How To Be More Strategic

"Today’s business leaders are faced with many challenges: intense competition, increased regulation, and the need for constant innovation. Therefore, it’s imperative that as a business leader you have the essential meta-skill to navigate your business with a thorough understanding of your current situation, vision to see the future destination, and the ability to create the path to reach it,” explains Rich Horwath, author of the book, Strategic.

He says that being strategic is to possess insight that leads to advantage. Strategic is the opposite of unstrategic that includes:

Wondering aimlessly, lacking direction, getting lost in the weeds.

Doing everything, lacking the discipline to say no, and trying to be all things to all customers, both internally and externally.

Conducting meetings that take conversations down rabbit holes that cause widespread frustration amongst the members of your group.

Fortunately, the book provides you with the blueprint for navigating those hurdles while being able to take a truly strategic approach to all facets of your business.

Specifically, you’ll learn about Horwath’s Strategic Quotient (SQ), a validated assessment tool which evaluates an individual’s ability to lead and think strategically. The SQ evaluates a leader’s current mindset and behaviors using the “3A Framework” – acumen, allocation, action. It identifies the building blocks of a strategic leader and pinpoints areas for improvement to help individuals reach their full potential.

With Horwath’s guidance, leaders will master the four dimensions of strategic fitness that contribute to executive performance:

Strategy Fitness: Ability to understand and develop strategy, set direction, allocate resources, make decisions, and create competitive advantage.

Leadership Fitness: Leadership philosophy, personal performance, mental training, and ability to master time and calendar.

Organization Fitness: Ability to create the appropriate business structure, evolve the business model, develop talent while planning for succession, and innovate.

Communication Fitness: How to facilitate conversations, conduct effective collaboration, bring value to customers, and lead productive meetings.

Some of my favorite takeaways from the book include:

Strategic plans should clearly describe where the business is today, where it’s going, and how it’s going to get there. Inherent in that description is what you choose to do and—equally important—what you choose not to do.

If your strategic plan is long, complicated, and not crystallized into a usable one- to two-page document, then there is work to be done. The longer the plan, the less likely it is to be updated with new insights and remain a relevant compass for your strategic direction.

A company is only as good as its people. People are only as good as their actions. And actions are only as good as the thinking behind them.

The best leaders practice the concept of servant leadership by ensuring their people are equipped with the knowledge, skills, and tools to effectively perform their functions.

It takes a confident leader to invest a larger chunk of time exploring the right question to frame the challenge. As Albert Einstein espoused: “If I had an hour to solve a problem, I’d spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and five minutes thinking about solutions.”

Rich Horwath

Horwath shares these additional insights with us:

Question: Of the three unstrategic sins, which one plagues organizations and their leaders the most and why?

Horwath: Killing meetings. 83% of executives we surveyed said that their meetings were an unproductive use of time. If your car or television worked less than 20% of the time, would you keep them? People tolerate unproductive meetings because they become part of the culture—no agenda, starting late, people multitasking, and nothing decided.

Question: What is the primary takeaway you want readers to have after they have read your book?

Horwath: If you don’t increase your strategic fitness, you and your business will fail. To think, plan, and act strategically simply requires awareness, discipline, and focus—all of which are in short supply where the crack cocaine of the business world is multitasking. Both flood the brain with dopamine, provide a brief high, and kill your productivity.

Question: What is the best first action to take for a business leader to become more strategic and to follow your book's advice?

Horwath: I define strategic as possessing insight that leads to advantage. The first step then to being strategic is to continuously be discovering insights. An insight is a learning that leads to new value. Hold yourself and your team accountable for generating, recording, and sharing one to three insights per week, and then find a place to house them in the future so you’re continually building your foundation of expertise.

With practical tools and dozens of real-world examples, Strategic shows you how to be more than tactical―and how to be truly strategic. There’s no better time than now to read this book.

Thank you to the book’s publisher for sending me an advance copy of the book.

Comments

A Guide For How To Dream Big And Win In Business

In Dream Big and Win , author Liz Elting shares the lessons she learned ― both the successes and failures ― while building a billion-dollar company from scratch. She explains why you need not only passion and purpose to win big, but also: a willingness to take decisive action grit sweat equity determination positive attitude Elting’s fascinating story began with her entirely self-funded business launch that started in a dorm room. By possessing a disciplined set of principles and focusing on carefully developing her leadership skills throughout the process, she was able to achieve her goal of becoming #1 in the translation market that was already dominated by established competitors. Today, Elting is the Founder and CEO of The Elizabeth Elting Foundation, which creates scholarship opportunities for entrepreneurial young women, funds exciting women-led startups and social businesses, and supports women-led organizations that foster women’s success through educational prog...

The Five Critical Roles You Need To Build A Winning Team

The book, Team Players , by leadership expert and New York Times bestselling author, Mark Murphy , explains why a team needs more than strong leaders—it needs the right mix of five roles and talents to succeed. In addition, Murphy reveals that the secret to extraordinary teams isn’t making everyone the same—it’s embracing and leveraging fundamental differences through those five distinct team roles. No amount of teambuilding, trust, or cohesion can overcome having the wrong mix of people in the room. The five essential roles and talents are : The Director assumes a leadership role within the team, guiding its direction and making important, difficult, and even unpopular decisions. The Achiever immerses themselves in the details of accomplishing tasks and getting things done, with a keen eye for delivering error-free work. The Stabilizer keeps the team on track with meticulous planning, processes and procedures, clear timelines, and organization. ...

Seven Ways To Stay Motivated

To learn how to stay motivated, read High-Profit Prospecting , by Mark Hunter . It's a powerful read that includes counter intuitive advice and cutting-edge best practices for sales prospecting in today's business world. Today, I share one of my favorite sections of the book where Hunter describes his seven things motivated people do to stay motivated : Motivated people ignore voices in their lives . These might be people in the office and friends who have bad attitudes. They're out there, and if you're not careful, they'll control you, too. Motivated people associate with highly motivated people . Just as there are negative people in the world, there are also positive people. Your job is to make sure you spend as much time with the positive people as possible. Motivated people simply look for the positive in things . Positive people count it an honor to live each day, learn from others, and impact positively those they meet. Positive people take great satisfaction...

Business And Life Lessons My Father Taught Me

On this Father's Day , I thank my dad for teaching me the following business and life lessons : Listen - Growing up, I thought my Dad was perhaps shy or quiet. Really, he was just a great listener. I believe that's what made him so wise. He would listen to anyone. Young or old. New acquaintance or friend. Provide - My Dad provided for me. Music lessons. Vacations. Summer camp. Boy Scouts. He gave. He put others' needs first. Today, I find in volunteering likely the same satisfaction he felt when he provided. Educate - My Dad's passion was education. He loved to learn. He loved even more to teach. He lived to help other people learn. In the workplace, providing learning opportunities is one of the most powerful things you can do for an employee. Mentoring is equally powerful. Train & Prepare - All those years of hearing, "Have you done your homework?" and "practice your trombone," served me well....

Full Engagement By Brian Tracy

Best-selling author Brian Tracy's book, Full Engagement , provides practical advice for how to inspire your employees to perform at their absolute best. He explains that above nearly every measure, employees' most powerful single motivator is the "desire to be happy." So, Tracy teaches you how to make your employees happy by: Organizing their work from the first step in the hiring process through the final step in their departure from your company so they are happy with you, their work, their coworkers, as well as in their interactions with your customers, suppliers and vendors. Full Engagement includes these chapters and topics: The Psychology of Motivation Ignite the Flame of Personal Performance Make People Feel Important Drive Out Fear Create That Winning Feeling Select The Right People Internal Versus External Motivation At a minimum, Tracy suggests that managers do the following when managing their employees : Smile Ask questions Listen ...

