Strategic Thinking is critical to all aspects of planning, budgeting, and policy development and analysis in private, nonprofit, and government organizations of all sizes. This brief overview contains the 12 critical components of Strategic Thinking and comparisons with conventional ideas.

1. W I L L I A M P . K I T T R E D G E , P H D
Strategic
Thinking

2. Strategic Thinking
 Strategic thinking is a future focused process that
defines how you think about, assess, view, and create
the future.
 One can apply strategic thinking to arrive at
decisions that can be related to your work or
personal life.
 Strategic thinking involves developing an entire set
of 12 critical skills.

3. Critical Skill #1
 Strategic thinkers have the ability to use the left
(logical) and right (creative & emotional) sides of
their brain in a balanced, complementary fashion.
 Logic alone may produce socially unacceptable decisions
 Spartans and Hawaiians destroyed ‘imperfect’ children at birth
 Emotion alone may produce unrealistic or unachievable goals.
 ‘Zero low birth weight babies by 2020’ proposed during the
Oregon State Strategic Plan process (1996-7)

4. Critical Skill #2
 The ability to develop a clearly defined and focused
organizational, professional, and personal visions.
 Strategic thinkers are thinking with a strategic
purpose and creating a visioning process.
 Employ these in complementary fashion.

5. Critical Skill #3
 The ability to clearly define their objectives and
develop a strategic action plan with each objective
broken down into tasks and each task having a list
of needed resources and a specific timeline.
 If you don’t have a plan, you are planning to fail.
 ‘Boring details’ and ‘big picture leadership’ are among the
excuses used by those who lack strategic thinking skills.

6. Critical Skill #4
 The ability to design flexibility into their plans by
creating benchmarks to review progress, while
allowing them to recognize plan revision
opportunities as needed. They have an innate ability
to be proactive and anticipate change, rather than
reactive.
 Inflexible implementation is the hallmark of failure.
 Typically arises among those who like to think they are
strategic thinkers but are not.

7. Critical Skill #5
 Aware and perceptive; recognize and utilize internal
and external clues, often subtle, to guide future
direction and realize opportunities other miss.
 Great strategic thinkers will listen, hear and
understand what is said; will read widely and
observe their environment.
 Strategic thinkers often have epiphanies while
engaged in seemingly unrelated activities because
something resonates.

8. Critical Skill #6
 They are committed lifelong learners and learn from
each of their experiences. They use their experiences
to enable them to think better on strategic issues.
 ‘I’ve been there, done that’ doesn’t work.
 Failure to learn and employ new knowledge may be fatal.
 DMV lines vs DMV appointments
 Privatization and out-sourcing

9. Critical Skill #7
 The best and greatest strategic thinkers take time out
to recharge and reflect.
 May be in the form of a retreat; a walk in a special
environment; relaxing in the lobby of an historic
hotel; or an afternoon in a quiet place with a blank
sheet of paper or their tablet.
 Getting into the flow and free associating.

10. Critical Skill #8
 Seek advice from others; a coach, a mentor, a peer
advisory group or some other group that they can
confide in and offer up ideas for feedback.
 Just because you are the smartest person in the room, doesn’t
mean you know everything the others do.
 Humility, recognition of limitations, and acknowledgement of
the expertise of others is critical. – insecure people rarely do
this.

11. Critical Skill #9
 The ability to balance their creativity with a sense of
realism and honesty about what is achievable in the
longer term.
 Unrealistic goals produce unfulfilled promises, as in the
current public pension situation.
 Many of today’s public policy problems are the direct result of
a failure of this critical skill.

12. Critical Skill #10
 Non-judgmental and do not allow themselves to be
held back or restricted by judging their own thinking
or the thinking of others when ideas are initially
being developed and shared.
 This is especially true during any brainstorming
exercises to ensure a flow of great ideas. There will be
time to test the ideas AFTER the brainstorming is
concluded.

13. Critical Skill #11
 They have the ability to be patient and do not rush to
conclusions and judgments. Great ideas and
thoughts require time to develop into great successes
in the future.

14. Critical Skill #12
 Face unpleasant or inconvenient facts
 Open to persuasion and new information that may
alter a situation during any phase of the process.
 Failure to face facts produces policy failures
 Goodwill Board and the CEO’s pay
 Total liabilities unacknowledged in policy discussions
regarding popular programs.

15. Today’s Challenge
 The greatest and most successful organizations in the
world, over many years and decades, would think
ahead and encourage great strategic thinking at least
somewhere in their strategic plans.
 Today’s challenge is the "self-centered," "greedy,"
and too often "unethical" focus on the short-term
measures of the current year, budget, or election
cycle.
 Volkswagon’s emissions scandal
 Issuing debt to ‘fix’ pension funding.

16. Punchline
 A sustainable successful future requires much more,
no matter how big or small your organization is, and
a major requirement is strategic thinking.
 This applies in your professional life, career planning, and
personal planning.
 Retirement planning, or the lack thereof, is a good personal
example – most people ‘out-source’ this implicitly assuming
someone else will act in their best interest.

17. Strategic Thinkers Conventional Thinkers
 Future-based:
anticipate change and
look for opportunities
 Curious: interested in
what is going on
throughout their
department,
organization, industry,
and the larger business
environment
 Reactive: rarely initiate
ideas and wait to be
told what to do or what
actions to take.
 Isolated: typically work
without input from
others or without
understanding others’
goals and objectives.
Strategic & Conventional Thinkers

18. Strategic Thinkers Conventional Thinkers
 Long-term focus:
willing to invest today
to gain a better
outcome tomorrow.
 Willing to Take Risks:
not limited to past or
current thinking,
willing to try new
methods.
 Short-term focus: often
do not consider the
potential impact of an
action on long-term
goals.
 Cautious: fear changing
or challenging the
status quo.
Strategic & Conventional Thinkers

19. Strategic Thinkers Conventional Thinkers
 Able to prioritize: They
do not equate being
busy with being
effective. They place a
high value on projects
with the potential for
great impact and
return.
 Unable to prioritize:
They often treat all
tasks equally without
regard to impact.
Strategic & Conventional Thinkers

20. Strategic Thinkers Conventional Thinkers
 Nimble: They are able
to adjust and modify
their approaches.
 Inflexible: They may be
unwilling to alter their
plans even when
adjustments could
yield a better return.
Strategic & Conventional Thinkers

21. Strategic Thinkers Conventional Thinkers
 Life-Long Learner:
They proactively seek
knowledge and skills
and are willing to teach
others.
 Satisfied: They
normally are not
interested in learning
new things or methods,
and are content with
their current
capabilities.
Strategic & Conventional Thinkers

22. Strategic Thinkers Conventional Thinkers
 Creative: consider
unorthodox ideas, new
approaches, and how to
apply new technologies
 Predictable: stick with
familiar paths,
regardless of their
current utility or
applicability.
Strategic & Conventional Thinkers