Participant Guide

“
Great leadership aligns strategy
and organization.”
— Prof. Dr. Wollenweber

Strategic Thinking for Future Success

Featuring Prof. Dr. Leif Erik Wollenweber

Virtual Delivery
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Participant Guide
Virtual Delivery

Learning Objectives
By participating in this session, you will:

• Understand what strategic thinking is and its value to

leaders.
• Recognize strategic thinking as a daily process.
• Demonstrate five qualities for future based thinking.
• Apply five strategic thinking skills—Systems thinking;
opportunity savvy; thinking creatively; thinking in time;
clear intentions.

Session Opener
Prof. Dr. Leif Erik Wollenweber

Prof. Dr. Leif Erik Wollenweber is an expert in strategy,

including strategic leadership, digital strategies and accelerating
organizational change. His competence is based on his
profound management experience, his expertise as Professor of
Business Administration and as a guest lecturer at international
top universities as well as his long-standing, successful work as
Business Consultant and Trainer.

http://www.leiferikwollenweber.de

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Participant Guide
Virtual Delivery

Exercise
The Value of Strategic Thinking

“
List three benefits effective strategic thinking can provide to your
organization and three benefits it can provide to you personally.

Organization:
Leaders must develop
their abilities to see the
1.
big picture of future
possibilities and create
strategic connections.
Strategic connections
2. begin with having a
vision and asking the
right questions. This big
picture thinking leads to
3. competitive advantage.”

Personal:

1.

2.

3.

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Participant Guide
Virtual Delivery

Exercise
Strategic Thinking Self-Assessment

Part I: Assessment
Use this tool to assess your strategic thinking abilities. For each statement below, indicate how
accurately the statement describes you. “1” indicates “Rarely,” “5” indicates “Usually.” Be sure to
answer based on your actual behavior in real workplace situations.
Statement Rarely Usually
1. I ask questions about what's going on in my unit, ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐
✔
company, industry, and wider business environment. 1 2 3 4 5
2. I am adaptable to new approaches and ideas when ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐
✔
new information suggests the need to do so. 1 2 3 4 5
3. I look for opportunities today that might generate ☐ ☐ ☐ ✔
☐ ☐
valuable results tomorrow. 1 2 3 4 5

4. I view challenges as opportunities.

☐ ☐ ☐ ✔
☐ ☐
1 2 3 4 5
5. I welcome new ideas and opinions—even if they ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐
✔ ☐
seem strange at first. 1 2 3 4 5
☐ ☐ ☐
✔ ☐ ☐
6. I accept criticism without reacting defensively.
1 2 3 4 5
7. I work to broaden my knowledge, experience, and ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ✔
☐
skill set. 1 2 3 4 5
☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐
✔
8. I ask other people for their opinions.
1 2 3 4 5
9. I question my own long-standing assumptions and ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐
✔ ☐
encourage others to question theirs. 1 2 3 4 5
10. I know who my company’s customers are and what ☐ ☐ ☐
✔ ☐ ☐
they value. 1 2 3 4 5
11. I know who my company’s competitors are and what ☐ ☐
✔ ☐ ☐ ☐
makes us different from them. 1 2 3 4 5
12. I evaluate the pros, cons, and implications of ☐ ☐ ✔
☐ ☐ ☐
different courses of action. 1 2 3 4 5
13. I grasp abstract ideas and put the "pieces" together ☐ ☐ ☐
✔ ☐ ☐
to form a coherent picture. 1 2 3 4 5
14. I see patterns across unrelated events and ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐
✔ ☐
information. 1 2 3 4 5

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Participant Guide
Virtual Delivery

Exercise
Strategic Thinking Self-Assessment - Continued

Statement Rarely Usually

15. I can sift out irrelevant from relevant information ☐ ☐ ☐ ✔
☐ ☐
while deciding how to solve a problem or handle a 1 2 3 4 5
challenge.
16. I compare the potential short—and long—term ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐
✔ ☐
consequences of actions I’m considering. 1 2 3 4 5
17. I foster a culture that supports innovative and out-of- ☐ ☐ ☐ ✔
☐ ☐
the-box thinking and embraces strategic initiative. 1 2 3 4 5
18. I often visualize new possibilities and potential in a ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐
✔ ☐
variety of circumstances. 1 2 3 4 5
19. I try to generate multiple options while making ☐ ☐ ☐ ✔
☐ ☐
important decisions. 1 2 3 4 5
20. I consider whether improvements I’m making to my ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐
✔ ☐
own group’s operations may create problems for 1 2 3 4 5
people in other parts of my organization.
Total Score:

Part II: Scoring

Use the following table to interpret your score.

Exceptional: You’re a talented strategic thinker who possesses many of the traits, behaviors,
91-100
attitudes, and cognitive capacities that are necessary for thinking strategically.

