Saying ‘Strategic’ May Be a Cliché, but Thinking Strategically Isn’t.

Thomas Whitehead

During this past holiday season, I received an email from LinkedIn with a headline saying something along the lines of, “Thomas, you have the word ‘strategic’ in your bio. More than 35,000 other people use this word. Stand out now by upgrading your account.” 

So, this got my attention. Without providing a full chart of my strengths and weaknesses as a professional, I have always prided myself on strategic thinking being a vital strength of mine. But, it made me think. If everyone considers strategy to be a strength, is it really an important trait today, or is it something that everybody has and is almost expected to know?

Then, two public incidents happened almost simultaneously that made me reconsider how common or often strategic thinking is a part of our day-to-day decision making. 

• First, Bridget Anne Kelly, the deputy chief of staff for New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, was fired from her job for her direct involvement in closing traffic lanes as part of political revenge on a local politician. The closing of the lanes shut down the George Washington Bridge, causing complete gridlock and even prevented medical authorities from reaching a 91-year-old woman who had a heart attack and died. 
• Secondly, at right about the same time, Justine Sacco, the PR director for New York media conglomerate InterActiveCorp was fired after she posted a tweet right before she took off for a transcontinental flight to South Africa saying, “Going to Africa. Hope I don’t get AIDS. Oh, wait I’m white.“ This was not the first controversial tweet she had posted. 

It really caught my attention that, within the span of a week, two highly successful communication professionals were in the middle of controversies that could have been prevented if they had utilized strategic thinking about how their actions may affect their careers. 

I am not going to stand here and proclaim that I have never made any mistakes. Both professionally and personally, there have been decisions in my life that I regretted making. The good thing about the mistakes that I have made in my life is that I took those moments to learn from them and make sure that I become a better person from them. 

And, I have to give both of these professionals the benefit of the doubt that they will learn from these highly publicized incidents and return with a sense of self-awareness as they continue their careers. 

But, in light of these incidents, I think LinkedIn may want to reconsider trying to alarm me about how many people describe themselves as strategic. Thinking in terms of long-term, big-picture focus helps us in the small decisions of our lives. Trying to decide if our actions will lead us closer to or further away from these plans is vital to being strategic, whether it is for you, your company, your family or your clients. 

Habits of Strategic Thinkers

Liz Hutton

Recently, I had a conversation with a coworker about my personal business goals and what comes next after “intern life.” As I am extremely new to the PR world, this discussion got me thinking about not only what I want for myself in the industry, but also about the skills I need to get to the next level in my career. 

Following this conversation, I took time alone to consider these personal goals. One specific topic that came into mind was how to become a strategic thinker and the importance of strategic planning for a PR professional. This is one skill I definitely need to work on. 

From a fishbowl perspective, I am the person looking in, absorbing every email, brainstorm, meeting and new opportunity to learn about the PR world and the skills my coworkers have mastered. From time to time, we receive requests from our team members looking for insight on specific client needs, such as ideas for a new campaign. Everyone participates as emails begin shooting back and forth between coworkers sharing thoughts, stirring up ideas and backing up their reasons why certain ideas would work best for the client. This is what we call a team brainstorm. In the midst of the chaos of every brainstorm, I find myself wondering how to respond. Where do I even start? How did my coworkers master this skill to be able to spout out incredible, innovative and thoughtful ideas that work so perfectly for our clients? After a few more brainstorms, I realized that my strategic thinking needed a bit of a tune-up.  

I have come up with a guide of questions to hang on my desk and ask myself from now on before every brainstorm: 

• What is the client’s current situation?
• What is the client’s overall business goal?
• How can you generate new ideas? (Insight)
• How can you separate the client from the marketplace “noise”? (Competitive advantage)
• What are the benefits/costs of the offerings? (Value)
• Where should you focus capital, talent and time? (Target audience)
• Are you able to visually capture the essence of the business issues?
• How can you create new value for customers? (Innovation)
• Does the client have a well-developed mission, vision and values? (Main purpose/key message)
• What is the strategy?

Once those questions are answered, it will be much easier to put down into writing how and why the client should move forward. It’s not always easy to transition back and forth from right-brain thinking (creative, intuitive and subjective) to left-brain thinking (logical, analytical and objective), but for a PR professional it is a necessary skill.