Strategic Thinking

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Key Idea

Your boss just told you to "think strategically"—but what does that mean? In its most basic sense, strategic thinking is about analyzing opportunities and problems from a broad perspective and understanding the potential impact your actions might have on others. Strategic thinkers visualize what might or could be, and take a holistic approach to day-to-day issues and challenges.

Like all other managers, you routinely encounter complex situations, difficult problems, and challenging decisions. Your job is to deal with these situations as best you can by using the information you have. In an ideal world, you would have access to all the information you need to navigate through these challenges. Unavoidably, however, you have only a limited amount of information to work with. And because you sit in a particular part of your organization, you have a limited view of the forces that lie outside your sphere of influence.

Strategic thinking helps you overcome these limitations. When you think strategically, you lift your head above your day-to-day work and consider the larger environment in which you're operating. You ask questions and challenge assumptions about how things work in your company and industry. You gather complex, sometimes ambiguous data and interpret it. And you use the insights gained to make smart choices and select appropriate courses of action.

Moreover, you do all of these things with an eye toward generating the best possible business results tomorrow, using the opportunities presented to you today.