- Strategic thinking by yourself is nice,
but oftentimes your goals can't be accomplished alone.
You need buy-in and support
from your boss, your colleagues, and your employees.
Here are three key ways to cultivate that.
First, if you're developing a strategy,
do not unveil it at the strategy meeting.
That might sound counterintuitive,
but the savviest professionals understand that meetings
in which strategies are presented
are actually ratification meetings.
The real work takes place beforehand,
systematically briefing key people
to get their input and feedback
and addressing any concerns they might have upfront.
You absolutely do not want to share
your lovingly crafted strategy for the first time
and have it torpedoed
because your boss has a knee jerk reaction against it
or some key player misinterprets
an aspect of it and goes ballistic.
Or because someone springs a question on you
that you hadn't thought through.
Save yourself that agony
and engage in a campaign of pre-meetings
with anyone who's blessing you need to make something work
and then bring them into the process
that makes it far more likely
they'll be favorable toward it, or at least less resistant.
It's also important when you're mapping out your strategy
to identify objections that people are likely to have
and create detailed responses.
If you set aside time to brainstorm,
you can probably come up with 90% of the objections
people are going to throw at you
and there is no excuse for being unprepared.
For instance, let's say you want to launch a new product.
You estimate it'll bring in $10 million the first year.
Great, but you can easily imagine a skeptic
might question how you arrived at that number
so you'll want to have a detailed explanation ready,
showing not just how you arrived at the number
but why your figures are actually on the conservative side.
You'll also want to prepare to face objectors,
meaning individuals who feel particularly
threatened by your proposal.
For instance, if you're suggesting that marketing
should take over a function that sales has always held,
there's probably going to be some blowback
over the perceived loss of control.
But if you're aware that's coming your way,
perhaps you can make other concessions
that would soften the blow
or somehow make the arrangement more palatable.
You may never win them over completely
if you're stepping on their turf.
But if you can at least turn the volume down
on their dissatisfaction, that's a win.
Finally, you'll want to put a system
in place to maintain accountability with your team.
At a basic level,
that might look like sending around an email
after every meeting
with a recap of what was agreed on and who's doing what.
At a macro level,
it means reiterating frequently what your timeline is,
what the markers are on the path to that timeline,
and ensuring there's no slippage along the way.
The goal of thinking strategically isn't really thinking.
It's accomplishing your strategy.
And to do that effectively, almost always
you'll need to bring your team on board.