Strategic thinking is the ability to come up with effective plans in line with an organization's objectives within a particular economic situation. It helps organizational leaders to review policy issues, perform long term planning, set goals and determine priorities, and identify potential risks and opportunities. This paper defines and describes strategic thinking as tool for strategy formulation and strategic management process.

1. STRATEGIC THINKING: THE CHALLENGES
AND IMPROVENMENT SKILLS
BY
TANKO AHMED fwc
Senior Fellow (Security & Strategic Studies)
Research Directorate, NIPSS, Kuru – Jos, NIGERIA

2. STRATEGIC THINKING
• The ability to come up with effective
plans in line with an organization's
objectives within a particular economic
situation.
• Strategic thinking helps organizational
leaders to review policy issues, perform
long term planning, set goals and
determine priorities, and identify
potential risks and opportunities.

3. Strategic Thinking as Valuable Tool
• Strategic thinking is a process that defines the
manner in which people think about, assess, view,
and create the future for themselves and others.
• Strategic thinking is an extremely effective and
valuable tool of creative, divergent thought process.
• It is a mode of strategy making which is associated
with re-inventing of the future, the creation of new
competitive space.
• One can apply strategic thinking to arrive at
decisions that can be related to national
development, work or personal life.

4. Purpose of Strategic Thinking
• The purpose of strategic thinking is to
discover novel, imaginative strategies
which can re-write the rules of the
competitive game; and
• To envision potential futures,
significantly different from the present

5. Strategic Planning and Strategic Thinking
• Strategic planning involves systematic
programming of existing strategies from
which an action plan is developed.
• Strategic thinking, on the other hand, is a
synthesizing process utilizing intuition and
creativity whose outcome is an integrated
perspective of the enterprise.
• This differs from strategic planning which
focuses on pre-programmed rules.

6. Strategic Planning and Strategic Thinking
• Strategic planning is normally used to denote a
programmatic, analytical thought process carried out within
the parameters of what is to be achieved, but does not
explicitly question those parameters, and is therefore,
analogous to single-loop learning.
• Strategic thinking, by contrast, refers to a creative, divergent
thought process. It is a mode of strategy-making which is
associated with re-inventing of the future, the creation of
new competitive space as opposed to struggling over slow
growth or shrinking markets, for example.
• A significant deviation from strategic planning, strategic
thinking questions the strategic parameters themselves, and
thus is analogous to double-loop learning.

7. What does strategic thinking actually involve?
• Strategic thinking involves thinking and
acting within a certain set of assumptions
and potential action.
• It involves alternatives as well as challenging
existing assumptions and action alternatives,
potentially leading to new and more
appropriate ones.
• Strategic thinking is all about the future and
how a company or organisation fits into that
future in a beneficial manner.

8. Dimensions of Strategic Thinking
• Strategic thinking includes finding and
developing a strategic foresight capacity for
an organization.
• It exploring all possible organizational
futures, and challenging conventional
thinking to foster decision making today.

9. Strategic Thinking as a Process
• Strategic Thinking is a planning process that
applies innovation, strategic planning and
operational planning to develop business
strategies that have greater chances for success.
• Strategic thinking is further defined as a mental
or thinking process applied by an individual in
the context of achieving success in a game or
other endeavor.
• As a cognitive activity, it produces thought.

10. Strategic Thinking and Critical Thinking
• Strategic thinking is future oriented.
• Critical thinking can be current and/or future
oriented.
• You could argue that strategic thinking has a
larger impact, perhaps, because it has so many
moving parts.
• Critical thinking, however, is the foundation that
should be applied to those moving parts.
• Great strategic thinkers are also great critical
thinkers because they apply critical thinking to
every aspect of strategic thinking and strategy
planning.

11. FIVE ELEMENTS OF THINKING STRATEGICALLY
• Intent focused
• A systems perspective
• Thinking in Time
• Intelligent Opportunism
• Hypothesis-driven

12. SYSTEM
PERSPECTIVE
STRATEGIC
THINKING
THINKING
INTIME
INTELLIGENT
OPPORTUNISM
INTENT FOCUS
HYPOTHESIS
DRIVEN
FIVE ELEMENTS OF THINKING STRATEGICALLY

13. Strategic Thinker’s Mind
• Strategic thinkers are able to spot and react to great
new opportunities as they arise.
• They understand that the world is dynamic and
they are open to change to reach their vision.
• Intelligent opportunism also implies that you dig
deep into your organization to hear from many
perspectives.
• Ideas and knowledge are valuable wherever they
exist — but you’ll need to look and listen to benefit
from them.

14. Strategic Thinking as Mode of Strategy Making
• Strategic thinking is a process that defines the
manner in which people think about, assess, view,
and create the future for themselves and others.
Strategic thinking is an extremely effective and
valuable tool of creative, divergent thought process.
• It is a mode of strategy making which is associated
with re-inventing of the future, the creation of new
competitive space. One can apply strategic thinking
to arrive at decisions that can be related to national
development, work or personal life.

15. LACK OF STRATEGIC THINKING HAS RESULTED IN A
POWERLESS AND UNDEVELOPED COUNTRY
• The poor state of development and
powerless Security agencies are indicators
that strategic thinking is not properly applied
at all levels.

16. WHY IS STRATEGIC THINKING IMPORTANT
TO NIPSS-SCCR COURSE PARTICIPANTS?
• Graduates of the course need to acquire the
skills of strategy formulation by way of
mastering the skills of strategic thinking.
• Recall that the ultimate outcome of strategic
thinking is strategy be it military, business or
political.
• Strategic thinking is required to create the
elegant future for Nigeria in all sectors of the
polity: Defence, Economy, Education,
Technology etc

17. WHY IS STRATEGIC THINKING IMPORTANT TO
PARTICIPANTS OF NIPSS-SCCR? Cont’d...
• Strategic thinking disrupts alignment by
creating a gap in the minds of managers and
leadership between today’s reality and a
more desirable future.
• In brief, strategic thinking is the HOLY
TEACHINGS of management and political
leadership. It is the doctrine for the creation
of our ideal national future.

18. STRATEGIC THINKING AND
DEVELOPMENT... Cont’d....
• Using strategic thinking skills the course
should create a future in accordance with
global best practices as the point of
departure in providing solutions for our
DEVELOPMENTAL challenges.
• It should be possible to use strategy
formulation methodologies to evolve a
strategy that can effectively deliver the
objectives of the national DEVELOPMENT.

19. STRATEGIC THINKING IN THE
POLITICAL CONTEXT
• Participants are a collection of senior
stakeholders in the polity, and are required to
provide quality advise to top political leadership
who articulates national development strategies.
• Using the same template for military and
business strategy they can assist to fill the gaps
that currently exist in the political environment.
• It would be ideal to formalize the doctrine of
strategic thinking in our academic and intellectual
environment.

20. CONCLUSION
The paper defines and describes strategic thinking as
tool for strategy formulation and strategic
management process.
It compares and contrasts strategic thinking with
strategic planning and critical thinking
It constructs strategic thinking as the foundation
required for effective strategy formulation.
This paper prepares the NIPSS-SCCR Participants for a
Simulation Exercise on real life issues requiring
strategic thinking for strategy formulation