The Five Critical Roles You Need To Build A Winning Team

The new book, Team Players , by leadership expert and New York Times bestselling author, Mark Murphy , explains why a team needs more than strong leaders—it needs the right mix of five roles and talents to succeed. In addition, Murphy reveals that the secret to extraordinary teams isn’t making everyone the same—it’s embracing and leveraging fundamental differences through those five distinct team roles. No amount of teambuilding, trust, or cohesion can overcome having the wrong mix of people in the room. The five essential roles and talents are: The Director assumes a leadership role within the team, guiding its direction and making important, difficult, and even unpopular decisions. The Achiever immerses themselves in the details of accomplishing tasks and getting things done, with a keen eye for delivering error-free work. The Stabilizer keeps the team on track with meticulous planning, processes and procedures, clear timelines, and organi...

Six Leadership Actions To Leverage Employees' Differences To Strengthen Teams

The new book, All The Difference: Six Leadership Actions To Bridge Perspectives, Strengthen Teams, and Create Value , teaches how leaders can turn their team's individual differences into deeper trust, greater creativity, and winning results. “The greatest risk of unmanaged difference isn’t conflict: it lies in the ideas, insights, and opportunities that may never surface,” explain the book’s authors, Susan MacKenty Brady , Stuart D. Kliman , and Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Leslie C. Smith . They suggest that you look around your team to fully see people with different communication styles, perspectives, cultural norms, and capabilities. These differences are expressed in all kinds of ways, such as casual gestures in a meeting, a colleague's opinion on a current event, or an intense work style. Often, those differences can lead to friction, even conflict. You may try to manage around them. But, for you and your organization to fully leverage the strengths of your team’s diffe...

Daily Intentions For Leaders

Everyone can benefit from the book, Dear Friend , which features bite-sized, daily notes for contemplation, inspiration, connection, and clarity. Busy and stressed business leaders can particularly benefit from the 365 profound, heartfelt reflections from author Michelle Maros , founder of Peaceful Mind Peaceful Life and cohost of the podcast, Life Happens with Barb and Michelle . Dear Friend invites readers to go deep and use the notes as a daily practice that compounds over time, nurturing strength, resilience, and clarity. In just a few minutes each day, this book will offer you a daily reprieve when you feel burned out, beaten down, or overwhelmed by the strains and stresses of modern life. The heart of Dear Friend began in the quiet mornings Michelle shared with her mom, Barb. Every day, they would sit together, reading affirmations or passages from Barb’s beloved books. These small rituals—simple but powerful—set the tone for each day, grounding them in g...

How To Be A Radical Listener To Create True Connections

I just read the best book I have ever read about how to be a great listener. It is called Radical Listening by authors Prof. Christian Van Nieuwerburgh (PhD) and Dr. Robert Biswas-Diener . This book will expertly guide you to move from being an active listener to becoming a radical listener. Radical listening is a profound practice that moves beyond simply hearing words to actively co-creating meaning. “Most of us recognize the value of great listening. In fact, most people are familiar with approaches to ‘active listening’ and employ conversational techniques such as maintaining eye contact, nodding, and repeating speaker statements,” explain the authors. “In our book, we present an alternative approach that builds on traditional active listening but extends it in dynamic ways. We present a simple but powerful framework for listening that includes attention to a listener’s motivation as well as to both the mental and behavioral aspects of listening.” ...

How To Play Bigger And Be A Category King In Business

"The most exciting companies create. They give us new ways of living, thinking, or doing business, many times solving a problem we didn't know we had -- or a problem we didn't pay attention to because we never thought there was another way," explain the four authors of the dynamic new book, Play Bigger . They add that, "the most exciting companies sell us different. They introduce the world to a new category of product or service." And, they become category kings . Examples of category kings are Amazon, Salesforce, Uber and IKEA. Play Bigger is all about the strategy that builds category kings. And, to be a category king you need to be good at category design : Category design is the discipline of creating and developing a new market category, and conditioning the market so it will demand your solution and crown your company as its king. Category design is the opposite of "build it and they will come." Key traits of category design...

Eric Jacobson On Management And Leadership

Search This Blog