Strategic thinking or detail orientation? It seems such a simple question, but in practice the response is much more complicated and the effects far reaching.
Many in formal employment have had a chequered history due to a failure to strike this intricate balance: one minute they are on the up, beneficiaries of corporate largesse; the next they are on the down, seen as a burden to the organization. This happens because the fail to think strategically and are therefore considered redundant.
On the enterprise front, many entrepreneurs with a vision and the technical competence to turn the vision into reality, fail because of not creating a balance between strategic thinking and detail orientation. Despite their best intentions, such entrepreneurs end up with unsatisfactory outcomes.
There is, therefore, a need to strike a balance between today’s demands and tomorrows possibilities as this can determine the success or failure of a business venture or career.
Simply put, strategic thinking is about what is required for tomorrow’s success. The objective in strategic thinking is to stay ahead of the curve and/or remain successful and relevant in your field. It requires one to pay close attention to what can affect future business results e.g. opportunities, issues, and concerns.
In our day-to-day operations,however, most of us are unable to straddle between detail orientation and strategic thinking. We either pay too much attention to the ‘big picture’ or are engrossed in the nitty gritty details of what we do.
Unfortunately, this preference of either detail or strategy influences our choice of careers, negatively affects job satisfaction and ultimately impacts on career or business success.
In addition, striking a balance between detail orientation and strategic thinking is extremely difficult and requires entrepreneurs, leaders and employees to consciously and objectively assess themselves and their capabilities in order to create a balance or address any imbalance.
Ideally, we should not have an acute attention to detail at the expense of ideas and concepts. On the other hand, we should not over-utilize strategic thinking. Rather, we should adopt a holistic view. We must look at every project in its entirety and consider all the variables e.g. human resource changes that are required or innovations that would create value.
The lack of this balance will always be detrimental unless there is an intervention. It results in a loss of the competitive edge, job dissatisfaction and a loss of creativity among others ills.
There are obvious benefits to striking a balance between detail orientation and strategic thinking. On the business front, this balance can be the determining factor in the success of a business venture. An entrepreneur must not only have a vision but also the technical competence and proficiency to turn that vision into reality.
On a personal career front, the same truths apply for individuals who want to keep adding value to their organization. Failure to strike a balance between detail orientation and strategic thinking will retard their career progress. On the other hand, attention to the future will guide an employee’s career by helping them focus on what is important. They will then engage in activities that have a long-term benefit e.g. developing skills that will be important in another assignment thereby enabling them add value to their organization.
On the corporate front, the same rule applies. Company executives should realize that responsibility over the company fortunes falls on them. They should not only have a helicopter view of things but should also know the intricate details of what goes on in the company. In the words of Harry Truman, the buck stops with them.
There are practical ways of striking a balance between detail orientation and strategic thinking in the business front or in an individual’s career.
Leaders should surround themselves with people who complement their strengths to reduce or eliminate blind spots. Managers also should create teams of people whose skills complement each other.
In addition, employees should seek job satisfaction at all costs. When an employee is satisfied with his job, he is more likely to be effortlessly creative and hence balance the big picture with the details required to achieve it.
Having a strategic intent - a focus on what is important and required for success tomorrow - is another solution to this problem. Highly skilled employees have failed in their careers because of a lack of strategic intent. As a solution, strategic intent adopts a holistic view of things and takes away the temptation of being caught-up in routines.
Real success, therefore, will be realized when we strike a balance between strategic thinking and attention to detail.
In the words of General Sun Tzu, ‘Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory and tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat’.
