The 7 Surprising Traits of Highly Strategic Thinkers

1. Bad with Detail:

   • Description: Contrary to popular belief, strategic thinkers are not detail-oriented. Instead, they feel uncomfortable with it, and so automatically retreat to "zoomed out" thinking, which is where strategic thinking happens.
   • Practice: Try to explain the gist of the situation, rather than giving all the info.

2. Naturally Contrarian:

   • Description: Insights aren't uncovered just by thinking differently, but by thinking the opposite. Strategic thinkers can't help questioning received wisdom (often to their detriment!), allowing them to uncover fresh angles and secrets.
   • Practice: Keep asking where you disagree with competitors.

3. Action Oriented:

   • Description: There's nothing more useless than strategy that is all thinking, no doing, so true strategists are always about the action. They don't think so much about the analysis, as the consequences of the analysis.
   • Practice: Don't talk about "strategy", talk about "strategic acts" instead.

4. Radically Honest:

   • Description: The effectiveness of a strategy directly correlates with one thing: truth. No matter how inconvenient or ugly it might be. So the strategist must be comfortable with grasping and speaking that truth.
   • Practice: Explain how your strategy contradicts what you thought before.

5. Takes Responsibility:

   • Description: One of the main reasons many struggle with strategy is that they don't want to be responsible for a big decision that then goes wrong. But strategic thinkers crave that responsibility or at the very least, they don't mind it!
   • Practice: Admit that your strategy is just an opinion, and own it!

6. Great Writers:

   • Description: All strategy is communication. It's a persuasive statement of what should be done and why. So how can you nail that without being a good writer? You can't. So the strategist must hone this skill until it sings off the page.
   • Practice: Start writing in public (e.g., on LinkedIn) as much as you can.

7. Kinda Unprofessional:

   • Description: There's a time for process, and a time for professionalism. But strategizing is not it. It requires a free-wheeling, playful, mischievous approach that is more at home in the bar than the boardroom. That's where the breakthroughs occur.
   • Practice: Take it out of the office!

Credit: Alex M H Smith. Thank you for sharing such an insightful and well-researched article.