Strategic Thinking
Hilary McLellan

Strategic thinking is the art of outdoing an adversary, knowing that the adversary is trying to do the same to you. All of us must practice strategic thinking at work as well as at home. Businessmen and corporations must use good competitive strategies to survive. Politicians have to devise campaign strategies to get elected, and legislative strategies to implement their visions. Football coaches plan strategies for the players to execute on the field. Parents trying to elicit good behavior from children must become amateur strategists (the children are the pros). For forty years, superpowers' nuclear strategies have governed the survival of the human race. Avinash K. Dixit and Barry J. Nalebuff In Clausewitz's terms, the era of "set-piece" competition is over. We have entered the era of total competition. No matter your industry, company, or nationality, there is a battle-ready competitor somewhere who is busy thinking how to beat you. There are no safe havens. Yet the hard truth, for all the talk of new paradigms, reengineering, and organizational learning, is that most executives in most companies are still equipped to fight the last war. Their strategic assumptions, management structures, information systems, and training programs are geared to a competitive battlefield that no longer exists. The rules of engagement have changed. Strategic mind-sets have not. Mark B. Fuller Many organizations are stuck in a "problem-solving orientation," when it comes to strategy. They can't seem to shake the focus on fixing short-term problems, or seeking immediate (but ineffective) solutions. Simply by moving their attention to a deliberate focus on essential questions, they can develop an inquiry-oriented approach to evolving organizational strategy. In a knowledge economy, this approach provides an opportunity for developing the capability of strategic thinking in every one, and for fostering sustainable business and social value. Peter Senge

As we have seen, the competitive intelligence cycle includes the following steps: (1) obtaining competitive intelligence requests --- in other words, identifying a problem that should be addressed through CI; (2) collecting the necessary information; (3) analysis and synthesis of information; and (4) communicating intelligence to the people who have requested it, who need it, who will engage in decision-making based upon the intelligence communicated (Society for Competitive Intelligence Professionals). Strategic thinking is needed at all of these stages.

For example, at the first stage --- identifying and generating competitive intelligence requests --- knowledge must be recognized as a key organizational asset, to be leveraged and exploited for competitive purposes so that useful strategic intelligence can be requested in the first place. As we have seen, a mindset amenable to competitive intelligence mus be present within the organizations so that people are alert to important information and know to report their observations --- and who to report them to so that these observations will become part of the foundation for any CI initiative that is put into play. Ideally, people are sensitived to the mental filters that influence their perceptions of the world so that they can see beyond these filters.

At the second stage, collecting the necessary information, it is essential to assess strategically what kinds of information are relevant to the issue at hand and where this information can be obtained. This includes information that can be obtained inside the organization as well as information available outside the organization.

At the third stage, strategic thinking is very much needed in the process of analyzing and synthesizing the information that has been gathered. Analysis refers to taking things apart, looking at them individually. Sysnthesis refers to the combination of parts, or elements, in order to form a more complete view or system. The goal of strategic thinking at this stage is to obtain a coherent whole that shows the truth more completely than would a mere collection of parts. It may be at this stage that you want to prepare several different syntheses or scenarios of different possible options and the resulting impacts.

And at the fourth stage, strategic thinking is needed to determine how the competitive intelligence that has been gathered, analyzed, and synthesized can be communicated most effectively to the decision makers who will be making decisions based on the CI that is communicated to them. The CI must be communicated so that it effectively cuts through preconceptions and biases and so that it provides a clear assessment of relevant factors, trends, patterns, and other aspects of the CI landscape as well as clear options for decision making.

Related to this, Fuller (1993) draws upon the metaphor of war as a framework for conceptualizing business competition. According to Fuller,

"In the life-or-death quest for strategic change, business has much to learn from war. Both are about the same thing: succeeding in competition. Even more basic, both can be distilled to four words: informed choice/timely action. The key objective in competition - whether business or war - is to improve your organization's performance along these dimensions:

• To generate better information than your rivals do
• To analyze that information and make sound choices
• To make those choices quickly
• To convert strategic choices into decisive action

Together they represent informed choice/timely action."

