How to Be More Strategic

If you only know me through my writing, you likely think of me as a team dynamics person. And I am a team dynamics person--you're right! What you might not know is that I also facilitate business strategy. Strategy work is almost half of our 3COze revenue. 

I am (almost unreasonably) enthusiastic about strategic planning. Really, I get giddy. But given that there's plenty of material to help you be more strategic being pumped out by HBR and the global strategy houses, I don't invest as much of my time on it. But every once in a while, one of the following happens:

• I get fed up 🤬 with the blue suit strategy consultants' approach (and arrogance)
• I lose my nut at something a client is trying to pass off as a strategy
• I empathize with someone who is being held back because they aren't seen as "strategic" 

After one or more of these things ignites a fire under my bottom, I dedicate some ink to fighting misconceptions, simplifying gobbledegook, and painting a picture of how every individual, every team, and every organization can get the benefits of being more strategic. 

April felt like the right time. Here's how I tackled strategic planning in this month's writing, resources, and posts.

Week 1: If Only You Were More Strategic

If you're looking for a promotion, a raise, or just more respect from the powers that be, you might have been told that you need to be "more strategic." Unfortunately, you probably weren't told what the heck that actually means. Someone telling you that you need to be more strategic can feel about as helpful as if they told you to be more groovy, or more purple, or more now. In How Can I Be More Strategic, I encourage you to tackle the problem from two directions. First, you need to be less tactical and less known for making concrete, here-and-now contributions. THEN you can start anticipating, reflecting, and making the connections that will earn you the coveted strategic label. (The article includes a snazzy poster you can pin up to keep you on track.) 

Week 2: Unstrategic Strategy

I mentioned that the big strategy firms and their MBA armies sometimes leave me cold. Often, that's because their approach to developing strategy is painfully linear and devoid of creativity or novel perspectives. In Why Your Strategic Planning Needs More Insight, I rant about those who make strategic planning too fast, too generic, or too orderly. Then I give you my best tips for how to change your strategy process so that what emerges isn't just a carbon copy of everyone else's.

Week 3: Much Depends on Dynamics

If week two was all about the nuts and bolts of an effective strategy process, week three zoomed in on the humans sitting around the table. In How Team Dynamics Affect Strategic Planning, I delved into the mindset and the moodset that is mostly likely to get you a winning strategy. Again, I didn't hold back with sharing my tips and tricks on topics like dealing with the judgy person, encouraging more disagreement, and managing egos. When people ask why a Ph.D. in psychology is facilitating strategy, I tell them it's because the hard part of strategic planning is managing the dynamics. 

Week 4: You're Not Fooling Anyone 

With the premium placed on being strategic, some might opt to try to sound strategic rather than actually putting in the effort to be strategic. I found some interesting research that shows that trying to sound smart with fancy-pants words like methodology and paradigm is more likely to detract from people's perceptions of you as intelligent and valuable than to boost them. In Stop Trying to Sound Strategic, I go after three really common ways that people blow their strategic cover and reveal their true nature. (Hint: Nancy Pelosi and her dog's breakfast of bullets is definitely revealing herself.) 

Exciting New Resource 🆕🤩🧰

Before I talk about the strategy resource, I want to announce the launch of another free resource--my very first Ultimate Guide. These guides are my attempt to provide a one-stop-shop, comprehensive resource on a few of the most important topics in the workplace today. The Toxic Work Environment Ultimate Guide is now up. I'd appreciate it if you would take a look and share it with your network. And I'd love your comments on what you love about it and what you wish it had or didn't have. Next up will be Ultimate Guides on Conflict and then Hybrid Work. Criteria for An Effective Strategy

Resource of the Month

One of my favorite-est parts of the strategic planning process is the session where we make the mysterious, marvelous, miraculous leap from understanding what is true of the organization today to identifying the very small number of things you MUST do if you want to achieve your purpose and goals in the emerging business environment.

Anything that makes this list, I call a Strategic Imperative. Ideally, you want to have four or five imperatives that draw from your biggest insights about ways you need to change the trajectory of the organization (or team, or department) to be successful. Here's a video that explains the whole process. 

If you want to determine whether you've got the right quality of Strategic Imperatives, click to download this set of criteria. Click on the poster to download it. And feel free to share it with anyone who might be trying to pass off "Drive Organic Growth" as an imperative. (If they're trying to pass off Drive Organic Growth as an imperative, you might want to fold this into a paper airplane and launch it at their head.) 

From My LinkedIn Couch

My travel schedule in April could only be described as ridicledonkle! I had a 10-day run where I didn't sleep in the same city two nights in a row. Given that, I've been terribly delinquent on LinkedIn. Thankfully, my delinquency did not reduce the value of your contributions. Here are some of my favorites... 

Defining What it Means to Be Strategic

In this post, I used my favorite click-through format to share 12 ways to be more strategic. It had almost 30,000 views!!! Apparently, I wasn't the only one finding the term "strategic" entirely too nebulous. Here's some of what you said...

Martha Hopewell commented, "I was just having this conversation with a client this morning! Out of curiosity, she Googled "How to Be Strategic" because she keeps hearing this from her boss. She was disappointed with the results. Her observation to me was, "It seems it can be anything!" I look forward to sharing this with her! (And others!)"  Thanks, Martha. I sure hope it was helpful! 

Gerry Lewis made a great addition to my list. He admitted that he sometimes catches himself telling his team to be more strategic. Gerry added that one should "always ask “What If? And Why Not?” I love those additions!

Dan van der Werf encouraged me to turn the post into a series and tackle other of the so-called soft skills that are equally ill-defined. He suggested, "'you need to communicate better,' and 'you need to be a better team player.'" What other pathetic platitudes would you add to Dan's list? (I've already started my article on how to be a good team player.) 

Stumbling Back into Business Travel 

In this post, I shared a few of my fails as I returned to business travel, including wearing high-waisted jeans on a plane. (What a rookie mistake.)

Karen Hoy, who is a road warrior like me, said "it is important to give ourselves a break on the whole return to travel thing. We as humans have an innate ability to adapt. In time, what seems abnormal will become normal. On the positive side - points for vacation!" 

Michael Wilkinson never left the office, so there's no #returntooffice for him. I love that he was transparent when he said "The challenge for me is accommodating or relating to those people who are returning to the office after being away for so long." 

Treena Reilkoff emphasized the importance of reflecting on our trials and tribulations as a key part of the resilience process. She made me feel better about all my travel fails by reminding us all that "SRSR - Self Reflection Strengthens Resiliency"

Craptacular Strategic Planning Processes

Lots of you seemed to relate to my concerns about low-value strategic planning processes. 

Aubrey Chapnick spoke the bitter truth. "Sadly, most strategic planning processes are based on and for budgets."

Alexander Schacht suggested the book Good Strategy/Bad Strategy and I clicked to order it straight away (I know if Alexander recommends it, I'm going to love it). Now I have to do the second step and pick it up off the coffee table and read it. Soon. 

I'd LOVE for you to come and grab a seat on my LinkedIn couch 🛋. Challenge, extend, apply, explain, clarify, synthesize, evaluate, relate... you can add to the conversation in so many ways! Thank You, Thank You! Thanks so much for your ongoing support. I absolutely love hearing from you, whether that's to share how the ideas are resonating, make a suggestion for a topic you'd love me to cover or challenge me on something you don't agree with. Keep it coming! 

May is trust month... stay tuned!