Learn about the benefits of strategic thinking

Strategic management is a widely studied field because it is through strategy that organizations attempt to reach their goals and out-think the competition. Thinking strategically requires research, analysis, and forethought in order to create a plan for how you will proceed as an organization.

We must start by asking ourselves if we are doing the right things in our team, in our division, in our department, and then in our organization as a whole. We must create a plan for how we will make choices in the future – ideally making only the choices that align with our strategic plan. And we must be willing to identify and make changes to the way we currently think and operate so that we are truly guided by the strategic plan that we have adopted.

Before you begin thinking strategically and creating your strategic plan, you will want to understand why you are spending the time to create it, follow it, and adjust it as necessary. Plus, you can’t create a plan until you know what your overall guiding purpose should be.

Focus point

A strategic plan is like a game plan for the team to follow. You want your team to know that they have a leader that knows where the team is headed. The plan gives you something that your team can rally around and get excited about. It can help the team to feel connected to the mission of the organization and to feel that they can make a contribution to helping the organization to reach the desired destination. You can use the strategic plan to generate excitement across the entire organization, not just your own team.

Path to success

The strategic plan is a guidepost for those times that you can’t seem to remember what you are supposed to be working towards. If there is one rule that stays the same in business as in life, it’s that things are constantly changing. When changes happen, sometimes faster than we can keep up with them, it’s easy to get sidetracked from your goal.

Operating instructions

We get operating instructions with everything in life these days, from shampoo to complex technical gadgets. Yet we don’t always have operating instructions for our own organizations. We might have a general idea of what we are doing and how we are doing it from day to day, but each individual is usually making their own ‘to do’ list for their own job. So how can you make sure that these various ‘to do’ lists are all moving you towards the same goal?

A strategic plan is like a large-scale, overview to-do list. It helps each person to understand their own role in the provision of your product or service and how their actions can impact – positively or negatively – the plan’s results.

Outlasting turnover

Another thing that changes in the business world? The people that are working for the business. Almost gone are the days when someone spends their entire career with the same organization. Instead, people tend to move from company to company as opportunities present themselves. If you’re not prepared for this kind of turnover, the knowledge and skills that a person takes with them when they leave can also leave you in a lurch.

But a strategic plan can outlast the turnover that you’ll experience in your organization. If it is thoroughly done, the document can be picked up and followed by the next person that comes into a position. They will know what their duties are and how they are to perform them. In this sense, a strategic plan is a form of succession planning because it helps positions in the organization continue to function regardless of who is holding those positions.

Remembering the big picture

Yes, you want a strategic plan that helps you have step-by-step operating instructions. You want it to be detailed enough that you can use it as a guide to your basic activities and so that it keeps you focused on what you need to be working on. But you also want the strategic plan to be a reminder of what you are doing all this for. What is the big picture? What is the ultimate goal?

A well-written strategic plan reminds you of the overarching aims of your activity and invites you to discuss the direction that the company is taking. Are you getting the best performance that you can out of your business? Are you using the best skills available from your employees? A strategic plan gives you a top-level overview of your organization, its performance, its mission, and its goals and it encourages you and the other leadership to keep these high-level topics in your conversations and on your minds.