THE QUALITY OF THOUGHTFULNESS 

The ability to think and plan strategically is perhaps the most important single skill of the effective executive. In a longitudinal study of leaders who, in retrospect, made the best and most effective decisions, the single quality that stood out from all others was the quality of "thoughtfulness." Thoughtfulness may be defined as a careful concern for the secondary consequences of each decision and each action. This is the essence of strategic thinking. 

YOUR MOST POWERFUL TOOL 

The most powerful tool that you as an executive have to bring to bear on your work is your mind - your thinking ability. Everything you do that sharpens and hones your ability to think with greater clarity before acting, will benefit you and help you to move upward and onward more rapidly in your career. 

USE A TWO PRONGED APPROACH 

The best way to approach strategic thinking is two pronged. This means to work simultaneously on the personal and the corporate. 

The purpose of strategic planning is to increase return on equity. The guiding principle of strategic planning and strategic thinking is to organize and reorganize the resources and strengths of the individual and the organization so as to produce the highest amount of quality and quantity of outputs relative to inputs. The central focus is always on bottomline results. The key question is always, "How can we best deploy the assets and resources of this organization so as to achieve greater and better results than we are achieving at the present time?" 

INCREASE YOUR "RETURN ON ENERGY" 

In personal terms, strategic planning is an exercise in increasing "return on energy." Your greatest single asset is your earning ability. And your earning ability is nothing more than the total of the mental, emotional and physical energies that you can apply toward getting valuable results for yourself and your company. Anything that you can do to increase your return on energy invested will increase your overall levels of effectiveness and contribution in every area of your life, especially, and most importantly in your work. 

ACTION EXERCISES

Here are two things you can do immediately to increase your return on equity and your return on energy. 

First, think about everything that you are doing in terms of its financial return to your organization. What are the things that you do that yield the highest return on equity? Whatever they are, do more of them.