One of the key topics that clients want to work on in coaching is being more strategic. There seems to be an element of mystique and a lot that people think they don’t know when it comes to being strategic. This got me thinking…. why?
In organisations, strategy is usually formally reserved for senior roles. We make this distinction between operational and strategic, and we place operational beneath strategic. Strategy often has its own department and it’s usually accompanied by transformation and change and strategic initiatives and all those things that sound quite sexy and senior, grown-up and mature.
It’s no wonder that many of us at different points in our career have perceived strategic and strategy to be challenging. Perhaps we’ve wondered about whether we have what it takes to be strategic. What I want to do here for you is map out a bit of a plan on how you can be more strategic irrespective of your seniority, your tenure, your role, and your professional discipline. The reality is that we can all take a strategic approach and most of us have it within us. It’s about having a plan and then executing that plan. I know that doesn’t sound very mysterious however as long as you’ve got the ability for some lateral thinking and the ability to identify options and evaluate them: bingo you’re strategic!
- Understand your stakeholders
Who do you need to be strategic for and what are you trying to convey by being strategic? We must have a good understanding of our stakeholders and we also need to understand what we want from them. Are we asking them to comment on, to recommend, to endorse, or maybe to approve? If we’re not clear in our ask of our stakeholders this impacts our ability to be strategic.
2. Have a vision
This is about having a vision of where you want to go. I think this is probably the best understood concept of strategy. It’s about the vision, the journey, and the plan. Why is it that we have that plan? Where do we want to go why do we want to go there? How does our plan help us get from point A to point B? Before you start pouring over data and analytics, really think about what you need, what information you trying to convey and how are you going to be able to best convey that information.
3. Tell a story
This is about storytelling. When we are conveying a strategy, it is usually connected to a change. A great way to convey the why behind the need for change is through storytelling. The kind of stories that I liked as a kid and continue to enjoy today are those that have clarity at the beginning. I like to understand the characters; what they’re doing why they’re doing it, then I like to follow the characters through the journey of the story. I like to understand the development of the characters what they’re trying to achieve and how they’ll go about achieving it. And then finally by the time we get to the ending, it is all about assessing whether those characters have achieved what they set out to achieve. What growth and development did they enjoy as they were on their journey? It doesn’t particularly matter if it’s a happy ending or a sad ending but a story has a conclusion that leaves us either satisfied that our story has concluded or leaves us wanting more which we may find in a sequel of our story.
4. Have a call to action.
Our strategy should include a very clear call to action. What are we asking stakeholders to consider, to do, to approve, to endorse, or recommend? When we consider this as part of our planning it makes it a lot easier for stakeholders to follow our story and our strategy. This increases the readability and the comprehension of our strategy and it helps stakeholders to engage with it. We can all be strategic. It takes time, lateral thinking, a willingness to explore ideas, consideration of our stakeholders and what we want them to do with the information we’re presenting to them, and care. This is about caring that our message is understood. At the end of the day, we’re unlikely to be writing it just for ourselves.