Strategic Thinking: The Sought-After Skill Leaders Rarely Find In Employees
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Success in business is all about making strategic moves these days, and as such, companies are eager for strategic thinkers on their teams. The capacity to anticipate challenges, discern opportunities even through ambiguity, and mobilize resources represents strategic thinking as the bedrock of sustained success. Yet, research shows there’s a significant disparity between the soaring demand for strategic thinking skills and the palpable shortage of professionals equipped with them.
A World Economic Forum report from 2023 found that the number-one most sought-after skill was creative thinking, followed by analytical thinking and technological literacy. Across industries, the majority of leaders surveyed by online learning platform Springboard said “strategic/critical thinking” is the most sorely needed soft skill at companies today. Problem-solving and decision-making came in second, while communication, both written and verbal, was third.
This data underscores the critical urgency for professionals to cultivate and refine their strategic thinking skills to navigate business today. Let’s dive into what experts say strategic thinking skills actually entail in modern business today, and what employees and employers alike can do to develop these skills.
Defining Strategic Thinking
According to Michael D. Watkins, professor of leadership and organizational change at the IMD Business School and a cofounder of Genesis Advisers, strategic thinking embodies a multifaceted mental framework.
“Strategic thinking, at its core, is about the set of mental capabilities leaders use to recognize emerging threats and opportunities, set priorities, and mobilize their organization,” Watkins says. “It’s not an accident that the initials for those three identifiers (recognize, prioritize, mobilize) are RPM because it’s a cycle—a cycle that you need to go around quicker than your competitors.”
In researching his book on strategic thinking, The Six Disciplines of Strategic Thinking: Leading Your Organization into the Future, Watkins found that while most leaders emphasize the need and desire for the skill in their employees, they struggle to define it beyond “they know it when they see it.” To close this gap in defining what strategic thinking truly is, and consequently, how it can be developed in business settings, Watkins outlined the key disciplines of strategic thinking:
- Pattern Recognition: Strategic leaders can distill complex and sometimes uncertain information into actionable insights. They can focus the attention of a team on what really matters.
- Systems Analysis: Systems analysis is the ability to simplify complicated situations. In other words, it recognizes that if you make a change in one place, it’s likely to impact another and may set up a feedback loop in a different spot in the business.
- Mental Agility: Strategic thinkers can seamlessly move between 50,000-foot, macroscopic perspectives and then back down to granular details, which aids in developing the foresight to anticipate future trends and disruptions.
- Structured Problem-Solving: Effective leaders employ systematic approaches to deconstruct and resolve complex challenges, fostering consensus and charting a coherent set of next steps for the whole group.
- Visioning: Like structured problem-solving, visioning is about creating pragmatic, clear plans everyone can follow. This needs to be done in a powerful and simple way so people feel motivated by the path forward.
- Political Savvy: Strategic thinkers adeptly navigate stakeholder interests, forging alliances and garnering support crucial for executing new initiatives. They are great at balancing the personalities and needs of everyone involved in a project.
Learning—and Teaching—Strategic Thinking
Contrary to prevailing misconceptions, strategic thinking is a cultivable skill, explains Springboard CEO Gautam Tambay. While technical competencies remain indispensable, especially with the rise of AI and new technologies, the enduring value of soft skills such as strategic thinking, effective communication, and astute judgment will always be relevant in business.
“But they’re often harder to get down pat than technical skills,” he says. “They need many more hours of boots-on-the-ground practice. Understanding other human beings and their motivations, intentions, and what drives them—that’s absolutely learnable,” Tambay says.
Investment in honing these skills not only betters employees long-term, personally and professionally, but it also fortifies organizational resilience in the face of forces reshaping the business landscape. Skills like strategic thinking, Tambay says, are durable.
“Every business starts with understanding human emotion. Until businesses are no longer serving human needs, humans will have to be good at soft skills,” he says. “Especially because today’s average 25-year-old is going to have a job in 20 years that doesn’t even exist yet because the shelf life of skills has gone down so much. You need a durable skill set that will help you to succeed for your whole career.”
Conclusion
The data paints a clear picture of the indispensable role strategic thinking plays in today's business landscape. With companies increasingly seeking strategic thinkers to drive their success, the urgency for professionals to hone these skills cannot be overstated. As leaders grapple with the demands of a rapidly evolving environment, understanding the core disciplines of strategic thinking outlined by experts becomes imperative. Moreover, the teachable nature of strategic thinking offers hope for bridging the gap between demand and supply in the talent pool. Investing in the development of strategic skills not only enhances individual efficacy but also augments organizational resilience in navigating the complexities of the modern business landscape. With a steadfast commitment to learning and adaptation, professionals can equip themselves to thrive in the ever-changing dynamics of the business world, ensuring sustained success for themselves and their organizations.
Sources
The Six Disciplines of Strategic Thinking: Leading Your Organization into the Future
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