Author: George Liacos
How to think more strategically: Environmental Awareness: Example (Part 2)
With strategic thinking comes awareness as well.
We build our strategic thinking muscle using a range of techniques and tools as outlined in my book Spark Change.
The twenty first Spark I’d like to introduce you to is Environmental Awareness. Let’s share with you an example.
How to think more strategically: follow these steps
To develop environmental awareness in strategic thinking, you can follow these steps:
- Enable continuous external monitoring: Set up the information sources, subscriptions and time in your diary to regularly monitor these three environments. Did you know some of the most successful thinkers spend about three hours a day reading and talking to people about the environment!
- Connect with stakeholders: Establish a vibrant network of stakeholders, including beneficiaries, donors and community members, to gain insights on environmental changes impacting them.
- Connect with cross-sector entities: Engage in collaborations with organisations outside your mesh environment to broaden understanding of environmental factors and their implications.
- Perform regular scenario analysis: Regularly conduct scenario analysis to anticipate how different environmental changes could impact your strategic goals and operations.
- Incorporate insight into strategic review: Integrate environmental insights into regular strategic reviews, ensuring your strategy remains relevant and responsive.
- Conduct risk assessment and management: Continuously assess risks associated with environmental changes and develop strategies to mitigate them.
- Conduct staff training and development: Encourage and facilitate staff training on environmental trends and their relevance to your work.
By methodically practising these steps, environmental awareness becomes a core component of your strategic thinking, enabling you to anticipate, adapt to, and leverage external changes effectively.
How to think more strategically: create environmental awareness
Yes, environmental awareness takes effort, but when wielded effectively, it doesn’t just guide strategy; it shapes destiny. Here are some ways to beef up your environmental awareness:
- Environmental scanning software: There are various tools available that can provide real-time updates on trends, news and shifts within your sector or general environment. Having a dashboard that integrates information can help make sense of the external environment faster.
- Competitive intelligence services: Specialised firms offer this as a service, collecting data on competitors and broader market trends. This can serve as a shortcut to gaining comprehensive insights.
- Participatory workshops: Encourage open dialogue within the organisation where team members can share their observations and insights regarding the external environment. The collective intelligence of the group can often spot opportunities and threats that individuals miss.
- Public and private data mining: Learn how to scrape and interpret data from public sources like government publications and private databases. This statistical data can serve as the backbone of your environmental understanding, helping you recognise trends and make predictions.
- Sentiment analysis tools: Use AI-driven sentiment analysis to gauge public opinion on social issues, political shifts or consumer preferences that could impact your strategic objectives.
- Scenario-planning software: Advanced software can help simulate various future scenarios based on current environmental data. This can be extremely useful for understanding the possible outcomes of different strategic choices.
- Trend analysis platforms: Tools like Google Trends or industry-specific analytics platforms can offer insights into what is gaining attention. This can help you prepare for what’s coming next.
- Stakeholder-mapping applications: Visualising the network of stakeholders, from vendors to local communities to policymakers, can highlight areas that need more focus for maintaining a stable external environment.
- Podcasts and webinars: Industry-specific discussions can be a goldmine for the latest thoughts and concerns about environmental issues relevant to your field.
Resources & Support
This is why I wrote the book Spark Change, developed the Strategic Thinking Masterclass, and have released The Spark Strategic Leader ™ Subscription Program – all to help our sector’s leaders build the strategic thinking muscle.
Contact us at info@sparkstrategy.com.au to find out more.
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Want to read more about each Spark? Check out all our blogs and resources.