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

The Benefits Of When Everyone Leads

It’s only January and the new book, When Everyone Leads , could likely be my pick for the best new leadership book of 2023. It’s that good. There’s still nearly a whole year ahead of us so we’ll see what other books debut. In the meantime, add this book to your must-read list. You’ll learn that: Leadership is an activity, not a position. Leadership is mobilizing others to make progress on the most important challenges. Leadership is interactive, risky and experimental. Leadership comes in moments. Leadership is always about change. When Everyone Leads , by Ed O’Malley and Julia Fabris McBride , presents a revolutionary approach to leadership; not based on position or authority, but an activity that anybody can undertake by learning to spot opportunities for improvement and taking the initiative to engage others. “It can be unfamiliar and uncomfortable, but in a culture where everyone leads, organizations start to make progress on their most difficult problems,” explain t

Effective Listening: Do's And Don'ts

Here are some great tips from Michelle Tillis Lederman's book, The 11 Laws of Likability . They are all about: what to do and what not to do to be a leader who's an effective listener : Do : Maintain eye contact Limit your talking Focus on the speaker Ask questions Manage your emotions Listen with your eyes and ears Listen for ideas and opportunities Remain open to the conversation Confirm understanding, paraphrase Give nonverbal messages that you are listening (nod, smile) Ignore distractions Don't : Interrupt Show signs of impatience Judge or argue mentally Multitask during a conversation Project your ideas Think about what to say next Have expectations or preconceived ideas Become defensive or assume you are being attacked Use condescending, aggressive, or closed body language Listen with biases or closed to new ideas Jump to conclusions or finish someone's sentences

Five Must-Read Business Books To Read This Summer

Stumped for what business books to add to your summer reading list? Here are five must-read books for leaders well worth adding to your list: Lead With A Story -- A Guide To Crafting Business Narratives That Captivate, Convince, and Inspire . Author Paul Smith explains why storytelling has emerged as a vital skill for every leader and manager. In the book, you'll find over 100 ready-made stories you can use as templates to tell your stories. Stories are so powerful because they are simple, timeless, demographic-proof, contagious, easy to remember and inspiring. Most important, they put the listener in a mental learning mode. What's The Future Of Business? (WTF?) -- Changing The Way Businesses Create Experiences . This book, by Brain Solis, details the incredible transformation happening in business today, driven by new social and mobile technologies. And, he explains how experience design helps your business and how you can harness its power for business growth. This book

How To Make The Leap To Becoming A Leader

Here’s another must-read book to add to your list as you transition from manager to leader. It’s The Leap to Leader , by Adam Bryant . As the creator of the iconic “Corner Office” column in the New York Times , Bryant has spoken with more than a thousand leaders over the years about the challenges and nuances of leadership. Many of his discussions are included in his interview series on LinkedIn. “The goal of this book is to provide an intensely practical guide to making that transition by sharing insights, stories, and approaches from hundreds of leaders to build the skills you will need to make the leap to leader,” explains Bryant. He adds that the book is useful to everyone who is interested in leadership, regardless of where they are in their career. The book covers: The central paradox of leaders: selfless vs. self-centered. How to perfect the do-to-say ratio. Ways to navigate office politics. Tactics to making better decisions. The crucial art of compartmentalizati

Seven Tough Questions To Ask Your Team

High-functioning teams can disagree and still produce excellent products and results. Team members can also disagree and still care about each other. And, they can challenge each other to think differently. Best-selling leadership book authors Scott J. Allen and Mitchell Kusy recommend that leaders ask seven tough questions of their teams to help maximize their results. Here are those questions to ask each team member: What are some obstacles affecting this team? What are opportunities we could take advantage of that we have been largely ignoring? Where can you take greater ownership on this team? Where have you let this team down ? Compared to other teams with which you are familiar, how are we doing ? When was the last time you complimented the team or one of its members? How open are you to giving direct feedback to team members?

