Strategic Thinking

  • 9 Courses | 3h 27m 55s
  • 10 Books | 28h 50m
  • 10 Audiobooks | 50h 51m 37s
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How can you be more strategic as a leader? Strategic thinkers continually ask questions to help create the bridge between strategy and tactics. The role of strategic leader requires different skills and perspectives than those required by day-to-day operational leadership roles. Strategic leaders have to have vision and the ability to persuade fellow employees to undertake necessary actions to acquire the same vision.

GETTING STARTED

Using Strategic Thinking as a Manager

  • 1m 29s
  • 6m 37s

COURSES INCLUDED

Using Strategic Thinking as a Manager
Are you a strategic thinker? Do you consider what's going on around you - in your unit, company, industry, and wider business environment? Are you good at visualizing new possibilities or ways of working? Charting the future in today's business environment requires leaders to think strategically like never before. In these times of personal and organizational disruption and change, strategic thinking has become a skill of necessity that will play a key role in determining success or failure. In this course, you'll learn the characteristics of strategic thinking and what a strategic mindset looks like in action. You'll also learn the skills involved in developing two vital aspects of strategic thinking: the creative, innovative, and visionary components that allow you to have and communicate a clear strategic vision and see new possibilities; and the orderly, analytical, and logical skills that help you handle complexity and guide you toward balanced and smart decision making.
6 videos | 25m has Assessment available Badge
Viewing the Big Picture Strategically
Big-picture thinking stretches beyond the short term and considers how an organization can succeed in the long run. A big-picture perspective helps you focus on your organization's future with a long-term perspective without being bogged down by immediate daily demands. In this course, you'll explore how you can get a sense of the bigger picture by reinventing your perspective for a holistic understanding of your organization, identifying the root causes of problems when dealing with complex situations, recognizing factors that influence the big picture, and using big-picture thinking to gain competitive advantage for your organization.
6 videos | 23m has Assessment available Badge
Recognizing Organizational Risks
Risk is an inevitable aspect of any business. As a manager, it's important that you anticipate risks to effectively mitigate or avoid their potential impacts. The first step in handling a threat to your organization is to successfully identify the risks involved. In this course, you'll explore the difference between the internal and external factors that can pose a risk to your organization. You'll also learn about the use of popular risk identification tools and techniques like brainstorming, the Delphi technique for gathering expert opinions, diagram analysis, and documentation reviews.
6 videos | 22m has Assessment available Badge
Assessing Organizational Risks
Risk is a fact of life in business, and you've got to be able to assess your organization's risks to come up with strategies to avoid or reduce the negative effects of the threats you face. In this course, you'll familiarize yourself with key risk assessment concepts such as threats, opportunities, probabilities, and impacts - a necessity before assessing any risks your business may face. You will also learn about the tools and techniques of risk and opportunity assessment, recognizing that risks can either be threats to mitigate or opportunities to exploit for organizational gain.
6 videos | 23m has Assessment available Badge
Managing Organizational Risks
Once you've identified and assessed a potential risk to your organization, the next step is to manage it appropriately. Some risks may have a higher probability of becoming a reality, while others may have a more negative or more positive impact. Your ability to detect risks will vary as well. You'll need to be prepared to manage each of these risk effects accordingly. In this course, you'll learn about risk response strategies and methods you can use to minimize organizational threats and leverage opportunities. You will also learn how you can create contingency response plans.
6 videos | 22m has Assessment available Badge
Horizon Scanning: Identifying Future Opportunities
The most successful organizations can spot signs of change and adapt to it - or even better - seize change as an opportunity. This capability to scan the horizon of the future is also known as environmental scanning. In this course, you'll learn what horizon scanning is and how it can benefit your business. You'll also learn to recognize key areas of change and understand the steps involved in horizon scanning. In addition, you'll learn how to analyze the data you collect and communicate it so the best decisions can be made.
6 videos | 27m has Assessment available Badge
Thinking Strategically as a Manager
To resolve many of the threats and challenges that your organization will likely have to face, it's essential that you develop a business strategy that incorporates a clear vision, new ideas, and innovative solutions. This course explores the characteristics of strategic thinking, as well as the traits you need to plan and implement an effective strategy. It also covers how to develop your capacity for thinking strategically through creative thinking, being prepared to deal with complexity, and being aware of what's going on inside and outside your organization.
7 videos | 22m has Assessment available Badge Certification PMI PDU
Using Strategic Thinking to Consider the Big Picture
Big-picture thinking stretches beyond the short term and considers how an organization can succeed in the long term. By thinking strategically about a problem using the bigger picture, you can elevate your perspective and get a better idea of the forces at play within your organization. This course describes how systems thinking can help you become skillful at making sense out of opposites and contradictions and better understand cause and effect while managing your department according to the business strategy. It explains actions you can take to encourage creative thinking and come up with solutions that take into account the bigger picture. You'll also learn how understanding your organizational value chain can help you connect to the organization's strategy and implement it more effectively.
7 videos | 22m has Assessment available Badge Certification PMI PDU
Identifying Risks in Your Organization
Risk is an inevitable aspect of any business. As a manager, it's important that you mitigate or avoid the potential impact of a risk if it comes to pass, to ensure the long-term survival of your organization. This course focuses on the first step in managing risk, identifying risks to your organization. You'll explore the difference between internal and external risks, and how some risks may actually present a strategic opportunity. You'll also learn how to use some techniques that can help you identify risks and calculate the probability that they will occur, including root cause identification, the Delphi technique, and brainstorming sessions.
7 videos | 18m has Assessment available Badge Certification PMI PDU
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BOOKS INCLUDED

