Marcia's Leadership Q and A's: Are you a strategic thinker?

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Strategic Thinking

Q. What is strategic thinking and why do we need it?

A. Strategic thinking is thinking about your direction; it’s future thinking about what’s possible. Where are the opportunities? Leaders who are strategic thinkers scan the environment continually. They see barriers to achieving their goals, but they then look at options and discover new and different ways to pivot and pursue the future.  One important point that many leaders struggle with is that they take on too many initiatives and strategies. The business needs a focus. Leaders create the priorities (3-4) and help the people focus. Create the place where they can discuss how to achieve the goals together. What resources in training, materials, or technology do they need to succeed?  If the focus doesn’t happen, leaders, their teams, and the company is spread too thin, builds in complexity, and accomplishes little. Are you getting the results you want? Check your strategic focus.

Strategic thinking is essential because a purpose and strategies help people unite and achieve their goals (fewer are better.) Strategic thinking leads to strategic planning. Without those, people and organizations flounder.  Waste and complexity build up; the business is not streamlined, efficient, or as productive as needed.  Leadership and strategic thinking go together. They are essential and lead to the next step: operational planning to define how to move forward and achieve the goals together.

Marcia's Leadership Q and A's: 4 tips for your team retreat

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Thank you for submitting your leadership questions to md@mdaszko.com.

Corporate Retreat

Q. As our team emerges from remote work and we re-enter the office setting, I think we will have new and different issues. To prepare, I’d like the executive team to meet for a management off-site or executive retreat. Is this a good approach and of value to re-energize our team?

A. Executive’s plans to schedule an offsite retreat in the next quarter, has catapulted 900% in the past month. Leaders anticipate a stronger need to meet and strategize. This will be followed by more team retreats to gather and revive their collaboration and focus.

I’ve facilitated thousands of leadership meetings, board retreats, strategic planning sessions and management offsite meetings for over 25 years. I believe they are of value, beyond comparison, with one caveat: they must be facilitated well (outside thinking and questions are imperative.) Address the aim early: why are you having the meeting with the team. There are many team meetings that are held; people feel good and experience a workshop-high, but there’s little progress or improvement back at work. If you want to learn, work, and strategize together to make a difference, it’s hard work. That’s the work of leadership!

I’ve surveyed executives and managers who have participated in offsite meetings and management retreats. Here are the key benefits they describe (there are many more): participants are able to open up, share, contribute, collaborate, build relationships, listen deeply, create more understanding and empathy, address not only problems but the root causes to long-term problems, and explore options, strategies, and plans; there’s a renewed focus and prioritizing on what’s important and will make a difference; new learning and ideas that are introduced (usually through experiential exercises and a variety of education techniques) are processed  with different perspectives; data and trends are studied to optimize your organization; there’s room to test ideas and discuss future opportunities and the bold impact you can have.

The team develops a new lens and are more resilient as they elevate to a new level of leadership. The results of an effective offsite are:

  • an ability to address and focus on deeper issues and accelerate decisions;

  • breaking down barriers between people and departments and creating a healthier workplace of trust and support;

  • linking the current business to the future direction; and

  • beginning to transform beliefs, plans, structure, and management style into innovative leadership and bold results.

BIO:

Marcia Daszko works with Boards, C-suite leaders and teams to guide their leadership transformation to accelerate and achieve bold results never before imagined. She is a provocative keynote, breakout, and digital speaker for conferences and corporate events. She has been a strategic business advisor and management consultant based on Dr. Deming’s philosophy of leadership for 25+ years. An executive retreat facilitator and MBA professor, she is also the bestselling author of the book “Pivot Disrupt Transform.”  Contact Marcia Daszko for her help at md@mdaszko.com    www.mdaszko.com  

Marcia Daszko - Corporate Speaker