Spark 21 – How to think more strategically: Environmental Awareness: Insights

Imagine you’re building your own space mission. You’ve got a destination—a far-off galaxy you want to explore. You wouldn’t simply thrust your spacecraft into the void and hope for the best.

First, you’d put the power of environmental awareness to work. This isn’t just about checking the weather in space, it’s about understanding cosmic winds, nebula densities, asteroid fields and the laws of interstellar politics. Dynamically – as you travel.

Consider the gravitational pulls of celestial bodies, how they interact in orbital dances that could either speed up your journey or hurl you into a black hole. This is your competitive landscape. And let’s not forget the cosmic red tape—the treaties and universal laws you need to adhere to in this boundless frontier.

Environmental awareness in strategic thinking is like being the astronomer, the flight engineer and the cosmic lawyer, all in one. You’ve got the telescope, the spacecraft blueprints and the legal documents spread before you. You’re not just charting a course, you’re anticipating every challenge and opportunity you might encounter.

And why? Because the stakes are more than high; they’re cosmic. It’s not a task for the faint- hearted or the unprepared. So, fire up your engines, but never stop scanning the stars.

Now let’s head back to Earth and go a bit deeper to see how this works in the real world. Your awareness should span three altitudes of control:

1. Sphere of control: Typically, this means understanding what is going on inside you and your workplace. This is the world where you can change anything and everything. This is often called the micro-world.
2. Sphere of influence: Usually your sector or industry. Here you can’t control things, but you sure can influence them. This is often called the meso-world.
3. Sphere of interest: This is the world you can’t control or influence. Here you can only anticipate and respond. This is generally called the macro world.

Awareness in strategic thinking is often focused on the macro world and uses tools such as PESTEL (political, economic, social, technological and environmental).

The meso environment has used tools such as Porter’s 5 Forces, CoDesign with Lived experience and value proposition development. The micro environment is teased apart with business models, operating models and cultural models.

This Spark is not new nor innovative, but it is a stalwart of your strategic thinking. It helps you anticipate trends and forecast disruptions, and allows for agile, responsive strategic planning. Unlike environmental awareness, it’s not just ecological. It scans every facet of the environment—political, social, economic, technological—and informs strategy accordingly.

At ShelterMates, an Aussie nonprofit focused on providing housing for the homeless, the team was well-versed in the art of ‘doing good’, but they were floundering when it came to long-term planning. Enter the concept of environmental awareness. Instead of

looking solely at their internal capabilities, they embarked on a broad environmental scan.

They looked at property markets, economic forecasts, even climate reports—yes, don’t snigger, they wanted to know if more extreme weather events would increase demand for shelters. This deep dive allowed ShelterMates to identify partnership opportunities with construction firms looking for CSR activities, and even predict gentrification trends to secure properties in ‘up and coming’ areas. The results? A forty per cent increase in shelters within a year, a swell in donations by twenty-two per cent, and a partnership with a leading construction firm. This isn’t wizardry; it’s what happens when you wield the power of environmental awareness in your strategic toolkit.

Environmental Awareness provides the ‘why’ and the ‘how’—why certain strategies would be more impactful and how to go about executing them in the current climate.