BOOK SUMMARY

Think to Win: Unleashing the Power of Strategic Thinking
Think to Win teaches you how to leverage the power of strategic thinking to your advantage. In this Summary, we discuss the salient points of the book based on our interpretation of its contents.
book Duration 10m book Authors By John F. Manfredi, Paul Butler, Peter Klein

BOOK SUMMARY

Now, Build a Great Business! 7 Ways to Maximize Your Profits in Any Market
Using proven examples from successful businesses, Now, Build a Great Business! explores seven powerful principles that offer clear and practical ways to grow your business, even in difficult economic times. In this Summary, we discuss the salient points of the book based on our interpretation of its contents.
book Duration 9m book Authors By Brian Tracy, Mark Thompson

Book

Uncommon Leadership: How to Build Competitive Advantage by Thinking Differently
In order to energize managers and leaders, they need to feel challenged, stretched and inspired. This thorough resource captures ideas specifically designed to motivate executives to develop their own distinctive approach to thinking differently about business.
book Duration 4h 18m book Authors By Anthony Sturgess, Phil Higson

Book

Demystifying Strategic Thinking: Lessons from Leading CEOs
Using unique and original interviews with six top business leaders, this book examines the key components of successful strategizing, provides a strategy system for managers and helps them develop and implement a winning strategy for their organization.
book Duration 5h 54m book Authors By Tony Grundy

Book

Elevate: The Three Disciplines of Advanced Strategic Thinking
Providing leaders with a framework and toolkit for developing advanced strategic thinking capabilities, this book will enable leaders to finally integrate both strategy and innovation into a strategic approach that drives their profitable growth.
book Duration 2h 41m book Authors By Rich Horwath

Book

The 8 Steps to Strategic Success: Unleashing the Power of Engagement
Presenting a process for creating a strategy that really delivers, this book describes the key parts of the process for each step, explains how to avoid the potential pitfalls, and points to the most useful strategic models and frameworks.
book Duration 4h 20m book Authors By Gerben van den Berg, Paul Pietersma

Book

Strategic Thinking: A Nine Step Approach to Strategy and Leadership for Managers and Marketers, 3rd edition
Including prompt sheets, objectives, action plans and summaries, this book will enable you to gain a deeper understanding of your market, forecast where your organization is heading, think critically about proposals and write an effective strategic plan.
book Duration 2h 51m book Authors By Simon Wootton, Terry Horne

Book

Leading with Strategic Thinking: Four Ways Effective Leaders Gain Insight, Drive Change, and Get Results
Bringing together insights from cognitive psychology, systems theory, and other fields to show that the importance of strategic thought transcends planning, this book will inspire you to have a greater impact, today and into the future.
book Duration 4h 48m book Authors By Aaron K. Olson, B. Keith Simerson

Book

Strategic Thinking Illustrated: Strategy Made Visual Using Systems Thinking
This book is about the behaviour of systems. Systems are important, for we interact with them all the time, and many of the actions we take are influenced by a system - for example, the system of performance measures in an organisation influences, often very strongly, how individuals within that organisation behave.
book Duration 3h 32m book Authors By Dennis Sherwood