Senge and his colleagues (1999) emphasize that challenging questions are at the center of strategic thinking. Here are their suggestions concerning how asking big questions can promote strategic thinking:

• Assessing the landscape: Get a feel for the larger context in which you are operating. Scan the horizon as well as the contours of the current business and organizational landscape, at whatever level of systems of project you are working with. Like trackers in the mountains, look for obvious and subtle signals. Notice indicators that point to storms as well as to sunny skies. Allow your curiosity and imagination to take the lead as you begin to identify the many questions that the business landscape reveals. It will be tough, but important, to frame your findings as questions, rather than as concerns or problems. To help in framing those questions, ask yourself, "How does A relate to C and what questions does that suggest? If X were at play here...what would what would we be asking? What is the real question underneath all this data?"
• Discovering core questions: Once you think you've posed most of the relevant questions (and there may be many of them), look for patterns. This is not a mechanical process, even though it can be disciplined and systematic. You are on a treasure hunt, seeking the core questions --- usually three to five --- which, if answered, would make the most difference to the future of your work. cluster the questions and consider the relationships that appear among them. Notice what "pops up" in order to discover the deeper themes that the initial questions reveal.
• Creating images of possibility: Imagine what your situation would look like or be like if these "big questions" were answered. Creating vivid images of possibility is different from pie-in-the-sky visioning, especially if people with a variety of perspectives have participated in the earlier stages of the conversation. this part of the conversation can also provide clues for evolving creative strategies in response to the "big questions." It often reveals new territory and opportunities for action while remaining grounded in real life.
• Evolving workable strategies: Workable strategies begin to emerge in response to compelling questions and to the images of possibility that these questions evoke. Of course, the cycle is never complete. Relevant business data, ongoing conversations with internal and external stakeholders, informal conversations among employees, and feedback from the environment enable you to continually assess the business landscape --- revealing new questions. (pp. 510-511)

All of these strategies centered around continuous questioning can play a vital role at each stage of the competitive intelligence cycle. CI is an ongoing process --- and questions are at the center of that process.

Strategic Thinking The difference between where we are (current status) and where we want to be (vision) is what we do (actions), why we do it (values) and how we do it (strategies). We can bind our strategic plans in books or we can react blindly to events or we can transcend both of these alternatives. Transcending these two extremes is the living strategic plan. The living strategic plan involves the whole community or the whole organization in attaining goals through its daily interactions and operations. This is often referred to as strategic intent. The end goal is a compelling vision that people in all parts of the community have helped develop and now use as a compass for decision making. Strategic thinking is based on the philosophy of learning from experiences to accomplish a vision. Starting at the point where we are, we monitor what is happening to redefine and reframe as the situation changes. Course corrections are made based on what we are experiencing. Our knowledge expands from what we learn while implementing our chosen strategies and tactics. One key to planning for a successful future is getting people to think about things differently, to expand their future possibilities, to look at their world through a kaleidoscope. Participatory action research and participatory evaluation get people involved in looking for patterns and new variations. Strategic thinking connects the vision to real issues, interests and opportunities as they arise. Environmental scanning to see what is on the horizon becomes a catalyst for envisioning which driving forces could have the most impact on where we are heading. Building scenarios gives people experience in thinking of alternatives. Outlining the best case, the worst case and the most likely scenarios gives an opportunity to reflect on which cues could become important signals for course corrections. The importance of scenario building is not to choose the ``correct" scenario and focus on it, but rather to break out of the rigidity of planning for only one preferred outcome. Circumstances can change, what was preferred 6 months ago may not be the logical goal now. Thinking strategically opens the possibility for new alternatives, rather than trying to follow the previously chosen course even when alarms should be ringing. Using tension constructively to move toward finding a solution, defining how one opportunity or problem is connected to other issues and integrating multiple perspectives all help develop an ability to respond to changes instead of simply reacting when situations don't play out as planned. Know your filters when thinking strategically It is helpful to know up front how people filter information. These filters can be assumptions about what is possible, expectations about what should be done, beliefs about what is important, or values that guide decision making and actions. Another filter is people's basic approach to life. Are they generally optimistic about accomplishing goals? Are they generally pessimistic about whether something is possible? Or do they wait and see how things go? Source: Quest Dynamics, Inc. (http://www.quest-dynamics.com/people/strategicthought.html)

References

Fuller, M. B. (1993). Business as War. Fast Company.
Senge, P., Kleiner, A., Roberts, C., Ross, R., Roth, G., and Smith, B. (1999). The Dance of Change: The Challenges to Sustaining Momentum in Learning Organizations. New York: Doubleday.
Society for Competitive Intelligence Professionals (n.d.). The Competitive Intelligence Cycle. Alexandria, Virginia: SCIP. (http://www.scip.org/education/module4.asp)