Managing Yourself

4Strategic
Ways toThinking
Improve Your
Skills
by Nina A. Bowman
December 27, 2016

Summary.   If you believe that strategic thinking is only for senior executives, think
again. It can, and must, happen at every level of the organization; it’s one of those
unwritten parts of all job descriptions. Once you’ve accepted that it’s part of your
job, focus on developing four... more

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If you’ve ever received feedback that you “need to be more strategic,”

you know how frustrating it can feel. To add insult to injury, the
feedback rarely comes with any concrete guidance on what to do
about it. One of my coaching clients, Lisa, a vice president of HR, was
in this situation and explains, “I was just told to think bigger picture
and to be more strategic. It felt like I had been given the definition of
a word by using the same word. It just wasn’t helpful.”
So what specific steps can you take to be more strategic in your
current role?
Start by changing your mindset. If you believe that strategic thinking
is only for senior executives, think again. It can, and must, happen at
every level of the organization; it’s one of those unwritten parts of all
job descriptions. Ignore this fact and you risk getting passed over for
 a promotion, or having your
budget cut because your
department’s strategic
contribution is unclear.
Once you’ve accepted that it’s part
of your job, focus on developing
four key abilities that demonstrate
your strategic prowess.

Know: Observe and Seek Trends

Lisa wasn’t seeing the big picture.
Because of the amount of work she
had and the pace at which she
needed to get it done, she often
took a “heads down” approach to
her job and failed to “lift up” and observe both internal and external
trends. She was missing key information that could help her focus,
prioritize, and be proactive in addressing talent issues for her fast-
growing company. Because Lisa approached her job in a transactional
manner, simply getting the next hire, she didn’t recognize that she
needed a completely new approach to recruitment and retention.
In order to be strategic, you need a solid understanding of the
industry context, trends, and business drivers. An intellectual
appreciation of the importance of bringing in current data and
seeking trends isn’t enough. You also have to:
Make it a routine exercise to explore and synthesize the internal
trends in your day-to-day work. For example, pay attention to the
issues that get raised over and over in your organization and
synthesize the common obstacles your colleagues face.
Be proactive about connecting with peers both in your organization
and in your industry to understand their observations of the
marketplace. Then, share your findings across your network.
 Understand the unique information and perspective that your
function provides and define its impact on the corporate level
strategy.

Think: Ask the Tough Questions

With a fresh understanding of trends and issues, you can practice
using strategic thinking by asking yourself, “How do I broaden what I
consider?” Questions are the language of strategy. Lisa came to
appreciate that her life and prior experience gave her a unique, yet
myopic, strategic lens. So she pushed herself to ramp up her
perspective-taking and inquiry skills. By becoming more curious, and
looking at information from different points of view, she was able to
reduce her myopia and see different possibilities, different
approaches, and different potential outcomes.
For example, when working on an
YOU AND YOUR TEAM SERIES
employee retention project she
Thinking Strategically asked herself, “What does success
look like in Year 1?”  “What does it
look like in Year 3?” “What could
impact the outcome in a negative
way?” “What are the early signs of
success/failure?” “What do
4Thinking Improve Your Strategic business partners need to
Ways toSkills
understand to ensure its success?”
by Nina A. Bowman and “Do the outcomes support the
Make
Your JobStrategic Thinking Part of broader goals of the
by Ron Carucci organization?” By asking these
6forWays to Screen
Strategic Job Candidates tough questions first, she
Thinking
by John Sullivan recognized that she could better
engage with colleagues and senior
executives early on in ways that
would benefit the project — and would help shape the perception that
she was thoughtful and strategic.

Speak: Sound Strategic

Strategic thinkers also know how to speak the language. They
prioritize and sequence their thoughts. They structure their verbal
and written communication in a way that helps their audience focus
on their core message. They challenge the status quo and get people
talking about underlying assumptions. Those that are really skilled
walk people through the process of identifying issues, shaping
common understanding, and framing strategic choices.
If this sounds complex, that’s because it is. But there are ways you can
start honing these skills:
Add more structure to your written and verbal communication.
Group and logically order your main points, and keep things as
succinct as possible.
Prime your audience by giving them a heads up on the overarching
topics you want to address so they are prepared to engage in a
higher level conversation, not just the tactical details.
Practice giving the answer first, instead of building up to your main
point.

Lisa didn’t realize that the way she spoke created the perception that
she was not strategic. She set about changing that. First by focusing
her one-on-ones with her CHRO on higher level discussions and
leaving tactical issues to email. She chose one or two strategic areas
to focus on.  and made sure to frame issues in the context of the
CHRO’s and the CEO’s top priorities.

Act: Make Time for Thinking and Embrace Conflict

In the early phase of our work together, Lisa kept a jam-packed
schedule, running from meeting to meeting. She found it difficult to
contribute strategically without the time to reflect on the issues and
to ponder options. Recognizing that she was not bringing her full
value to the table, she started to evaluate her tasks based on urgency
and importance as outlined in Stephen Covey’s 2 x 2 matrix. She
stopped going to meetings she didn’t need to be at. She blocked out
thinking time on her calendar and honored it, just as she would for
other meetings. And she fought back the initial guilt of “Am I doing
real work when I’m just sitting at my desk thinking?”
Lisa also practiced other key skills. She learned to embrace debate and
to invite challenge, without letting it get personal so that she could
ask tough questions. To do this, she focused on issues, not people,
and used neutral peers to challenge her thinking. To manage the
inevitable ambiguity that arises when you ask more questions, Lisa
also learned to clarify her decision-making criteria, allowing her to
better act in the face of imperfect information.
The quest to build your strategic skills can be uncomfortable. At first,
you might feel like you’re kicking up sand in the ocean. Your vision
will be blurred as you manage through the unsettling feelings that
come with challenging your own assumptions and gaining comfort
with conflict and curiosity. Once the dust settles, however, and you’re
able to contribute at a higher level, you’ll be glad you took the risk.

NB
Nina A. Bowman is a Managing Partner at Paravis
Partners, an executive coaching and leadership
development firm. Previously, she held various
advisory and leadership roles in strategy. She is an
executive coach and speaker on issues of strategic
leadership, leadership presence, and interpersonal
effectiveness. She is also a contributing author to
the HBR Guide to Coaching Employees and HBR
Guide to Thinking Strategically.