05-01-2014 - How to Build Strategic Thinking Skills - Houston, TX

Strategic Thinking Essentials:

• Strategic Thinking Rule #1: Open minds are essential!
• Challenging conventional thinking
• What"s your vision? Seeing possibilities beyond the present
• Thinking big and broadly
• Automatic filters that affect your perception of the world and the way you think
• Reading the environment of today and anticipating the environment of tomorrow
• Zoom-in, Zoom-out: looking beyond the picture you see from where you stand

Strategic Thinking for Better Decisions:

• What do you need to accomplish? Focus on the goal
• Weighing risks against the potential rewards
• Intuition or hard fact? Why you need to consider both
• Building adaptability and flexibility into your decisions
• Choices must be made: establishing priorities
• How hiccups and mistakes can be a strategic thinker"s best friend

The Strategic Thinker"s Thinking Tools:

• The important role of information gathering in concepting new strategies
• Understanding the drivers, strengths, and vulnerabilities of any situation or business condition
• Identifying roadblocks and land mines that can throw you off track
• Protecting your "thinking time" — it"s hard to be your strategic best amidst the hustle and bustle of everyday life
• Questioning strategies: the best answers come from the best questions
• Articulating your strategies: communicating so everyone understands

Creative and Critical Thinking Skills:

• The differences among strategic, creative, and critical thinking — and why all 3 are important
• Creative idea generation — how to come up with lots of outside-the-box ideas fast
• An oldie but still a goodie for critical thinkers: SWOT Analysis
• Get out of "stuck in a rut" thinking
• Avoid costly mistakes using what-if thinking
• Paradigms: where to look for the next generation of breakthrough ideas
• Using the "Why 5 Tool" to determine what"s really important to you

From Strategic Thinking to Strategic Planning:

• Aligning strategic decisions with critical goals
• Critical steps of strategic thinking that guarantee your action plan succeeds
• Ground rules for making stronger decisions and plans
• Setting measurable, specific objectives
• Identify organizational barriers that may interfere with new strategic plans
• Keeping strategic planning simple: the hazards of confusing "comprehensive" with "complex"
• Resource needs planning: a critical part of any strategic plan
• The strategic planning team — and why it"s never a team of one!
• How to monitor your strategic plan"s effectiveness and recognize cues that signal