Why CEOs should elevate strategic thinking in their organizations

Often times, CEOs are unaware of how their managers and those that lead teams encourage or discourage their people from thinking about the right approach for better performance. In my early days of employment, a very senior person whom every one respects has said to me before: “Uju you are not paid to think, you are paid to carry out instructions, those that are paid to think sit up there in the executive management floor. Sadly, this erroneous belief still exists today in organizations. I was more than surprised when during a session for 18 mid level managers, about 15 of them mentioned that their managers at one time or the other (directly or indirectly) have said the same to them. If CEOs do not act fast to counter this erroneous belief it will continue to fester. The truth is that everyone is paid to think for his or her organization!

On the side of the CEOs and organizations that encourage their people to always wear their thinking cap at work (encouraging them to think), most of their people are at lost when they are told to be strategic or think strategically. The truth is that most people do not know how they can think strategically or become strategic. And because they don’t understand what strategic means, they will not be able to relate the strategic issues their organizations are facing let alone thinking strategically in solving those issues. Based on my interactions working with CEOs, every one of them would like to have people who are strategic, innovative, who can lead and manage change especially in difficult times, and who has the organization’s growth in mind – and all these are embodied in the capability of strategic thinking. So, as the CEO, it is more than necessary for you to champion strategic thinking in your organization as no one else can do it better.

More than ever, the turbulent times businesses are facing in Nigeria and globally call for organizations to be more strategic in all facets of their business operations. It is no more enough to achieve medium to long term growth in this fierce economical situation by only offering good products or services (your competitors are doing same like you). Often times, executives that are close to me and also my MBA students have asked: how can they determine when what they or their organizations are doing is strategic? Well, determining what is strategic is about deciding whether something matters to your organization’s success and demands being addressed with insight and innovation – and the key skill required is strategic thinking. Let me also add that what could be strategic to your organization might not be to others, that is why it will be good for your company to “run your own race.”

According to The Wall Street Journal “the number one ranked and most valued skill in leaders today is strategic thinking”. But sadly, only 3 out of every 10 managers are strategic. This explains why we have strategic plan documents abandoned on the shelves; we have lots of missed strategic opportunities in organizations, lack of clear cut strategies, poor implementations, low profitability and misalignment of goals. As a CEO, one of the urgent rewarding actions you can take is to bridge the gap and get everyone to think strategically about the growth of your company. Gone are the days when only the executives and managers are expected to think strategically, now everyone in the company that breathes is also expected to think strategically – the same way they can’t do without breathing, the company can’t do without them thinking strategically.

Interestingly, when your people are not thinking strategically, they are only short changing the company’s performance. They would not be able to see things differently, act differently or be able to see opportunities that others have not seen yet. To buttress my point, I carried out an experiment during an in- house strategic thinking session I conducted for a company. The participants were asked to conduct the usual SWOT analysis of their company during the program. One thing was obvious they carried it out as if it was an academic exercise, and because they have not learnt to think strategically (remember only 3 out of 10 managers are strategic), they did not have basis to relate each letter of the SWOT. The SWOT analysis ended up becoming a blind list of items without serious thoughts on how to achieve the objectives. This is why some people will argue the usefulness of SWOT analysis. Please note, in your strategic planning process, Future Environmental Scanning should be carried out before your SWOT analysis.

But by thinking strategically, your people can add depth and breadth to that same SWOT that everyone does. Not only that, they can also generate useful ideas that will end up pushing their thinking into areas they would have overlooked or ignored. By so doing your company would have touched some key areas that can deliver remarkable results. So how did we carry out the SWOT exercise to reflect our thinking during the session?

We did the following, instead of just asking, what are our strengths, weaknesses etc, we took a different approach still using the same SWOT: