Thinking Strategically
October 10, 2011 at 4:40 PM
This blog posting is late. I’ve been working hard on the day-to-day tasks of meeting with clients, managing people and projects, and running the business; all of which leaves little time for stepping back to write or think strategically about where the company is going. I’ve been busy working “in” the business and have made no time to work “on” it. It’s the same trap I often talk about with my clients. The last blog post was about the importance of leaders developing self-awareness by making the time to reflect on themselves. The same holds true for stepping back and reflecting on the business.
One of my former clients, Sheila*, is a VP in a large, multinational professional services firm. After many years abroad, building a successful line of business in London, the firm moved her back to the United States to work on an important new project. Fueled by her anxiety and the pressure she put on herself to quickly show progress, she jumped into a series of activities, which had worked for her in the past. While she and her team were very busy, there was no clear sense of strategy or guiding direction. In the absence of these, while the project saw some limited success, her superiors were losing confidence in her ability to deliver results and her team felt lost, lacking a sense of purpose or connection to the overall mission of the organization.
Where Sheila was failing was in her willingness to stop long enough to formulate a clear strategy then communicate it to others. She was so busy working on the day-to-day tasks that she wasn’t giving herself the time to step back, reflect on her vision for the business, and communicate it to her team. She was plagued by a fundamental belief that her value to the organization and her team came from her doing the work rather than providing strategic direction and oversight.
This is one of the most common challenges I see for leaders as they move to the senior ranks within their organizations. The activities that have made them successful at more junior levels are no longer the things the organization needs or expects them to do. The more senior leaders become in their organizations the more they need to step back from the day to day work on the business to create time and space for thinking strategically about the business. This can be a hard transition for leaders to make. As one executive said to me, “I don’t feel like I am doing anything; people are going to start asking what value I add to the organization.”
This common concern is very telling and speaks to the core issue preventing many leaders from successfully transitioning to more senior levels in their organizations. It’s hard for them to let go of the day-to-day activities which made them successful in the junior ranks and see that taking time to look forward is critical to their role as a leader. I realize when I’m asking clients to step back I’m asking them to disengage from their comfort zone and work in a new way which is less familiar and may feel threatening. However, to be a leader in a senior role, making this transition is critical to their success.
Where do you need to step back? Are you buried in the day-to-day activities of your organization? If so, what changes do you need to make so you can focus on your company’s strategic needs? Taking the time to be forward thinking is as important as thinking inwardly. Both require the quiet necessary to think broadly and achieve a level of success beyond where you stand today.
* Name and details changed to preserve confidentiality