Focused on potential: Every business needs strategic thinkers to analyse, make good decisions and create a clear path toward a better future. Discover the Strategic Thinking domain of CliftonStrengths (formerly StrengthsFinder) here
Constantly analysing variables, making fast and accurate decisions and keeping your business focused on what is possible in the future (i.e. where the real growth is). People with Strategic Thinking skills are vital for focusing your efforts driving your business forward.
And, fortunately, there’s a simple and effective format for identifying the strategic thinkers among us and developing them so you can deploy them for maximum effect in your business. And it’s called strengths.
Building on Clifton Strengths (formerly StrengthsFinder), strengths helps understand what people have to offer – see what are strengths. It features 34 strengths, divided into four strengths domains. And Strategic Thinking is one of those domains. See the complete list of strengths.
Here we introduce the Strategic Thinking domain in strengths, see what strategic thinkers bring to the table, discover the 8 specific strengths inside the domain and find out what kind of job types are best suited to people with Strategic Thinking skills. Plus: We show you how to find the strategic thinkers in your company.
THE STRATEGIC THINKING DOMAIN
People with strengths in Strategic Thinking are what you need to envision and realise your business’s future potential. They are able to absorb and analyse huge quantities of information to make informed decisions about where you should be going.
Strategic thinkers are analytical but also future-focused, keeping your team’s eyes on what could be. When you need big ideas and problems to be solved, these are the skills you want.
WHAT PEOPLE WITH STRENGTHS IN STRATEGIC THINKING BRING TO THE TABLE
Strategic thinkers are able to look at all the variables and paint a roadmap for where you can go or grow to. So they’re vital for helping guide creative and innovative teams. They continually stretch and push your team’s thinking forward. But with the added benefit of doing it with calculation and precision, based on as much information as you can give them.
So, you can already imagine that you need strategic thinkers to help develop your future growth plans and strategy. And it becomes even clearer when you look at the individual strengths and skills within the Strategic Thinking domain.
(Also see how vital it is for business performance to have real work clarity.)
THE 8 STRENGTHS IN THE STRATEGIC THINKING DOMAIN
1 Analytical
It’s all about logic and rigour – analytical people want to understand cause and effect, they gather information and test whether assertions are actually true or not. Discover the analytical strengths theme.
2 Context
This one’s about looking back and learning from the past to better understand the future. People with this skill help you digest information to make better decisions going forward.
3 Futuristic
People with this skill get excited about visions of what could be. They energise others with imaginations of what could happen. Very useful for creativity and innovation.
4 Ideation
These people are fascinated by ideas – new ways of looking at things or simple ways to explain complex concepts. They can see links between things that others might miss. Handy for creative thinking.
5 Input
This one’s all about the innate talent for research and archiving information, to recall when it’s needed in the future. These people horde and store information for easy recall for everyone’s benefit later.
6 Intellection
People who enjoy the process of thinking to solve problems using logic and analysis.
7 Learner
It’s all about learning new things – people who get excited about learning a new skill and improving themselves.
8 Strategic
This skill allows you to look at a given problem and almost immediately see all the patterns and come up with alternative routes toward a goal.
Want to know more? See the four strengths domains and the complete list of 34 strengths.
WHAT KIND OF JOBS DO YOU NEED STRATEGIC THINKERS IN?
Internationally, Study.com in January 2020 says that strategic thinkers are ideal as everything from urban planners, civil engineers and operational analysts to medical scientists, principals and even air traffic controllers.
Popular opinion in discussions on Quora.com indicates that strategic thinkers seem to make great lawyers, analysts, investors and bankers, marketing managers and also scouts and consultants in sports. A lot of people say strategic thinking is valuable in product design and development. And, naturally, strategic thinking is a vital skill in any small business owner, startup or entrepreneur.
In South Africa particularly, jobs portal Pnet.co.za lists specific jobs under the category of “strategic thinking”: From legal services to estimators, strategic sales to cybersecurity professionals and even fundraisers and operational staff, as well as company directors and project managers.
HOW TO IDENTIFY THE STRATEGIC THINKERS IN YOUR COMPANY
We at LifeXchange live and breathe the help businesses achieve sustainable positive change for all stakeholders. And taking a strengths-based approach in your business is proven to benefit both your company and your people immensely. Studies show that focusing on strengths improves your employee engagement, lowering staff turnover by up to 72% and boosting customer engagement by 7% and profits by up to 29%.
So, we at LifeXchange help you implement strengths in your company. We come in and help you identify all your staff’s individual strengths, and then we help you make it part of your company’s systems and processes, so you can get the maximum benefit.
Read more about LifeXchange’s strengths-based development, or speak directly to us about by phoning 071 918 3217 or contacting us here.
Discover science-based organisational development with the No 1 future-first change management company.
Discover all 4 domains of strengths.
Also discover the relationship building, the executing strengths and influencing strengths domain.
See strengths in action at one of our recent strengths sessions.
One of the big benefits of strengths-based development is that it boosts your employee engagement. Which is important, because the latest research shows that only 16% of employees are fully engaged in their work. And it’s costing you money.
Also explore: What is company culture really
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