They are most efficient when they can focus on each item separately. Strategic thinkers tend to select the situations they want out of the many alternatives they've identified. Strategic thinkers are always looking at options and possibilities. They process several ideas at once and consider the relative value of each alternative. And the conceptuals see the whole thing in a much larger context and look to how they can shape the future.
Conceptual thinkers have a huge bandwidth.
They see relationships between everything. The strategic see everything on the level of how it could be used, what effect it would have on other things. And then a small group are the conceptuals who see everything in the context of what it means, how it relates to the rest of the world. An operational thinker might pick up a pencil and start experimenting with it to see how it writes. A strategic thinker would start exploring the many ways the pencil could be used.