How To Listen Effectively

Here are some great tips from Michelle Tillis Lederman 's book, The 11 Laws of Likability . They are all about: what to do and what not to do to be a leader who's an effective listener : Do : Maintain eye contact Limit your talking Focus on the speaker Ask questions Manage your emotions Listen with your eyes and ears Listen for ideas and opportunities Remain open to the conversation Confirm understanding, paraphrase Give nonverbal messages that you are listening (nod, smile) Ignore distractions Don't : Interrupt Show signs of impatience Judge or argue mentally Multitask during a conversation Project your ideas Think about what to say next Have expectations or preconceived ideas Become defensive or assume you are being attacked Use condescending, aggressive, or closed body language Listen with biases or closed to new ideas Jump to conclusions or finish someone's sentences

How Leaders Can Move Teams From Isolated To All In

Here is a book that provides workplace leaders an urgently needed methodology for helping companies to reduce worker loneliness, and it delivers a blueprint for building strong, high-performing workplace teams. The book is, Connectable: How Leaders Can Move Teams From Isolated To All In , by Ryan Jenkins and Steven Van Cohen . “72% of workers suffer from loneliness. And, what was once a simmering problem shifted to a crisis when COVID-19 and the sudden transition to remove work isolated workers from each other as never before,” report the authors. “Loneliness is the absence of connection,” explain the authors. “Loneliness is not defined by the lack of people, because someone can be lonely even while surrounded by others. We require more than the presence of others. We require the presence of others to dream, strategize, and work toward commons goals.” Furthermore, “workplace loneliness is defined by the distress caused by the perceived inadequacy of quality connection to team

The Benefits Of When Everyone Leads

Today's FLASHBACK to earlier in the year: It’s only January and the new book, When Everyone Leads , could likely be my pick for the best new leadership book of 2023. It’s that good. There’s still nearly a whole year ahead of us so we’ll see what other books debut. In the meantime, add this book to your must-read list. You’ll learn that: Leadership is an activity, not a position. Leadership is mobilizing others to make progress on the most important challenges. Leadership is interactive, risky and experimental. Leadership comes in moments. Leadership is always about change. When Everyone Leads , by Ed O’Malley and Julia Fabris McBride , presents a revolutionary approach to leadership; not based on position or authority, but an activity that anybody can undertake by learning to spot opportunities for improvement and taking the initiative to engage others. “It can be unfamiliar and uncomfortable, but in a culture where everyone leads, organizations start to make progress on

A Playbook For How Women Advance Within Business

Describing the new book, In Her Own Voice , by Jennifer McCollum , Anne Chow (former CEO of AT&T Business) says that “for women, the book does a beautiful job of explaining not just what to do to advance in your career, but also what to expect. For leaders, it helps you recognize the gap between what you think women seeking advancement want and what they really need.” Chow adds, “the book is based on the experiences of tens of thousands of women, with guidance that is applicable to every one of us, no matter where we are on our own unique journey.” McCollum divides her book into three parts: Understanding the hurdles to women’s advancement Overcoming the hurdles Eliminating the hurdles She professes that women have unique gifts and abilities. “Businesses need talented women, now more than ever. We need to do everything possible to engage, develop, and inspire them—and to advance them into leadership roles, all the way to the C-suite and board positions, if they so c

How To Be An Inclusive Leader

“No matter your title, or how advanced you already consider yourself to be as an inclusive leader, I believe this book will help you evolve and motivate you to take action,” says Jennifer Brown about her book, How To be An Inclusive Leader: Your Role In Creating Cultures Of Belonging Where Everyone Can Thrive . The book is the second edition of the bestselling title from 2021. This newest installment includes a new introduction and addresses challenges posed by the pandemic—including remote work, flexibility, and mental health. “It also gives increased attention to embedding equity, empathy, and anti-racism in the inclusive leader framework,” shares Brown. “I’m proud that this second edition will help leaders and organizations respond to the changes unfolding around us in relevant, culturally competent ways and take action to address systemic inequities that persist in the workplace.” In her book, Brown explores how power and authority are changing fundamentally. She explains tha

Eric Jacobson On Management And Leadership

Search This Blog