Strategic Thinking: Practical Tools to Succeed at Work and Feel Fulfilled in Life - part 1

Why the most important leadership skill is not what most leaders think it is?

As leaders, we create strategic plans regularly. We attend strategy meetings, fill in frameworks, review KPIs, and produce polished strategy decks. Yet this blog post is about something far more fundamental than writing a strategic plan.

It is about strategic thinking — a capability you can use not only in business, but in your entire life. If you develop strategic thinking, you can:

• Become significantly more effective and successful at work.

• And design your future private life more consciously.

If you truly think strategically, creating a company strategy - that is clear, concise, actionable, fits on one page, focuses on a few priorities, and is easy to communicate - becomes natural.

And here is the important distinction:

Using strategy models does not make you a strategic thinker. You can fill in a SWOT, Porter’s Five Forces, Balanced Scorecard, or Ansoff Matrix perfectly — and still not think strategically. Models help you structure information. They do not teach you how to see, connect, or anticipate the futrure.

So what does?

Step 1: Protect Time for Strategic Thinking

The first discipline of strategic thinking is not intellectual. It is behavioral. You must consciously make time for it. Block it in your calendar. Protect it like your most important meeting. Do not allow operational urgency to steal it. If you don’t do this, the system will take over. You will move from meeting to meeting, from escalation to escalation, from urgent to urgent — and never think.

Tony Blair (Stanford University lecture) explains this challenge very well in 3 minutes. He highlights how crises and events constantly pull attention away from long-term priorities. Research he mentions shows that leaders spend less than 5% of their time on their actual priorities. Is it schocking, isn’t it?

Think about your own calendar:

How much time do you spend weekly on what truly matters? Urgent calls will always come. Escalations will always exist. If you do not consciously protect strategic thinking time — you will lose it.

Step 2: Learn to “Connect the Dots”

Now you have time. What do you do with it? Not fill in frameworks. You have to learn to connect the dots.

Indra Nooyi, former CEO of PepsiCo, describes strategic thinking as the ability to connect signals from internal and external environments into a shape no one has seen before. I highly recommend listening to her interviews — you can find many of them on YouTube. She is one of the people who has inspired me on my leadership journey.

Michael D. Watkins in The 6 Disciplines of Strategic Thinking calls this pattern recognition:

• What is happening?

• Why is it happening?

• What does it mean for the future?

This is not analysis in isolation. This is synthesis. In order to connect the dots, you first need data and information. And because you want to see the big picture and the future direction, you have to start with the broadest possible view — to understand how you and your organisation fit into it. That is why megatrends are the right starting point. They provide a stable frame of reference over a longer period of time.

Step 3: Start With Megatrends — The Big Picture of the Future

One of the best ways to develop this skill is to begin with megatrends. John Naisbitt deeply influenced me during my university years with his books. I was reading all his books and I strongly recommend all of them. For strategic thinking a must ahve is : Mind Set!: Reset Your Thinking and See the Future (Collins, 2006) available on Amazon.

In Mind Set!, he explains not just what trends exist — but how he thinks about the future, what mental mechanisms and tools he uses. I waited for his books for years and was very sad when he passed away in 2021 at age 92.

Today, we have even more access to megatrend information. Just search the term — you will find many sources. Here is a free report from PWC or one from European Commission : “WELCOME TO 2030: THE MEGA-TRENDS”

Why megatrends matter?

Megatrends describe how the world is likely to look 10+ 30+ years from now. They are relatively stable compared to short-term trends (although disruptive innovation like AI can accelerate change).

Megatrends help you build a mental image of the future environment in which you, your business, and your family will live and work.

Let’s not forget that for almost every megatrend there is also a counter-trend — and that counter-trend may be highly relevant for your niche. For example, through digitalisation and AI, many coaching tasks — especially the simple, routine ones — can be taken over by AI. As AI expands, a (probably smaller but very meaningful) group of people will increasingly seek real human conversations, depth, and presence. High tech trend vs. High touch counter-trend.

Once you see that environment, you can ask:

• Which trends will impact me?

• How exactly will they impact me?

• What does this mean for my business, my career, my investments, my children?

  For example Kodak focused on photography, own industry segment — and missed smartphones rising with cameras. We know the end of the story. The disruption came from outside their industry.

So do not only look at trends inside your sector. Look beyond it. Apply This Beyond Business

This thinking is powerful not only for your professional life but for your career choices, your financial planning, your life design.

This is why strategic thinking is not a business skill.

It is a life skill.

And this is only the beginning — in the next post we’ll explore what comes next on the path to truly strategic thinking. Stay with me.