Strategic Thinking

leadership personal growth strategic thinking Mar 20, 2020

Strategic Thinking is taking control of tomorrow by thinking about it today. Strategic people see the world as a web of interconnected ideas, and they find opportunities to advance their ideas by making connections early and often.

How does it work?
Strategic Thinking contains five elements:

1. Thinking consistently
2. Thinking within context
3. Thinking on the front end
4. Thinking with others in mind
5. Thinking with a return in mind

Strategic Thinking in action:
Twenty-three movies. $18.5 billion dollars at the box office. One simple strategy: Make movies that told distinct stories yet connected to tell one BIG story. If you boiled down the box office titan that is Marvel Studios, you’d find that strategy emanating from the mind of studio head Kevin Feige.

The process began in 2005 when Marvel decided to take their future in film into their own hands and launch Marvel Studios. Feige was tapped to be the creative and strategic head of the nascent film company, and he set out to secure funding with a sketched-out 10-year plan.

“We said, ‘We want to make a great Iron Man movie. We want to make a great Thor movie. We want to make a great Cap movie,’” Feige told website Mashable in 2015. “I was hoping Iron Man would make enough money that we could make another movie. We were a new studio. If it didn’t work, that would’ve been it.”

The studio secured a $525 million loan from Merrill Lynch by using the rights to properties such as Black Panther and Doctor Strange as collateral. Jon Favreau, the director of Iron Man and Iron Man 2, reveals that working on that first film was a stressful experience.

“We were on very shaky ground,” recalls Favreau. “That first film could not have felt smaller or more handmade. I was constantly being reminded that if we screwed up and we couldn’t pay back the loan, the bank was going to take all of the catalog.”

Almost two decades later, and the Marvel Cinematic Universe (or MCU for short) is still humming, and Feige keeps the strategy flowing, even if only loosely.

“We usually work with a specific five-year plan at any given point but often have a general plan that extends much, much further,” Feige said in May 2019.

Then in July, he proved his point by unveiling the extensive list of film and streaming projects that the studio would produce over the next three years at San Diego’s famous Comic-Con event.

Whether you’re Marvel or a mom-and-pop, in order to think strategically, you must ask questions that:

1. Unlock and open doors that otherwise would remain closed.
2. Set you and others up for success.
3. Are a result of curiosity.

Strategic questions cause us to think things through and then follow things through. Try the questions below to kick-start your Strategic Thinking.

Do it now:
Take time to answer the following to elevate your Strategic Thinking:
1. What are our measurable wins?
2. How are we doing now?
3. What needs to get better?

Wise words on Strategic Thinking:
“My greatest strength as a consultant is to be ignorant and ask a few questions.”
– Peter Drucker