Most recently I had a sit down meeting with my manager to discuss personal business goals as well as skills I need to develop to get to the next level in my career. One specific topic we discussed is the importance of strategic thinking and how to become a strategic thinker. Being a strategic thinker includes consistently communicating your rationale and thought process behind recommendations – one skill I definitely need to work on.

Often we receive requests from our teammates to look into different opportunities for our clients and in the midst of hundreds of tasks will shoot off emails without including our thoughts on what would be best for the client. My manager suggested printing out the following questions and hanging them at my desk so that I can remember to ask myself the following with every recommendation email I send:

• What’s the campaign goal?
• What’s the business goal?
• Who’s the target audience?
• What are the key messages?
• What’s the strategy?

Once those questions are answered, it will be easier to put down in writing why or why not the client should move forward with the opportunity, spokesperson, etc and your manager will have a better understand of where you are coming from.

Have you become a strategic thinker? Any tips?

image via  americanbci.com