Idea 75: Strategic thinking and strategic planning
All men can see the tactics whereby I conquer, but what none can see is the strategy out of which great victory is evolved.
Sun Tzu (fourth century BC)
Strategic thinking is thinking about the longer term – the more important ends in any situation, and the pathways that may or may not lead to them.
There are three characteristics of strategic thinking: it considers what is important, the longer term and multiple factors.
Importance
The starting point is the ability to distinguish between the important, the less important and the unimportant. If something is important it is marked by or possesses weight or consequence. The urgent is not always important; the important is not always urgent.
Longer term
How long is long? That all depends. But strategic implies a longer-term perspective rather than a short-term view. Indeed, to think strategically may mean trading short-term gain for long-term advantage.
Multi-factor
Take all the factors or elements relevant to the overall end into account, not just one – however important that may be.
Strategic planning
Strategic thinking has to issue a strategic plan that clears the desk for action; otherwise it degenerates into strategic daydreaming. The process of strategic planning is a two-way and highly interactive one between you as the strategic leader and the operational leaders who head up the ‘strategic business units' (as they were first called by General Electric) or their equivalents.
What is critical is the ‘one-liners’ from the top – simple directives to particular parts of the organization or, in a federal set-up, to organizations within the group – that point each ‘part’ to an achievable mission that is coherent with, and contributing toward, the overall strategy.
- Does my organization have a strategy that fits its purpose, values and vision?
- Do I revise and re-evaluate that strategy in the light of changing circumstances?
- Have I developed a strategy that is as simple as possible, rather than complicated?
- Is the strategic plan flexible enough for modern conditions?
- Have I listened to the strategic ideas, questions and creative thinking from my advisers and senior colleagues?
- Does my strategic plan include ‘success criteria’ for measuring its overall results?