Superior: You’re a highly effective strategic thinker in many areas but would benefit from refining
73-90
some of your skills.
Adequate: You know and practice many of the basics of strategic thinking. However, you can
46-72
increase your success by further extending your skills.
Deficient: You’ll need to work broadly on your strategic thinking skills so that you can learn how to
20-45 analyze opportunities and problems from a broad perspective and understand an action's potential
impact on others.

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Participant Guide
Virtual Delivery

Video Note-taking Guide

Five Qualities of Strategic Thinking

Five Qualities of Strategic Thinking

1. Curious: demonstrated by your genuine interest in what's going on in your business

unit, organization, industry, and business environment in the broader sense.

2. Flexible: evident when you can adapt approaches and shift ideas when a changing
situation suggests the need to do so. Another way of putting it is you get creative, rather
than reactive.

3. Open: welcoming new ideas from managers, peers, direct reports, and even
customers, and you accept criticism without reacting defensively.

4. Diverse in Thinking: actively broadening your knowledge and experience from a

wealth of diverse sources to discover connections and patterns across seemingly
unrelated fields of knowledge.

5. Goal Oriented: you have an inspiring vision that gives you focus and direction. Goal
orientation brings direction and is essential in the process of gathering information; it helps
you to "connect the dots".

Framework for accumulating and analyzing information

1. External - Analyze your market and competition

2. Internal - Analyze the strengths and weaknesses of your organization

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Participant Guide
Virtual Delivery

Video Note-taking Guide

Five Qualities of Strategic Thinking - Continued

Twelve Key Questions

• What is your purpose?
• Does every member of your organization know and implement it?
• Is it in line with your values?
• Can you maintain or strengthen your strategic advantage?
• Are your procedures, how you manage, effective and as efficient as possible?
• How flexible and productive is your organization?
• Do your employees have the core competencies to lead your company into the future?
• How qualified, motivated and engaged is your staff?
• Does your staff cooperate?
• How diverse is your staff?
• What is the gender, culture, and age of your team?
• How active, open, transparent and trustful is your communication?

Notes Internal External

Analysis
Analysis

Strategic
Thinking

ra n
g
St

teg i
ic Pla nn

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Participant Guide
Virtual Delivery

Exercise
Five Qualities of a Strategic Thinker

Five qualities characterize strategic-thinking teams. If you expect your team to think strategically,
you may have to diagnose the weakness on your team. Look at the five qualities in our model. Of
the five, circle the one that you believe needs the most improvement on your team:

1. Curious
2. Flexible
3. Open
4. Diverse in Thinking
5. Goal Oriented

Answer the following questions regarding the one quality circled. Insert the quality you
circled above.

1. Describe a time when your team was _____________________ .

2. Describe a specific time or incident when your team was not _____________________
enough.

3. What is happening (or not happening) that leads you to feel your team needs to be more
_____________________ ?

4. What specifically can you do to improve?

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Participant Guide
Virtual Delivery

Activity
SWOT Analysis

Once you have identified your strengths and weaknesses of your internal factors and your
opportunities or threats from your external factors, use the SWOT analysis to create micro-strategies.

Internal

S: Strengths W: Weaknesses

SO-Strategy: WO-Strategy:
Invest Catch up
O: Opportunities
External

ST-Strategy: WT-Strategy:
Risk Management Divest
T: Threats

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Participant Guide
Virtual Delivery

Animation Note-taking Guide

Five Skills of Strategic Thinkers

According to most experts, there are a number of skills or elements needed to engage in
effective and efficient strategic thinking. However, these five are on everybody's list of must-
haves: systems thinking, opportunity savvy, thinking creatively, thinking in time, and
clear intentions.

1. Systems thinking - It is here that the quality of curiosity is pivotal. Dynamic systems,
pretty much everything in the world, are made up of interdependent parts or sets that are,
at the same time, wholly functioning independent entities. (Think of the body and all of its
parts—many parts, still one whole being.) While you might be an expert in interpreting the
particular "business ecosystem" in which you operate, how well do you understand what is
happening culturally or politically that might also influence your future?

Read a lot. Explore new things. Talk to people outside your organization and outside your
discipline, in addition to the people who know your system the best.

2. Opportunity savvy - Good strategic thinkers spot and react to great new opportunities
as they arise. They understand that the world is one huge dynamic system and they make
themselves open to change to reach their vision. Opportunity savvy 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.

3. Thinking creatively - Challenge your assumptions, ask yourself and others "What If?" and
welcome provocation from peers, friends, and your team by removing your ego from the
process. Creative thinkers envision an ideal world and gather others' perspectives to add
impetus and variety to the desired goal or objective. Don't jump to the easiest, obvious, or
common answer.

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Participant Guide
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Animation Note-taking Guide

Five Skills of Strategic Thinkers - Continued

4. Thinking in time - Having seen the future that we want to create, what must we keep
from our past, lose from that past and create in the present to get there? When you think
strategically, you are always connecting the past to the present to the future. You learn
from the past and use that learning to make predictions. You look at the present to assess
the gap between where you are now and where you want to end up. While your focus
is always on the future, you can only act in the present. Strategic Thinking means
integrating the future into your decision making today.

