Are strategists born or made?

September 2022 | SPOTLIGHT | BOARDROOM INTELLIGENCE

Financier Worldwide Magazine

September 2022 Issue

Financial professionals today are under new pressures to adapt to changing economic and market conditions. How high will interest rates go? Will inflation’s steady rise reverse any time soon? What are equity and debt markets signalling? And based on all these trends, what adjustments to our products, services and approach should we make? Under these conditions, it is obviously desirable to think strategically, but that raises an important question: are strategists born or made?

The answer is ‘yes.’ People can be born strategic thinkers, but that capability can also develop with deliberate effort. The opposite of being strategic is often referred to as ‘tactical’. If you had a choice of being labelled as strategic or tactical, what would you select? Most would choose the former, and this article is intended to help you become a better strategist, whether you were born with it or not.

The world needs tacticians who can execute plans with exquisite attention to detail. Absent that capability in an organisation, strategies will fail. Being labelled a strategic thinker is a badge of honour and a valued leadership competency when organisations define promotion readiness and select new leaders. In addition to the label, the ability to see patterns, bring order to chaos and design a way forward can be beneficial, both personally and professionally.

The blueprint for who we are is derived from the genetic makeup that our parents bestow upon us, also known as our DNA. It defines our physical characteristics, including the blueprint for our brain. Our individual DNA creates the initial concentration of neurons in the various regions of the human brain. Each region plays a distinct role in directing our thoughts and actions. This blueprint also determines the strength of the connections between regions of the brains – our neural pathways.

Experts in evolutionary biology, social psychology and neuropsychology agree that the human brain is not fully developed until we are in our early twenties. They also believe that our neural pathways are a ‘use it or lose it’ proposition. If we have early life experiences that use these natural neural pathways, they get stronger, and if we do not, those pathways fade away.

Innate strategic thinking is derived from a robust network of neural pathways in the most optimal parts of the brain for seeing patterns in vast troves of information, generating options and making the most optimal decision. The latest developments in science have proven that our brains generate new neurons daily for most of our life, but it is believed that neural pathways are mostly set in our early twenties.

Therefore, we have about 20 years from birth to full brain development to strengthen our neural pathways. Some people are born strategists, but being a natural, strategic thinker can be measured on a continuum, rather than a binary yes or no. Anyone can improve their skills in strategic thinking, even those for whom it is innate. Just like anything else you are trying to improve, it requires a methodical, planned and sustained approach. Most fundamentally, it requires the learner to slow down to pause, reflect and consider more than what is right in front of them.

The natural-born strategist has the benefit of this in their unconscious mind, a powerful and essential part of how we navigate the world. Our brain is met with 10 million bits of information per second to sift through and make decisions on, but our conscious mind can, on average, process 50. Thus, it relies on heuristics or shortcuts to survive. Not all those bits of information involve either reactive or proactive strategic problem solving.

The vital difference between the natural-born strategist and the learned version is that the former can generally rely on their unconscious mind. It happens naturally for them, while the learner must employ a more conscious effort to accomplish strategic thinking.

The starting point is to determine which aspects of being a strategist is it important to improve. Gallup provides a sound basis of what a strategist is. Wikipedia’s definition is: “A strategist is a person with responsibility for the formulation and implementation of a strategy. Strategy generally involves setting goals, determining actions to achieve the goals, and mobilizing resources to execute the actions. A strategy describes how the ends (goals) will be achieved by the means (resources).”

Additional themes of being a strategist may also include holistic thinking, foresight or anticipation of possibilities, solution generation that is inclusive, innovative and iterative, distilling the most relevant information, agility with a continuous improvement mindset, communicating the complex with simplicity, and unpacking causality through deductive reasoning.

The biggest challenge for anyone trying to learn how to be a strategist is slowing down. First, the pace of life and work and competing demands for our time have forced us into a constant mode of ‘need for speed’. Additionally, for many learners, reactive, instinctual decision making may be the default setting. Finally, successfully learning any new skill requires the learner to take it slow at first.

There are several techniques for learning how to be a better strategist, regardless of whether this is an innate strength. First, ensure you know what problem you are trying to solve or what question needs to be answered – we often go straight into solution mode, before pausing and reflecting on what the real question or problem might be.

Second, use deductive reasoning to breakdown the causes of the problem or question into manageable parts – analyse all the reasons that the situation is the way it is.

Third, prioritise these causes as they do not all have equal weight or impact. Find a prioritisation technique, such as a simple stack ranking, or drawing up a two-by-two grid with impact and resources required.

Fourth, brainstorm options for the causes that might have the greatest impact, with pros and cons for each.

Fifth, be vulnerable by asking a lot of questions and seeking other eyes on the problem.

Lastly, challenge your own assumptions or conclusions – just when you think you have the answers, learn to pause, and attack your own work.

You will likely not be able to utilise all these ideas, but that is your first step toward becoming a strategist – selecting what is most relevant and impactful. If the neuroscientists are correct, you will not build new neural pathways, but behavioural psychologists believe that these techniques could become so rote for you, it would be like learning the alphabet, and thus a habit is born.

All these development techniques can be used daily as applicable to your role and what strategist skills you are specifically trying to improve. There are individual courses, certification programmes and even fully accredited degrees in strategy. You must decide what suits your own situation. Of course, there are also strategic planning processes which are widely employed. There is no lack of strategic planning consultancies willing to help.

Samir Gupte is the chief change officer of Samiracles Consulting. He can be contacted by email: samir@samiracles.com.

Samir Gupte

Samiracles Consulting