I once worked for a company that highly valued action, even imperfect action. Decide, move, and do it fast. I loved the pace, energy, and freedom to fail if necessary. But it was pushed too far, and an unintended consequence was that strategy was relegated.
It was diluted down in presentations. People became embarrassed when they thought they were being seen as too ‘strategic’, and not scrappy enough. Even though the organization prized good strategic thought, results suffered, and it felt like a vagabond army of headless chickens was ruling the roost.
This may well sound like where you work today.
99% of companies, no matter the size, are engaged in a constant battle of tactics, with the strategy being unintentionally pushed further and further up the chain. Results are tangible & easily measurable. Strategy needs explaining.
Yet strategy is fundamental to growth, innovation, and long-term career success. Tactics and action are the fuel of immediate wins, but you can’t thrive and compete for the long-term on tactics alone. Strategy is simply stepping back and planning towards a future goal. It’s a plan that allows you to think before you make your tactical blink.
So how do you handle finding the time and positioning for strategy when you’re drinking Kool-Aid from the fire hose, where every day is yet another tactic to defend, implement, correct, or run away from?
WINK
In one survey of 10,000 senior leaders (HBR/Develop Strategic Thinkers Throughout Your Organization 2014), 97% of the big-wigs said that strategic thinking was the leadership behavior most important to the success of the organization. Yet 96% of these very same folks said they lacked the time to do it. We’d like to meet the 1% who did find the time. They’re probably on a yacht, telling the other 96% what to do.
NUDGE
So, you just need to work a bit longer so you can get everything else done and free up some time to think? Staying at work until the sun comes up with an open bottle of busyness & a humblebrag posted to your LinkedIn profile?
Nope. Pounding the hours kills productivity and the ability to think creatively. In fact, according to a Stamford study, the best strategic thinking is done - bar none - when you’re taking a short walk outside. A short walk outside!
How often have we said, “I’m just going to go for a short walk outside to do the best strategic thinking of my life”, and not think we’d have the entire office throw bananas at us?
No matter what we try and say or do, busyness is status building. Taking a walk is not.
Yet virtually all productivity experts agree on one thing. Strategic thinking doesn’t take time - it takes space. That’s the secret sauce, dear Jolters.
And the kind of space we’re talking about here is mind-space. So how do you do it?
JOLT
We’ve never professed rocket-scientist-level insights at The Jolt. Virtually everything in business leads its way back to some form of common sense. We’ve found that the most successful career architects use common sense as a condiment for every action they take.
Here’s how to be more commonsensical, and not let the organization drown the space you need for the essential strategic thinking you need for career success:
Empty the trash. The nagging thought of feeling like something is always in need of getting done is an existential killer of creativity and bigger thinking. Your brain literally refuses to let you think big unless you can prove to it that you have everything under control. We’ve said it before and will say it again; write it all down, it’s the only way to free up your mind-space. It’s just like emptying your mental trash.
Your calendar is telling you everything. Oftentimes, what we want to do and what we are actually doing is at odds. I calendar the actions on my to-do list and I calendar strategic thinking (which, yes, involves short walks and trips to the loo). I remove things that don’t move things forward or defer things that aren’t important right now. Calendars dictate your working day. I know people who only look at their calendars to tell them where they should be heading next. That’s a repeating loop you need to avoid.
Opt-out. Yup, as hard as it might be, opt out of busy. Busy is what happens when you are working toward someone else’s agenda. When you work on the things that are important to you, it’s not being busy. One person we know says they are never too busy. They are very senior and they only work on things that are important to them. Busyness is not even in their vocabulary- just productivity. It’s amazing what you can ditch when you think this way. Start by declining a meeting that doesn’t have a published agenda or a goal; and tell the organizer accordingly…and then use that time to go for a walk and have a good hard think.
With love and strategy,
The Jolt.