Course
Overview

Strategic thinking is the ability to think on a big and small scale, long and short term, and into the past and the present. While strategic thinking is a valuable skill for everyone in an organization, it becomes increasingly essential as you ascend the leadership ladder. Strategic thinking ability is often the “secret sauce” that accelerates a leadership career. And the lack of strategic ability will often impede one’s career progress.

This course is designed to help a group of leaders learn to use strategic thinking to guide the direction of their teams and come up with solutions to key business problems. They learn how to carve out time to think about strategy, gather data, learn from the past, create a vision for the future, and implement strategic thinking within their teams.

This workshop is also designed to help participants improve their critical-thinking and problem-solving processes while focusing applying these new skills to workplace challenges and ultimately make better decisions.

In this workshop, leaders will learn about:
  • Decision making process and challenges
  • The use of rational tools to improve decision making
  • The role of emotions in decision making
  • Techniques to avoid decision traps and blind spots

This workshop includes pre-work assignments, facilitated discussions, case studies, individual and small-group work, and other tools to assist participants in applying learning to their business roles.

Business Impact

Leadership teams are able to develop a common language and process to enhance their strategic planning discussions.

Leaders are better equipped to “think about their thinking” which enables more thorough and productive decision making.

Leaders learn to use strategic thinking to guide the direction of their business and enhance the working culture of their teams.

Employees develop the ability to reframe their perspective on workplace changes and situations they cannot control.

Business planning and decisions are based upon more data and information because of a thorough discovery process.

Scenario planning is used more frequently to be better prepared when plan execution produces a sub-optimal result.

Learning Journey

Prework

  • Workplace Situation Identification
  • Reflection Exercise

Workshop

Introduction
Strategic Thinking
VUCA: The “New Norm”
  • Strategic Choice Model​
  • Strategic Thinking Context
  • Group Discussion
  • System 1 and System 2
  • Discovery process
  • Application Exercise
Intersession Activity**
Role of Emotions in Decision Making
  • Self-awareness
  • Individual biases and blind spots​ and common decision traps
  • Rational tools to improve group problem solving and decision making
Intersession Activity**
Execution
  • When strategy meets practical reality
  • Value of contrary thinking
  • ​Learning from failure
  • Failing forward

Post-Work

  • Action Planning
  • 30-60-90 Day Action Plan Reviews *
  • Virtual, Group Touchpoint Session *

Learning Objectives

Experienced Facilitators

We can prepare your team to deliver this program, or leverage our global network of experienced facilitators