I’ve always felt that improving how you think will go a long way toward improving what you think. The result is a marked improvement in your life.
As a new year begins, GenuLines offers a closer look at the thought process.
What Does It Mean to Think Strategically
“The purpose of life is a life of purpose” – Robert Byrne
Have you ever thought about what it means to think strategically? Does it mean to create strategies like in a war?
Is it a skill you are born with or something you learn? Strategic thinking seems like vague buzzwords.
The kind that CEOs toss around to sound important.
Learning
Actually, strategic thinking is a skill we can all learn. It’s how we plan, think, and ask questions to grow and learn while we work toward a goal.
It’s embracing what you were like when you were young child. When you asked questions like, “why?”
Thinking strategically grows out of a combination of knowledge, experiences, and your hunches. It’s about taking calculated and uncalculated risks that we hope will pay off in the future.
It’s about shifting your focus. You go from just doing things to thinking and planning what should be getting done.
Three Behaviors That Inspire Thinking
Strategically Switching your focus is easier said than done. To cultivate a mind of thinking strategically, these three behaviors can help.
Question why. Don’t accept doing a task a certain way because it’s the way it’s always been done.
Ask yourself why it’s done that way. Or if there’s a better way to do it.
Thinking strategically is about knowledge to help you make an informed decision. Asking questions and listening to others’ opinions is important.
It supplies you with the information you need to make a well-informed decision.
Observe everything
Spending every minute doing stuff and getting things done might seem productive.
But it doesn’t allow for you to think strategically about what you are doing.
Instead occasionally step back and observe what’s going on. Look for areas that could be more efficient. Who’s doing what and how much each activity is helping things move forward.
Look at the big picture. See the way the pieces fit together.
Reflect on your day
Think about what gave you energy or took it away.
Reflect on the activities that helped the organization move ahead. And the ones that wasted your time.
Reflection time each day allows you to ask yourself if you’re on the right path. Whether you develop solutions, and stay on track with your goals.
This is where inspiration and creativity have a chance to grow in a visible way.
Takeaway
When you focus on doing and making something happen by doing this and doing that, you’re working hard. But you’re not thinking strategically.
Of course, working and doing is necessary up to a point.
Instead stop focusing on just getting things done. Take a step back and set goals for what you want in the future and how you can help the organization win.
Thinking strategically is inspiring. You move away from going through the motions in a mindless way.
You don’t jump at the commands of others. Or you plan and observe and put ideas into motion.
And that takes you (and your team) to success.
JohnK 1-3-2022
Overheard: “The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks.”
~Christopher Hitchens, Lettets to a Young Contrarian
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