The Benefits of Strategic Thinking and Ways to Develop this Mindset
By: John Cristóbal
Tags: Strategic Thinking, Entreprenuership, Strategy, Business Strategy, Mindset Coaching

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Being a strategic thinker involves analyzing scenarios, looking at the current set of circumstances to finding solutions, and effectively mapping things out. It is most beneficial for you to adopt the mindset of thinking strategically.

When you develop your mind to think strategically, you are essentially overhauling the way you think. You are utilizing a new approach to thinking about decisions you should or should not make, weighing your next move, and thinking ahead.

Strategic thinking provides multiple benefits, which are as follows:

1) It allows you to be proactive to situations or circumstances rather than reactive. Many people fall into the trap of reactive thinking after something has happened. Those who think proactively can prepare and plan accordingly.

Say, for instance, a significant storm is headed into the area and will be hitting the coast within the next couple of days. The proactive person will take the information given and prepare for the storm, whether it is going out to get supplies like food, an extra bottle of water, batteries for flashlights if there is a power outage, and proactive in dealing with the situation. In contrast, the reactive person tends not to give it much thought until the storm is about to hit, and then they go out to the store for needed items. That is someone who is acting reactively.

2) Strategic thinking allows you to be more organized. If you are focusing on developing strategies in your day-to-day life, you will get organized and create the habit of being organized as to how you approach things. Organizing allows you to take inventory of what you have. The more you develop a way to utilize what you have effectively, the more used to being organized you will be, and subsequently, be better off when adopting a more focused and strategic mindset.

3) It increases your ability to solve problems. A person who weighs strategies for solving a problem will first analyze the situation, think of different ways to approach the problem, and then find the best possible solution. Generals are some of the most excellent problem solvers in recorded history. Whether it was dealing with logistics, getting supplies, or preventing the enemy from acquiring there’s, or the best possible approach to attacking an enemy position, these individuals regularly incorporated strategic thinking, working the problem from different angles to develop the best possible solutions.

If you want to develop that mindset and think like a general, you have to work on the problem by looking at it from different angles. It will enable you to develop solutions to dilemmas you are facing or could be facing down the road. It is not just about seeing your next move but also visualizing the next several steps to solve the problem.

4) Another advantage of strategic thinking is that it will increase your credibility and level of influence, among others, socially and in business. Most everyone gravitates towards a person who has a good plan. Individuals who make well-laid plans before tackling their initiative are most often admired and are more likely to accomplish their goals. Socially speaking, what draws a young woman to a man in part is the plan he conveys to her when asking her out on a date, for instance, where the guy is taking her out, what they will be doing, etcetera. A woman will always appreciate a man who takes the time to plan dates out.

As it pertains to the business world, whether someone is the boss of their own company or is an employee, neither can effectively run a business without first implementing and enacting a solid plan.

People tend to gravitate toward and respect individuals who are forward-thinking planners that formulate a plan to achieve the goals they set with the plan they have made. When people see the successful outcome of your planning, you gain a level of credibility amongst peers. Additionally, you prove that you are an asset and someone to be taken seriously. What’s more, people develop a greater level of trust and confidence in you when they see that you successfully plan something that reaches specific goals.

Now that we have gone over some of the benefits of being a strategic thinker, let’s go over some ways to develop this frame of mind more efficiently.

1) To develop this mindset, you must make a conscientious effort to prioritize tasks. You will essentially want to decide the most important thing you need to square away and go from there. You will find that your planning around the tasks at hand becomes way more organized by prioritizing, and you can get things done quicker than you would if you did not prioritize your tasks. Now granted, some tasks take longer to get done than others; however, by prioritizing, you will find out the most important thing to get done and where you should be focusing the majority of your time.

2) Ask Questions. Any person who wants to develop their mind to think strategically needs to ask questions. They need to ask questions to which there are no easy answers or are a couple of different solutions, but they need to pick which one is the best option. Asking questions and making inquiries allows our cognitive brains to work on a deeper level and increases our knowledge about the subject matter to which we are inquiring.

3) If you want to develop a better penchant for thinking strategically, be ready to listen before acting. Listening to others’ suggestions or essential information when coming to a decision helps you make informed decisions instead of going off snap judgments. Listening to opinions and considering the best ideas, especially from those who are older, wiser, and more experienced than you, is a good thing as it allows us to learn more. Not only do we make more well-informed decisions, but we can also utilize the past experiences of others to our advantage when formulating effective plans, helping us to determine what will or will not work.

4) Read about or study past examples. When developing your mind to think strategically, it is wise to research past examples. Researching will help you find effective methods of how successful innovators achieved their goals and perhaps extract specific critical applications that you can use in your circumstances. Some of the most prolific generals, inventors, and innovators were students of history and read about men of a different era to learn from their examples.

These are just some of the ways we can better develop our aptitude in strategic thinking. The examples mentioned above are what we should regularly incorporate into the routine of our day-to-day lives. If you want to better yourself, don’t hesitate to develop patterns that will encourage strategic thinking.