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Sunday, August 23, 2009

Five Ways to Grow Your Strategic Skills

The ability to make excellent strategic decisions, and implement them effectively is one of the most significant leadership skills.

Here are five ideas you can use to stretch and strengthen your strategic skills.

You can also use these ideas to help coach people who work with or report to you so they can strengthen their own strategic contributions to your shared success.

1. Use scenario planning

First, identify the variables that create the highest risks and opportunities for your company.

Then imagine the extremes - positive and negative - that could happen for each of these critical variables.

Next, push your imagination further. Envision much more positive and much more negative circumstances than originally came to mind for each critical variable.

Now, having stretched your sense of what might happen by envisioning extreme alternatives, choose a few scenarios that you think are most likely to happen.

Then, choose the most likely scenario. You may find it valuable to gather data to help you hone and verify your instincts about your choice.

Finally, consider what actions you would take for the scenario you think is most likely. Also consider actions you'd need to take if some of the other also-likely scenarios happened, rather than the one on which you're placing your bets.

2. Design for the solution after this one

The strategy you choose now, and the actions you take, as a result, will affect the future. That could prevent or solve future problems, and it could also create other problems.

To minimize the negative impacts of the strategy you choose, imagine when your company may need to choose its next strategic direction, whether in 5, 10 or more years.

Envision your strategic choices now fitting into the choices that must be made then. See if that perspective changes the strategic choices you planned to make now.

3. Learn and practice games of strategy

This idea doesn't need a lot of elaboration. Learn and practice chess and other games of strategy.

4. Learn from the masters

Choose a few people who are or were legendary for their strategic abilities, whether in your field or another one. Read about them, watch documentaries and learn from other resources about their work, thought process and achievements.

What did they do that enabled them to be so successful and strategic in the way they worked?

Find ways to apply what you learned to your own work and strategic challenges.

5. Create the time and space so you can think strategically

A big part of strategic success is carving out the time and space so your strategic skills can be tapped.

You must get away from the day-to-day to be able to fully see the big picture, to anticipate issues well before they become problems, and to recognize great opportunities and how you can make the most of them.

Create the time and space regularly so that strategy and strategic skills can emerge, be implemented, and improve, as needed, as you move ahead.

Jan_Richards

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