5. Clear intentions - Having purpose or meaning provides the focus and commitment that
compels individuals within an organization to concentrate their energy and attention for as
long as it takes to achieve a goal. Your purpose is the change that you want to see in your
world. A change that you are completely passionate about, that channels your behavior
toward the future.

Have an overarching goal or direction (you might call that your vision) and make that goal a
conscious focus.

Notes

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Participant Guide
Virtual Delivery

Exercise
Case Study: The Mensch of Malden Mills

Malden Mills Industries is the original manufacturer of Polartec

“
polar fleece (which the 3rd generation CEO, Aaron Feuerstein,
neglected to patent) and other modern textiles. The company
is located in Lawrence, Massachusetts. The Malden Mills
factory burned down on December 11, 1995. CEO Aaron I have a responsibility to
the worker, both blue-collar
Feuerstein decided to continue paying the salaries of all the
and white-collar. I have
mill's 1,500 workers (8 months) while the factory was being an equal responsibility to
rebuilt. Feuerstein literally became a national hero, lionized by the community. It would
Wall Street and President Bill Clinton as the Mensch of Malden have been unconscionable
Mills. As an employer, Feuerstein believed in a deep moral to put 3,000 people on
the streets and deliver a
commitment to and responsibility for his employees.
deathblow to the cities of
Lawrence and Methuen.
Some background for this scenario: Maybe on paper our
company is worthless to
Malden Mills was a 3rd generation family business in Wall Street, but I can tell
Lawrence, Massachusetts. Lawrence has been referred to as a you it's worth more.”
"graveyard of textile factories." In the mid to late 1990s, 11 — Aaron Feuerstein
textile plants closed completely or relocated strategically to the
south or overseas where the cost of labor and production was significantly
cheaper. While the ashes of Malden Mills were cooling, Aaron Feuerstein decided to
rebuild in Lawrence out of a sense of loyalty to his workers and the community. In addition,
he decided to pay all his employees their full monthly wages for 8 months; a total of $26
million. The insurance settlement for the mill amounted to $300 million, which was used for
the new building construction. In addition, Feuerstein borrowed $100 million to rebuild the
factory as an environmentally/worker friendly facility.

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Participant Guide
Virtual Delivery

Exercise
Case Study: The Mensch of Malden Mills - Continued

As a result of fierce competition and 3 warm winters in a row, in November 2001, six years
after the fire, Malden Mills declared bankruptcy after the recession at the beginning of the
new year. This left the company unable to pay creditors—related to its rebuilding and payroll
commitments. The company achieved solvency because of the generosity of its creditors, as
well as government subsidies. Feuerstein was relieved of actual control of the company by its
creditors. In January 2007, the company announced that Malden Mills would file for
bankruptcy again and would be sold to the Gordon Brothers Group of Boston. However, in
February 2007, the assets of Malden Mills were purchased by a newly formed company
called Polartec, LLC which is owned by Chrysalis Capital Partners of Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania.

In teams, discuss Feuerstein's strategic thinking and planning behind rebuilding the mill.

1. Was strategic thinking applied?

2. What might he have done differently?

3. How is what you discussed here transferable to the most important problem or
greatest opportunity you are facing in your job?

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Participant Guide
Virtual Delivery

Personal Action Plan

Action Plan - Portal Preparation

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Personal Action Plan

Action Plan - Example #1

Johan Briggs Strategic Thinking July 12, 20XX

Use SWOT analysis to collaborate across teams to find ways to reduce equipment damage by increasing
compliance with procedures when manufacturing premium financial credit cards (ie micro-chipped).

Read more about systems thinking. Self July 19

Map department inputs and outputs. Self July 19
Create and communicate an agenda for team meeting. Self July 26
Conduct SWOT exercise for team contribution and collaboration. Self and team July 28
Teach my team systems thinking and share perspectives for
opportunities.
Self and team Aug 4

XX

Reduced equipment repair budget by 30%

Budget: $15,000
Cost saving: $4500 per year

XX

Improved morale by contributing to a more strategic aspect of the business and have input into the changes
we make.
Aug 4, 20XX

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Personal Action Plan

Action Plan - Example #2

Webster Beveridge Strategic Thinking July 07, 20XX

The Five Qualities of a Strategic Thinker and how I can build on them to be more strategic and improve
our billable hours by focusing on the right projects and tasks. Reviewing monthly for the next 3 months
to ensure we are on track to hit target.

Conduct the 5 Qualities of a Strategic Thinker exercise with my

team.
Self and team July 8
Review and create individual action plans on one of the 5
Self and team July 15
qualities.
Implement new action plans. Team July 25
Conduct monthly 1:1s to review progress on new action plans. Self Oct 31

XX

Improve billable hours Current billable hours:

Billable hours / hours in workday 6 billable hours / 8 total hours = 75%
Projected billable hours:
9 billable hours / 8 = 113%

XX

Employees will feel that they are doing things that have a greater impact to the company’s success.

Oct 31, 20XX

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