Think Big or Go Home: How Talent Development Pros Can Help Teams Think More Strategically

In today’s fast-paced business environment, where AI dominates, strategic thinking is no longer just a nice-to-have skill; it’s a must-have for any organization that wants to thrive. As a senior leader or HR professional, your role in helping your teams develop this ability is crucial.

Here is why strategic thinking matters and how, in your role to support your organization, you can offer learning experiences and build solid development programs that help grow this critical skill.

Strategic Thinking Matters

As AI rapidly advances, taking over more traditional cognitive tasks, the demand for human strategic thinking has never been more critical. There is an urgent need to cultivate stronger strategic thinking to ensure teams can increase their impact and contributions in an AI-driven world. As business performance pressures increase, cultivating a strategic mindset in the current business landscape is crucial.

Strategic thinking is about seeing the bigger picture, connecting the dots, and making decisions that align with where the organization needs to go in the future. It’s the skill that helps leaders navigate challenges, spot opportunities, and keep the organization moving forward. In leadership roles, this ability is key because it enables leaders to think beyond the day-to-day and plan for long-term success.

Bridging the Development Gap

Here’s the reality: while strategic thinking often shows up on leadership competency lists, it doesn’t always get the attention it deserves when it comes to development. Many high-potential employees don’t get enough opportunities to hone this skill. Many don’t even really understand what strategic thinking is.

Plus, the way most businesses operate today—focused on quick wins and immediate results—can actually discourage long-term, strategic thinking. That’s why it’s so important for HR and organizational development teams to step in and create opportunities for leaders to develop these crucial skills.

Strategic Thinking: The Key to Future-Proofing Your Workforce

Leaders who think strategically are essential for driving innovation and adaptability within an organization. Strategic thinking helps keep employees engaged because it gives them a sense of purpose and direction. When employees understand the “why” behind their work and see how it fits into the bigger picture, they’re more likely to stick around and contribute meaningfully. Plus, strategic thinking encourages diverse viewpoints, which leads to better problem-solving and a stronger ability to leverage technologies like AI.

How to Build a Strategic Thinking Development Plan

There are very few formal learning programs that develop strategic thinking (The Strategic Playground is one of the rare few). Yet virtually every competency list for leaders includes strategic thinking as a core expectation. So how do you develop learning opportunities for the leaders and teams you support when programs that are designed to develop these skills are so scarce?

The key is…(you guessed it) being strategic about how you tackle the problem.

Identify your strategic thinkers and leverage them.

Form a strategic thinking task force or working group that brings these strategic thinkers together with others who need to develop this skill.  This provides the opportunity for strategic thinkers to demonstrate and model their approaches to problem solving, getting to the heart of an issue or examining a challenge thoroughly. 

Use traditional mentoring and coaching programs to pair up strategic thinkers with less experienced employees for personalized guidance and feedback on strategic challenges, ways to approach a problem and provide real-time guidance on how to think bigger and bolder.

Encourage your strategic thinkers to share their experiences by holding informal case studies or sharing success stories with the broader organization. Hearing the context of a challenge, listening to someone else’s approach to breaking it down and solving it can help others learn to model strategic approaches that have proven to work.

Leverage Current Initiatives As Strategic Thinking Learning Experiences

Involve employees in cross-functional projects that require them to think beyond their usual roles. This helps them recognize how a business is an interconnected organism and how making changes in one place can impact another area.  Cross functional projects also expose employees to different perspectives and learn the needs of other stakeholders.  They can learn to think bigger and broader and outside of their silos or departments.

Encourage participation in networking and industry events and ask team members to  bring back key insights with the team. Before they leave for the event, ask them to come back with answers to these key questions:

·       What are three trends or pending shifts that are coming and how are they likely to impact our work/our company?

·       What are some new skills that are on the horizon that we need to consider developing in order to compete?

·       What are two new ideas that thought leaders are focused on?

·       What are three things that leading companies are talking about, presenting about that we should spend some time discussing?

By focusing the team to look for strategic insights before they attend, they will be more apt to recognize future trends and critical data and insights to bring back to the team.

Hold structured problem-solving sessions to tackle some key challenges the team currently faces.  Facilitate the team to select a problem, that if solved, would dramatically help them increase their performance and contribution. Once the problem to be solved is selected, have them turn the problem into questions.  Discuss the types of questions that come up and highlight those questions that provide a new perspective of the problem.

Encourage the team to identify what additional information is missing about the problem, and ask them to find data, get perspectives and develop a thorough understanding fo the problem before they begin to explore multiple solutions. This kind of structured approach helps build strategic thinking muscle.

Use fun activities like escape rooms to simulate strategic thinking in action. Note who is successful in the moment, and who is perhaps struggling.  When the game ends, hold a debrief and ask each person to share where they were successful or unsuccessful.  And help them identify the problem-solving approaches they used. Probe each person to share how they approached each puzzle including how they defined what the key problem was, the questions they asked themselves, and any insights or aha moments they had. Highlight how each successful puzzle held a unique approach to thinking about the problem, and celebrate that.

Encourage a Culture that Celebrates THINKING.

The ultimate goal is to weave strategic thinking into the very fabric of your organization by making it a priority at every stage, from hiring great thinkers and problem solvers to daily leadership practices that give people as much time to problem solve and connect their work to the big picture as they have for tactical responsibilities.

Help leaders bring their teams together to get everyone on the same page with clear examples and benchmarks of what strategic thinking looks like in your organization. Encourage leaders to shape the culture by recognizing and rewarding strategic contributions and great ideas, not just completed projects. Teach leaders how to spot the difference between a contribution and a strategic contribution. And encourage your leaders to acknowledge and celebrate those who consistently deliver bigger, better thinking.

Invest in Strategic Thinking Programs

Finally, consider enrolling your leaders in formal strategic thinking programs like The Strategic Playground Workshop. These programs offer practical tools and exercises that help participants sharpen their strategic thinking skills and apply them in real-world situations.

In a nutshell, building strategic thinking skills in your teams isn’t just about adding another skill to their toolkit—it’s about equipping your organization to thrive in the long run. But strategic thinking doesn’t just happen.  As a Leader or a Talent Development professional, it’s up to you to offer programs and learning experiences that can really build strategic thinking skills. By being a resource for programs that develop better thinking, you’ll help your team members see the bigger picture, anticipate future challenges, and drive the success of your organization.