v-vi Strategic thinking involves three activities: making sense
of information, formulating ideas and planning action... When you can confidently use all the thinking skills involved
then you can think strategically.
Making sense involves thinking predictively about
changes... and then [thinking] numerically and critically when auditing the strategic capability of an organization...
Newly gathered information needs to "make sense" in the light of what you already know... Formulating ideas involves thinking
about the future. Because it is hard, if not impossible, to obtain clear and certain information about the future, we have
to use thinking skills which we use when gathering and assessing information about the past or present. These thinking
skills involve forecasting, prediction, imagination and visual thinking, as well as critical evaluation.
Planning action involves thinking creatively about
the possible actions to take. Options can be evaluated numerically, ethically and emphatically, when thinking about
their desirability. The thinking skills required for strategic thinking combine with the conversational skills required
to implement strategic change, to produce a model of the strategic management process.
p.39 How do you survey what goes on outside your organisation: by doing nothing, forecasting or trend analysis?
p.41 Do you identify key result determinants and collect the relevant information to control them?...
Do you monitor over a sensible time period? Are your measures misleading?
p. 76 Identify obstacles to achieving your objectives
Assess whether they are removable
Modify your objectives
p.96-97 Evaluating Feasibility: At least three areas should be considered: resources, constraints, and resistances.
All strategic options will require some kind of resourcing, even if it
is a retrenchment, a disposal or a de-merger. Time will be needed... Expertise will probably be needed... raw materials, new
supplies... More money for working capital... Even if your organisation has, or can easily obtain, the resources,
there will be constraints on how your organisation uses them... Some resistance... will
greatly reduce the feasibility of the option.
