Strategic thinking, much less strategic planning, can be a foreign topic to many team members. Yes, even executives. This begs the question, how did these people ever get to be executives if they are not able to think strategically? That’s a good question, but one for another blog. This blog will help you determine if your team is thinking strategically and what to do if they aren’t.

Here is a hypothetical situation of what can happen. Let’s say an organization recently completed their two year strategic plan. Great start. Their plan calls for a large monetary goal to be reached in just two years. Setting an aggressive, yet reachable goal, is another good thing. The implantation of their plan, may be a little more elusive. Here are some reasons why this may be true.

• Most of the team members are not strategic thinkers
• There is no accountability
• Talent management could use some tweaks

Let’s take a look at each of these factors and see what can be changed to implement a strategic plan.

You no doubt have read numerous articles about ensuring that you have the right people on the bus and making sure they are sitting in the right seat on the bus. First of all, we’re going to assume that your bus is heading in the right direction and that its wheels have not fallen off. So if your bus is not on course and intact, your hiring process can certainly help to begin repairs. For example, if you use a four-part hiring system such as:

 - Behavioral Interviewing
-  Assessments
-  Background checks
-  Drug Tests

then you should have good luck in selecting the right person for the job at hand. Of course, there are other activities that help as well,

In a recent article in Kornferry Briefings, an interview with Clara Gaymard, President and CEO GE France, Ms. Gaymard reveals how walking a mile in someone else’s shoes can benefit customers and give new life to a failing ROI.

Having a desire to sell their magnetic resonance imaging machines or MRIs and wanting both a good ROI and the machines to have the largest impact; GE began researching countries with the greatest need for the machines. This research revealed that the wait for an MRI in France was 45 days. This is much longer than the waits in Germany, the UK, and so on.

Business Lesson #1: Find the need for your product or service. As the old saying goes, you may be able to sell a bikini to an Eskimo, but does the customer really want one?

Logically, GE offers the MRIs to the health ministers in France. One might reason that the government of France would be all too happy to upgrade its health care system and provide its citizens with quick access to such an important health benefit. Not so fast, Dr. No. The health ministers, on the other hand, reason that their obligation is how to cut health care costs and give their ROI a shot in the arm.

Managing time is a constant challenge for my coaching clients, and yes for me too! We all know better. We all know that if we manage our time well, we’ll accomplish more, reduce stress, and still have time for things we enjoy the most. Procrastination is one of the biggest concerns and often seems the most difficult to conquer. Yes, I know, we want to put that off until later as well.

A tool to help us conquer this defeating habit is understanding what causes us to procrastinate. First we’ll look at the causes of procrastination and then ways to tame this shrew.

The Cause

•  Failure to set priorities – If you don’t know where to begin – you won’t. Further, not setting priorities leaves the door open to making everything a priority. This confuses the brain and leads to procrastination.

The Cure

•  Each day put together a to-do list. The night before is even better as you can hit the ground running the next morning. Be sure to prioritize the items on your list. When your boss or client piles more items on your already stretched out list, consult with them and let them help you establish what is really important. Everything is not a four alarm fire. In addition, you can break projects into smaller pieces and that helps keep you both focused and motivated.