How to Think Strategically is the ideal primer for those who want to develop their mental acumen and make strategic impact. This book will help you understand what it means to “be strategic” and how to craft strategy that is effective, powerful, and clever. A competent strategic thinker tolerates ambiguity, notices weak signals, defines the core challenge facing the organization, and designs effective responses with a winning strategic logic.
How to Think Strategically provides numerous real-world examples of individual strategic thinkers in action describing how they constructed a winning strategic logic. Through these examples, you'll learn useful lessons that can be applied in any organization and in your personal life. This book will show you how to:
- Internalize the 20 microskills of strategic thinking
- Develop your personal brand as a competent strategic thinker
- Pose high-quality questions that spark strategic insights
- Write a concise one-page statement strategy, with five essential concepts that will help you distinguish effective strategy from a list of goals
- Design strategy that is clever and powerful
- Recognize and mitigate blind spots and decision traps
- Distinguish strategic thinking from operational thinking and appropriately apply each
- Overcome the excuse of “I'm too busy to be strategic"
- Recognize and exploit the four X-factors of strategic thinking: Drive, Insight, Chance, and Emergence
- Practice extra-ordinary leadership to confront issues and leap into an unknown future
- Improve conversations with other strategists
The author brings a unique perspective that reflects years of experience as a corporate manager, educator, strategy consultant, facilitator, executive leadership coach, and board member. He writes with an engaging style that unpacks the broader concepts into easy-to-remember nuggets. Anyone can improve their strategic thinking if they know where to focus their attention. This book will be an indispensable guide for anyone interested in developing their personal brand.
Greg Githens is Vice President, Strategic Initiatives and Innovation, at Catalyst & Cadre. As a speaker, seminar leader, and strategic thinking coach he has helped hundreds of individuals, teams, and organizations become more effective in developing skill in strategy and its execution. He leads a popular seminar for the Project Management Institute entitled "Leading Strategic Initiatives." He's also a practitioner and facilitator of strategy and execution, working with executives, boards of directors, and at strategic planning retreats. Greg is the co-author of the best-selling Successful Project Management. He’s also the author of numerous book chapters, two blogs, "StrategicThinkingCoach" and "LeadingStrategicInitiatives," and dozens of articles for the Product Development & Management Association and the Project Management Institute. Greg holds an MBA from Bowling Green State University, an MEn. from Miami University, and a BS from The Ohio State University. He is a certified Project Management Professional and a certified New Product Development Professional.
