Strategic Thinking — Practice Makes Perfect
“If it were easy, everyone would do it”
— My dad.
Often times, he was right ( I wish I would have accepted that more as an adolescent) — when it came to sports, I would internalize this quote from my dad as fuel — if I could just work harder than the person next to me, I could be a cut above the rest.
But as I got older, graduated college, and entered the real world — I forgot what it meant to practice.
My first real job was at Apple, as a punk kid who was fresh out of college, I just wanted to drink the Apple flavored kool-aid, and talk to people who liked Apple products. I didn’t say “this will be a great career move for me and my future family” — rather I said, “I want to be a ~genius~” — because why not seek the most pretentious job title of all time as a 21 year-old hot shot.
While at Apple, I believed my managers were blessed by the strategic thinking deities, truly gifted thinkers, who processed information in a way that I wasn’t capable of — that’s why they were in the positions they were in. They would lead teams of happy employees, make decisions that would prove to make our stores more profitable, and customers happier.
As I attended a team meeting prior to store opening — with customers already lined outside our glass doors, peering into our souls as if to say “open these up, so I can pay $40 for a lightning cable” — I found myself listening to our store leader, Gene, give an empowering speech as he usually does — but this time he announced our store will be hosting a series of “experiences” to allow individuals to take on more responsibility and experience leadership.
Cowardly, I thought to myself, “i’m not cut out for that, I just like talking to people.” but at the encouragement of Gene, I applied for the experience.
The application process was quick, a panel interview with other Apple store leaders to pick my strategic brain — which would prove to be an underdeveloped part of my noggin.
Guess what? I failed the application process with flying colors. I drew from experiences as an individual contributor and found the way I’m thinking is execution oriented…not strategic, but why should it be at my level? It’s my job to reset passwords, remove viruses, replace iThings that had Cheeto dust in the charging connector and be friendly throughout the interaction with customers…not be a strategic thinking mind, or so I thought.
That application process changed my perspective…if I want to take the step to people leader I’ve got to start thinking differently (i hope you caught that subtle nod to Apple).
A few days later I shared the feedback from the interview with Gene and he offered to help me start thinking this way. His feedback was simple. “Take a look around the store — the interactions, wait times, experiences, everything — but don’t limit yourself to these problems…look for new ones, listen to people, and observe. Find the problems worth solving and think about why and how you would do it.”
It was like someone opened a door that had forever been locked.
Customers are waiting forever. Customers are getting their problem fixed only to return next week with the same problem. Employees are ticking customers off when they have to deliver bad news (e.g., when we replaced your phone, you didn’t have a backup so all your data is gone…thank you, come again).
I took these problems home with me… I obsessed over them (because I had nothing else to do as a single guy in my 1x1 apartment). I would think on these problems and report back to Gene with my ideas. He had the kindness to share them with our team, presented in a way that gave me the kudos, and I’ll never forget that. It served as encouragement and validation that I was on the right track.
With that encouragement, I continued to work at it…Practicing solving problems…Practicing being observant to those around me…Practicing listening to customers…Practicing being open with my colleagues so that I can hear their problems and what’s on their mind.
Practice, Practice, Practice.
Practice works in sports, learning an instrument, playing a board game. It works in everything we do as humans if we want to be better at something, but we often fail to practice strategic thinking. We fail to practice exercising our thoughts in new ways.
What does it look like to Practice thinking strategically?
It looks like baby steps…It looks like putting a sticky note above your computer monitor that says “what problem are you trying to solve” or “what’s the outcome you are looking to achieve” — and when you are sitting at your 11th meeting of the day and someone says “I think it would be really cool if we moved the checkout button to the left side of the screen” — You can steer the conversation back to the problem at hand, not a feeling or a solution looking for a problem…(that’s a story for another day).
From there it slowly becomes part of your normal thinking — re-wiring the neuroplasticity of the brain in a way that slowly encourages you to *ahem* think different.
It won’t always be black and white as to simply ask the problem solving question, but as you climb the proverbial ladder, you’ll find that these baby steps were some of the most helpful along the way to thinking like a super human strategic thinker that others will turn to for enlightenment.
Then, the real benefits begin…you get to be a Gene for someone else.
