Jarrah Elliott-Moyle had some advice for a frustrated work colleague who was continually turned down for promotion “because you are not a strategic thinker”.
How do you help someone in your team when they’re told they’re not a strategic thinker?
I had a guy in my team many years ago and he was itching for promotion.
Time and again he’d apply for the next step up the ladder and time and again he’d been knocked back.
The only feedback he’d get: “You’re just not a strategic thinker”
Pretty poor feedback and nowhere near enough for him to understand why he wasn’t the right fit for the job.
After six months working together we were able to remove that poor excuse for an excuse from interview feedback and move him forward in his career.
Here’s the advice I gave this individual on how to become a ‘strategic thinker’.
Get a mentor:
Strategic thinking is one of those things that if you asked 100 people what it is, you’ll get 500 different answers.
Being told you’re not doing strategic thinking is nowhere near enough information for you to understand what you need to do.
Find yourself a mentor, someone who acts like someone you want to be in five years’ time, ask them for some advice.
They’ll take the time to get to know you, what you’re about, where your strengths and weaknesses are.
With time they’ll be able to describe strategic thinking in words you understand and give you some insights into what you need to do to develop.
Invite yourself to decision-making meetings:
Most of the strategic thinking happens behind closed doors.
So how are you supposed to know what it looks like if you never see it in action?
The best advice I can give is to make sure your name is on the invitation list whenever senior people are making a decision.
Particularly important when it’s a decision on a brief where you’ve been the primary author.
When you get there, keep your mouth shut and pay close attention to what’s being said.
What questions are being asked, which bits of information are being discussed in particular, what broader issues are being spoken about, who are the stakeholders that keep on being brought up during the conversation?
Go to enough of these meetings and you’ll start to see patterns of thinking.
Your briefing will improve as you learn to focus on what matters and you’ll have the confidence to start answering questions before they’re even asked.
Think out loud:
Some people call this bringing others along. It’s one of the stark differences between being an operational member of staff and being a leader.
When you’re engaged in operations thinking you can afford to make decisions on intuition alone; your thinking only affects you.
When you move into strategic thinking, your decisions affect lots of people so it’s important everyone has confidence in how you arrive at answers.
Learn the art of brevity:
This might seem in conflict with tip three, but hear me out, life is all about balance.
Your leaders know you’re smart, they trust that you’ve done the work to arrive at the right advice.
So when you write to them, or speak to them or ask them to make a decision, only tell them what they need to know.
It’s the biggest mistake I see people make; they get so excited about a topic they’re working on that they want to tell everyone every minor detail.
Going into excruciating detail does two things for your leadership:
It makes it incredibly difficult to work out what it is you’re asking them to do.
It leads them to assume that you’re trapped somewhere down in the weeds and can’t see the bigger picture.
Learning how to balance giving people enough information to have confidence in your recommendation with not giving so much that you lose sight of what’s important is an art form.
It takes a lot of practice; you can fast track your learning by reading other people’s briefing, but most of the work has to come from you.
Block out at least one hour a week:
Use that hour just to think, read the news, have a cup of tea, go for a walk and let your mind wander.
Some people will think you’re a slacker, but they’re idiots.
I remember once having an Abbott-and-Costello-type conversation with a team member.
Him: “If we did more strategic thinking we wouldn’t be so rushed off our feet all the time”
Me: “Well, block out some time every day to do some thinking”
Him: “I don’t have the time to just think every day there’s all this work to do”
If you don’t give yourself the time to think, you’ll never have the time to think.
*Jarrah Elliott-Moyle workedg to protect Indigenous heritage during the Australian mining boom and believes change can only be achieved by understanding all sides of an issue, negotiation and cooperation. He can be contacted at linkedin.com.
This article first appeared on LinkedIn.
