Strategic Patience: The Career Skill No One Teaches You
We usually talk about strategic thinking as a leadership competency. We expect executives to anticipate what is coming, recognize patterns, consider competing priorities, and make decisions that position an organization for the future.
But lately, I have been wondering why we reserve those questions for organizations.
What would happen if we approached our careers, our major decisions, and even the direction of our lives with the same strategic curiosity?
When Strategy Means Waiting
Strategic thinking is often associated with action. We identify a problem, develop a plan, and do something about it. But sometimes the strategic decision is not to act immediately.
There are moments, professionally and personally, when we need to step back and, for lack of a better phrase, “ride the wave” for a while. We watch. We gather information. We allow circumstances to develop enough to distinguish a temporary disruption from a meaningful change in direction. Constantly reacting to new information can feel decisive, but too many reactionary changes can actually move us further away from our larger goals.
The challenge is knowing the difference between strategic patience and avoidance. Waiting because we are afraid to make a decision is not strategy. Neither is changing direction every time something becomes uncomfortable. Strategic thinking requires keeping the larger objective in view while deciding whether this particular moment calls for action, patience, or a change in direction.
Thinking Strategically and Communicating Strategically
There is another part of strategic thinking I have been considering: how we communicate it.
In her Harvard Business Review article, How to Demonstrate Your Strategic Thinking Skills, Nina A. Bowman makes an important distinction between developing strategic thinking and demonstrating it. Strategic thinking has to become visible. She describes the importance of bringing a point of view forward, considering the broader impact of decisions, and ultimately translating ideas into action.
That distinction struck me because having a strategic thought and communicating that thought strategically are not necessarily the same skill.
I have realized that my natural communication style often revolves around storytelling. I provide context. I explain how I arrived at a conclusion. I connect one experience or idea to another. There are times when that style is valuable. Stories can create understanding in ways that facts alone cannot.
But I have also had to learn, and am still learning, that there are situations where the story can obscure the point.
Sometimes the people around us do not need to travel through our entire thought process with us. They need to know: What am I seeing? What do I think it means? What do I think we should do next?
Bowman’s point is particularly relevant in leadership because other people cannot recognize strategic thinking they never see. We may be considering consequences, connecting information, anticipating what comes next, and thinking beyond our immediate responsibilities, but if we never articulate that point of view, others may only see the execution, or lack of if we never effectively communicate it.
I think this applies beyond the workplace as well. In a difficult situation, a relationship, a career transition, or a major life decision, we may understand the reasoning behind our choices perfectly well. The person receiving our communication may not. What feels deliberate to us can look indecisive or reactive to someone who cannot see the method behind our thinking.
At the same time, I am not convinced that every developing strategy needs to be communicated.
Sometimes communicating our reasoning creates clarity, builds trust, or invites a perspective we need. Other times an idea needs more time to develop. Sharing every possible direction before we understand it ourselves can create confusion or invite reactions to decisions we have not actually made.
Perhaps deciding when to communicate is itself part of strategic thinking.
Instead of simply asking, “Should I say this?” we might ask, “What does communicating this now accomplish?”
Strategy Is Not Prediction
Looking back at my own professional journey, very little of it followed a carefully constructed long-term plan. I could probably create a compelling narrative in hindsight that makes each step appear to have logically produced the next. The reality was much messier.
Some decisions were deliberate. Some opportunities appeared unexpectedly. Some directions worked, while others taught me that I needed to change direction. Experiences I once thought belonged to separate chapters of my career have informed one another in ways I could not have anticipated.
That does not necessarily mean there wasn’t strategy.
Perhaps we sometimes confuse strategy with prediction.
Strategic thinking does not require us to know exactly where we are going. It requires us to pay attention to where our current choices are taking us.
A Strategic Life
Perhaps strategic thinking in life isn’t about developing the perfect plan. It is about periodically creating enough distance from the demands of today to notice the direction we are moving.
What am I building? What am I learning? What assumptions am I still carrying? What possibilities am I overlooking? And if I continue on this path, where is it likely to take me?
We may not be able to predict where our careers or our lives will lead. I certainly haven’t predicted every turn in mine. But we can become more thoughtful about the choices that shape the direction.
A strategic life does not have to be a predictable one. It just shouldn’t be an entirely accidental one.
Reference:
HBR.org article : How to Demonstrate Your Strategic Thinking Skills by Nina A. Bowman. https://hbr.org/download/subscriber/reprint/H055LJ-PDF-ENG
