During these times of change and challenge many of us have been forced to step back and reassess our businesses, our career and indeed life in general. When we are pushed outside our comfort zone, we often have no choice but to instigate change. This brings us into the territory of strategic thinking, the ability to see the bigger picture and to plot a purposeful course forward. To become a better strategic thinker, it helps to focus on three key areas.
Firstly, acknowledging your present reality. This involves facts and figures, the evidence that supports your honest assessment of your current situation. From there you can start to shape your vision for the future. External influences will have a role to play including the opportunities and threats present in your environment. (SWOT and PEST models are helpful.) Of course your vision will be driven by your intrinsic motivation, what you want to create, your personal goals and dreams, even your sense of life purpose. An engaging vision becomes your North Star. The final area is strategic planning, identifying the projects, initiatives and actions that will bridge the gap between where you are now and where you wish to be.
“To ask the right question is already half the solution of a problem.”
Carl Jung
Strategic thinking starts with a good brainstorm and a good brainstorm starts with good questions. Einstein said that if you gave him an hour to solve a problem, and his life depended on getting the right answer, he would spend 55 minutes figuring out what questions to ask. ‘For if I knew the proper questions,’ he said, ‘I could solve the problem in less than 5 minutes.’
When I work with management teams in shaping strategy, or coaching clients on their personal life vision and goals, we don’t jump straight into traditional brainstorming. We start by brainstorming questions. There are several reasons why I believe this is the optimal approach.
All my clients are experts on their lives and businesses, so when I facilitate strategy sessions and we take this question first approach, it reinforces that they are the only ones who can identify ideas and actions for their particular situation. This avoids the ‘not invented here’ mindset when people feel someone external is feeding them solutions.
Quality conversations are the heartbeat of quality businesses. Equally, if you are seeking change in your personal life this will also involve having new conversations. Traditional strategic brainstorming questions such as ‘how do I/we define success?’ ‘What would we like to achieve over the next year?’ or ‘what are our customers seeking from us now and into the future?’ will stimulate healthy conversation and certainly generate ideas. But let me share with you some examples of questions that have come out of strategy sessions where we focused on spending time brainstorming questions first.
Here are some questions that personal coaching clients have identified.
You will know when you strike on what I label a powerful question because you will feel it. The question will intrigue you. It will ignite your imagination with a sense of possibility. There will be a jolt of energy, a sense of excitement even liberation, and an eagerness to get the sleeves rolled up and to explore ways of answering it. As one client poetically said, it’s like I’ve found a hidden door and I’m eager to discover what’s behind it. I call this the bullseye moment. Rather than just throwing ideas around, you’ve identified the target. Because the brain is a question and answer mechanism the minute you pose an engaging question your brain will want to answer it. The idea generation that follows will be rich and meaningful.
As the motivational speaker and author Tony Robbins says ‘the quality of your life is a direct reflection of the quality of the questions you are asking yourself.’ It’s true for business strategy too.
At a job interview or sitting an exam, we are rated for how well we answer questions that someone else poses. With this approach to strategic thinking we get to set our own questions. New ideas, new answers and new solutions follow when we ask new questions. As I often say, the question is the answer
If you enjoyed this article then I think you would enjoy my post titled ‘Coping with messy change.‘ Also check out episode 93 of my podcast where I spoke with motivational speaker, author and leadership expert Nick Williams on a number of topics including harnessing your wisdom.
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