BOOK SUMMARY

Provoke: How Leaders Shape the Future by Overcoming Fatal Human Flaws
In Provoke, authors Goldbach and Tuff outline biases that can hamper success, and explain how to overcome these. In this Review, we discuss the salient points of the book based on our interpretation of its contents.
book Duration 7m book Authors By Geoff Tuff, Steven Goldbach
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AUDIOBOOKS INCLUDED

AUDIOBOOK SUMMARY

Learning to Think Strategically
Learning to Think Strategically provides a theoretical framework that links a continuous cycle of learning to strategic thinking and performance. In this Summary, we discuss the salient points of the book based on our interpretation of its contents.
audiobook Duration 23m 44s audiobook Authors By Julia Sloan

AUDIOBOOK SUMMARY

Think to Win: Unleashing the Power of Strategic Thinking
Think to Win teaches you how to leverage the power of strategic thinking to your advantage. In this Summary, we discuss the salient points of the book based on our interpretation of its contents.
audiobook Duration 20m 28s audiobook Authors By John F. Manfredi, Paul Butler, Peter Klein

AUDIOBOOK SUMMARY

Elevate: The Three Disciplines of Advanced Strategic Thinking
Elevate provides practical tools for forward-thinking CEOs, leaders, and managers to lift their skills in strategy to a higher level. In this Review, we discuss the salient points of the book based on our interpretation of its contents.
audiobook Duration 9m 49s audiobook Authors By Rich Horwath

AUDIOBOOK SUMMARY

Strategic Thinking: A Nine Step Approach to Strategy and Leadership for Managers and Marketers, 3rd Edition
Strategic Thinking offers a nine-step approach for becoming a strategic thinker and, consequently, a strong, strategic leader. In this Summary, we discuss the salient points of the book based on our interpretation of its contents.
audiobook Duration 22m 33s audiobook Authors By Simon Wootton, Terry Horne

Audiobook

Tilt: Shifting Your Strategy from Products to Customers
This audio edition demonstrates how companies are reorienting their strategies around customer interactions to create and capture unique value.
audiobook Duration 6h 1m 3s audiobook Authors By Niraj Dawar

Audiobook

Red Team: How to Succeed by Thinking Like the Enemy
This audio edition will revolutionize the way organizations think about, exploit, compensate for, and correct their institutional strengths and weaknesses.
audiobook Duration 11h 2m 24s audiobook Authors By Micah Zenko

Audiobook

Game-Changer: Game Theory and the Art of Transforming Strategic Situations
This audio edition will empower you with wisdom - not just to win in every strategic situation (or "game") you face but to change those games and the ecosystems in which they reside to transform your life and our lives together for the better.
audiobook Duration 6h 59m 42s audiobook Authors By David McAdams

Audiobook

Elevate: The Three Disciplines of Advanced Strategic Thinking
In this audio edition, author Rich Horwath provides leaders with a framework and toolkit for developing advanced strategic thinking capabilities.
audiobook Duration 6h 9m 3s audiobook Authors By Rich Horwath

Audiobook

Think to Win: Unleashing the Power of Strategic Thinking
This audio edition offers a simple, proven approach to analyzing and solving old or new challenges and provides a common language anyone at any level in the organization can understand.
audiobook Duration 6h 33m 57s audiobook Authors By John F. Manfredi, Paul Butler, Peter Klein

Audiobook

Strategy Maps: Converting Intangible Assets into Tangible Outcomes
The authors show how companies can use strategy maps to link those processes to desired outcomes; evaluate, measure, and improve the processes most critical to success; and target investments in human, informational, and organizational capital.
audiobook Duration 12h 48m 54s audiobook Authors By David P. Norton, Robert S. Kaplan
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SKILL BENCHMARKS INCLUDED

Strategic Thinking
Strategic thinkers continually ask questions to help create the bridge between strategy and tactics. The role of strategic leader requires different skills and perspectives than those required by day-to-day operational leadership roles. Strategic thinking and strategic orientation are essential for planning - and strategic leaders must always be thinking strategically, and must have vision and the ability to persuade fellow employees to undertake necessary actions to acquire the same vision. This benchmark evaluates your understanding of this topic. Being aware of potential knowledge gaps allows you to better understand your current competency and areas for improvement, so you can find suitable content and curate your own learning path. The courses recommended at the end of this benchmark can help you fill potential gaps in your knowledge.
7m    |   8 questions