Strategic thinking: the art of turning data and information into insights that lead to value creation
Did you know that 96% of Leaders say they dont have time for Strategic thinking?
So what and why is Strategic Thinking important?
Strategic thinking is a skill that every business owner, Entrepreneur or CEO will need to master at some point in their journey.
Strategic thinking is the ability to think on a big and small scale, long and short term, and into the past, the present and the future – and this skillset becomes more important as you ascend in the managerial ladder.
Strategic thinking is one of the key success factors in Building a Business through Value Creation.
It is critical to know how to analyze the future to identify opportunities & trends and interpret the past so you can learn from it.
By being on top of trends this allows you to get ahead of your competition.
For understanding the past, it is important to be aware of not only what happened, but why it happened.
Always look for multiple reasons for why something happened, and take a holistic view of the past to yield insights that are often hidden to others.
Today, for whatever reason, the major focus, if not all, is on transactions, when in fact, it should be on Value Creation.
Lack of time has been cited as one of the major obstacles to CEO’s from developing the required strategic insight for their brands to grow.
Top management expect the CEO’s to deliver quick results.
CEO’s have to know how the market will evolve in the future and what they should do now to leverage those opportunities.
CEO’s should have deep insights into the market they operate in and possess high market intelligence.
Here comes the role of Strategic thinking.
Strategic thinkers are the ones who can Think Long, Think Deep and Think Big.
They have the ability to look at the bigger picture, consider the long-term impact based on the deep analysis of commercial insights (not information and data on its own), before arriving at a decision that drives value creation.
So strategic thinkers are proactive, have a vision and are open-minded.
Before taking a decision, they view the situation from all the perspectives, create and evaluate alternate scenarios and ultimately choose the optimum scenario.
Before embarking on the chosen path, they always have a contingency plan ready for any anticipated problem.
Whenever you have multiple factors to be considered, whenever the business stakes are high and whenever you need to optimize the resources, you need strategic thinking.
So why don’t Business leaders spend time on Strategic Thinking:
1) Equity investors have very little patience – they want quick returns on investment, as a result, the long-term strategic thinking takes a back seat.
2) Sales (and Marketing Leaders) are experts at delivering instant business results and are appreciated & rewarded by the management for the results. Nothing wrong, if they can learn strategic thinking or strategic marketing that connects the dots to value creation.
3) Lack of long-term commitment of the employees to an organization. There is a need to formally train business leaders on Strategic Thinking.
You need strategic thinking to identify what is really creative & critical and where should resources be deployed to optimize them.
Want to learn more, drop me an email on Irfan.Sayed@cfocoach.co.zm or Whatsapp on +260 967 924 720.