Preserve Your Strategic Thinking Time

I love hear­ing the use of the word ​“strate­gic” in meet­ings and con­ver­sa­tions, which often trans­lates to some­thing impor­tant, valu­able or impactful.

For me, ​“strate­gic think­ing” means invest­ing time to notably enhance your chances of sus­tain­ably win­ning or per­form­ing, over the long term. That kind of strat­e­gy is a key com­po­nent of the orga­ni­za­tions we work with, who want to build endur­ing, grow­ing companies.

Strat­e­gy requires a lot of time. One CEO I know admit­ted that while he knew he had to be more strate­gic – to tru­ly con­tem­plate and work on the future – he was too busy deal­ing with oper­a­tional and tac­ti­cal things.

strate­gic think­ing time Tips

1. Block reg­u­lar time in your cal­en­dar. Ide­al­ly, week­ly. Min­i­mal­ly, quarterly
2. Set up the right, dis­trac­tion-free envi­ron­ment to real­ly soak in. The best think­ing will most like­ly be done out of your office, and you might want to invite some­one to col­lab­o­rate with or to hold you accountable
3. Make a list of the high­est-val­ue oppor­tu­ni­ties you want to spend time think­ing about
4. Turn off your electronics.

ideas we’ve heard from leaders

• Cre­ate a rit­u­al every Sun­day morning
• Think while run­ning, rid­ing or walk­ing the dog
• Brain­storm on paper
• Attend con­fer­ences. 20% of the time to spark ideas and 80% for thinking
• Vis­it a men­tor or call a bunch of peo­ple to pres­sure-test ideas
• Use time on a long flight or book into a resort.

Every­one does it dif­fer­ent­ly. Find how to get into your best-think­ing zone to crys­tal­lize, extract val­ue, and clar­i­fy next steps, includ­ing test­ing your ideas to see if they are effective.

The Chal­lenge

• If you don’t think you’re strate­gic enough or have enough strate­gic think­ing time, how do you make it hap­pen and how much time do you need?

Addi­tion­al Podcasts

More about Think Time on Episode 113 of The Growth Whisperers

What Time Should Your Role Be Focused On?

Get the Most from Your Strate­gic Plan­ning Framework

The Annu­al Strate­gic Think­ing Meeting

Addi­tion­al Articles

How Suc­cess­ful Lead­ers Plan for the Week Ahead

7 Com­mon Strat­e­gy Mistakes

Strate­gic Lead­er­ship vs Tac­ti­cal Deci­sion Making

Month­ly Five-Minute CEO Updates

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