Leading with Strategic Thinking. Olson Aaron K.

employers and employees, and reconsider their role in transforming the health ecosystem in ways that align risk and consequences and drive healthy behaviors and outcomes.

      This is just one example of a new breed of disruptive forces that are fueling upstarts and challenging incumbents in almost every industry and economy around the world. Advances in technology are transforming every aspect of our lives – enabling new solutions, services, and products delivered in a highly personalized way. The rise of consumerism is giving new power to the individual and raising expectations for the information and access needed to make increasingly consequential choices that affect our security and well-being. Likewise, globalization is creating both opportunity and competition as people and countries become increasingly intertwined.

      Navigating these kinds of systemic change requires strategy and leadership. Finding the right solutions will require strategic analysis, design, and planning. Driving the necessary change will require strong leadership that embraces diverse thought, builds trust, creates momentum, and removes barriers. Without both strategy and leadership, we risk making incremental progress that doesn't address the real underlying problems we face.

      The urgent need for strategic leadership exists at every level. We need leaders who can see opportunities arising from complex, highly interdependent problems. We need frontline leaders who can lead the charge, influencing others to embrace new ways of working together – and working for one another to achieve a common mission. We need individuals who are motivated to reinvent their own work and equipped to make trade-offs between competing priorities without constant direction from above.

      Strategic leadership is easy to recognize when it is present – or missing – but it is often hard to describe. I've worked with many leaders in my career who possess the ability to assess an environment and quickly adapt their approach to suit the situation. I've probably worked with more who were unable to deconstruct a challenge, consider alternatives and consequences, and work differently to get the desired results. I've realized that the best leaders see patterns that others don't and can turn these observations into unique actions. They enroll and empower those around them to actively participate in problem solving. Most importantly, they aren't afraid to seek feedback and make course corrections when needed along the way. This book helps motivate, develop, and support individuals and organizations to bring together strategic thinking and strong leadership.

      Aaron and BK offer fresh and pragmatic insights into what it means to approach a problem strategically and then lead through the required change. I've enjoyed spending time with them sharing some of my real-life examples of what strategic leaders actually do when addressing real-world problems and opportunities. As teachers, coaches, and leaders themselves, they've used their own experiences, along with insights from their deep networks, to capture crucial aspects of strategic leadership in practical terms that are easy to understand and apply. The result is a new and powerful language on how to lead through strategic change.

      I look forward to seeing this book help organizations and individuals lead more strategically and with more sustainable impact.

– Kristi SavacoolCEO, Aon Hewitt

      PREFACE

      “You need to be more strategic.” When someone receives this kind of feedback, what does it mean?

      We believe that too often strategic thinking is defined narrowly and is misunderstood. Strategic thinking is defined narrowly when its relevance is seen as being limited to senior executives responsible for defining strategic direction. This narrow definition overlooks the value that is created when everyone in an organization approaches work in a more strategic manner. This is particularly true in times of disruption, when forces of technology and social change challenge the status quo and create opportunities for massive improvements in collaboration, productivity, and value creation. Likewise, strategic thinking is misunderstood when it is thought of as synonymous with strategic planning. This limits the relevance and application of a key skill that can and should be applied in a wide range of contexts. Strategic thinking can and should improve the performance of CEOs, but it can and should also be applied by line managers, individual contributors, politicians, coaches, and parents. For these reasons, being competent in strategic thinking is critical for individuals and organizations. Practiced well, it drives performance and distinguishes high potentials. Practiced poorly, it destroys value and derails careers.

      Strategic thinking comprises three key activities: assessing situations, recognizing patterns, and making decisions. Relevant concepts and tools from the fields of cognitive psychology, systems thinking, and game theory can enhance any leader's ability to think strategically.

      It is in the application of strategic thinking to the art of leadership where many experts and books on this topic neglect to address important insights. Broader than a set of best practices or a strategic plan, strategic leadership:

      ■ Acknowledges both the planned and emergent nature of gaining strategic insight,

      ■ Considers the nuances of effectively driving strategic change, and

      ■ Varies widely as a reflection of both personal style and context.

      These issues, often overlooked, are the primary focus of this book. In it we explore academic literature, popular opinion, real-world data, and case studies that inform our definition of strategic leadership.

      We have written this book especially for those seeking answers to questions about the intersection of strategic thinking and leadership. The readers of this book will likely fall into one of several categories:

      ■ Aspiring and seasoned leaders: We wrote this book specifically for you, and designed it to be focused and practical. It has value in its entirety, but any specific chapter can stand alone and provide actionable advice. Use our book as a practical guide when (1) embarking on a new venture in which you want to weigh and select the most appropriate approach, (2) taking on new or expanded responsibilities that require you to reconsider how you approach your work, (3) reflecting on your work and how you consider your role, or (4) receiving feedback suggesting that you become more effective and have greater impact.

      ■ Consultants and advisors can use our book to coach leaders on the essentials of strategic thinking and leadership. From our experience, the concepts and tools in this book are well suited to help leaders at any level or with any amount of experience consider the challenges that sit at the intersection of strategy and leadership.

      ■ Academicians and students can use this book to teach or learn what leaders must do when driving strategy within various contexts, under different circumstances, and with different purposes in mind. While this book is intended to serve as a practical guide rather than an academic text, we have based our writing on well-regarded principles validated by empirical research. We wrote this book because we identified specific relationships between strategy and leadership that we do not see being fully addressed in today's popular or academic literature.

      With these readers in mind, we have written a book intended to be as enjoyable to read as it is practical. While some books focus on strategic thinking and others on leadership, this book focuses on the intersection of the two topics. In looking at these relationships, we will address:

      ■ The major contexts and circumstances within which strategic thinking and leadership typically occur,

      ■ Four types of strategic leadership that integrate strategy formulation and execution, and

      ■ How a leader can adapt their approach to best suit a given situation.

      This book is composed of real examples. Organized around a conceptual framework, it focuses on practical cases featuring real leaders. We draw these examples from our extensive experience working with senior executives, leadership teams, and graduate students who have applied these techniques to become more effective and achieve results.

      This book's chapters are sequenced to introduce broader concepts and then provide tools likely to prove useful. The book contains six chapters:

      1. Fundamentals of Strategic Thinking and LeadershipPresents the essential concepts of leadership and strategic thinking. Our definition of strategic leadership is introduced, and we review four examples