Think Strategically & Share Your Positive Voice

 “To the world you may be just one person...
       But to one person you might just be the world.” — Mark Twain

Cynicism and negative thinking do not inspire or help anybody. However, your positive voice, which consists of your PQ, IQ, EQ and SQ would inspire people to find their voices and perform to amazing heights. The oldest of admonition is “Man Know Thyself.” 

Years ago, Dr. Christensen of HBS worked with the former CEO of Intel Corp. on an open strategic question based on a strategic model. The open question inspired the management team to think of infinite possibilities. As a result, they found their positive voices to think differently and created new semi-conductors worth billions of dollars. Open questions and positive discussions do lead to increase in productivity even though initially there may not be any defined objectives/outcomes. Experienced professionals do clearly understand this proven concept.

 
It was through open, unrestricted, positive thinking that Edison was able to develop the light bulb, the Wright brothers and the airplane, Ford and the V8 engine, and Einstein the E=MC2. We all know that we just moved to the Info/Knowledge Age from the Industrial Age. According to the HBR, the average person has more information available to him in the last 5 years than the past 2000 years. The most important thing is how to think accurately, organize info properly, find your positive voice and help others to find theirs. This is wisdom. A lot of studies done by experts such as Dr. Stephen Covey, indicated that the next age would be the Wisdom Age. Are you ready for it?

For companies to encourage strategic thinking at all levels of an organization, management must first inspire, coach, and empower employees to think and find their voices by developing their PQ, IQ, EQ and SQ as “strategic thinking” is a continuous thinking process. Voices that: build (not destroy); create (not stagnate); inspire (not discourage); think open-mindedly & 360 (not linearly); listen, seek understanding, and think of infinite possibilities of adding value to a company or society.

Some people are too indifferent or lazy to acquire facts from which to think accurately. They do guess work instead of thinking. They prefer to act on opinions created by guess work or snap judgements. These type of people would certainly find it difficult to learn how to think strategically. Tremendous work needs to be done before strategic thinking could be encouraged and implemented at all levels of an organization or society. However, if an organization or society is prepared to work hard and bear the cost, the result would be significantly remarkable! Unfortunately, most organizations are obviously not prepared to practice it, and this is a fact. According to Dr. Christensen’s years of research, strategic thinking is not a core managerial competence at most organizations.

Organizations or society can definitely solve this problem by inspiring people to find their positive voices. Consequently, many stakeholders including employees would develop enough wisdom to demand that strategic thinking be established as a core managerial competence, which can then spread throughout the organization or society.  

Always share your positive voice to inspire others!

“One of the most beautiful compensations in life is that no man can help another without helping himself.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

If you have any question, need any help in achieving your goal(s), or working strategically to grow your business, then do not hesitate to follow/connect with me @ www.google.com/+EllAWilson, www.linkedin.com/in/ellawilson, or www.twitter.com/#!/Ell_Wilson

Next Strategic Challenge

"Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people." — Eleanor Roosevelt

A friend asked for my thoughts on Societal Innovation, and I wanted to share my voice with you all. Strategy is the most common concept discussed in the business world, and yet the most abused and misconstrued. Based on academic data & research, one of the key elements of the problem that I like the most is the fact that many people in business or society in general have not been trained on “how to think” properly.

A joke that supports this points is “A student’s strategic objective is to pass each exam to get a certificate/degree to get a job.” That’s it? Another joke says “A student comes out of the exam and says “had the prof asked the question my way, I would have gotten an A+”

I’m certain you can discern the societal paradigm of this dilemma. Of course there are few exceptions like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Michael Dell, and other entrepreneurs who chose to think differently - outside the education institutional box!

Through proper thinking, businesses and society at large would come to understand that - what’s good for business could also be good for society and vice versa.

I very much like what Dr. Stephen Covey said based on his life’s research that - A company’s Mission should reflect something like this: To improve the Economic Well Being and Quality of Life of ALL Stakeholders (employees, customers, suppliers, shareholders, and society in general.)

Therefore, yes! I think societal innovation would be one of the next major strategic challenge. In addition to improving our ability to strategically think constructively, we must be able to improve our strategic thinking creatively to promote societal innovation.

“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” — Buckminster Fuller

‘’The best way to predict your future is to create it’’ — Abraham Lincoln

If you have any question, need any help in achieving your goal(s), or working strategically to grow your business, then do not hesitate to follow/connect with me @ www.google.com/+EllAWilson, www.linkedin.com/in/ellawilson, or www.twitter.com/#!/Ell_Wilson