish, the role he wants to develop within it and understands the competencies it contains.

2. Focused intent

This 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 on what is important.avoid distractions and concentrate for the time necessary to achieve the objective.

3. Thinking on time

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

4. Hypothesis-based thinking

Strategic thinking both creative and critical thinking are combined.This competency is basically the incorporation of the scientific method in the design of strategies. This competency is basically the incorporation of the scientific method in the design of strategies.

5. Intelligent opportunism

With this term Liedtka refers to being receptive to good opportunities.. Although the strategy takes shape at the beginning of the process, one should not ignore changes that may occur or new data and resources that have been appearing, which can greatly improve the process and it would not be wise to discard them simply because they were not taken into consideration when the first strategy was designed.

Bibliographical 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.