Strategic thinking

Strategic thinking is the latest career strategy. Executives ranked strategic thinking as the quality they most value in leaders, according to a survey released in February by BloombergBusinessWeek.com and Hay Group. By contrast, last year's survey found senior management focused on leaders who could execute.
Priorities have shifted: As the recession eases, companies are looking for strategies and initiatives that will deliver long-term growth.
That means project managers who want to get ahead must be able to see their projects in the context of not only their companies but of the business world as a whole.
"Of course it is critical for project managers to be able to manage resources and execute projects - but it's not enough", says Rick Lash, PhD, director of the leadership and talent practice at Hay Group, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. "They've got to know when to keep their hands down, but also when to look up."
For project managers who want to be seen as leaders, that means taking the time to look beyond the immediate goals of the project at what's going on in the business and marketplace.
Project managers then need to apply those observations to think strategically about their own project decisions and how those projects can "support the future of the company", says Renato Lourenço, PMP, executive director at Rencorp Consulting, a management consulting company in São Paulo, Brazil.
Project managers will only win a seat at the leadership table by delivering project information in the context of business goals. "They have to be able to frame objectives, constraints, risks and current status around how that initiative will bring value to the company," Mr. Lourenço says.
To achieve greatest leadership potential, he advises project managers to increase their strategic knowledge through education and reading business magazines. They must then leverage that knowledge to bring innovation, value and better execution to projects.
The best project managers out there often demonstrate a competency called broad scanning. Dr. Lash says. "They are naturally curious and tend to dig deeper into issues, asking question to senior management about the business," he says. "Even asking simple question like, 'How does my organization make money?' can lead to new insigths that put their projects into the broader context of the organization."

Fonte: Artigo extraído da revista PM Network, volume 24, número 10, pág. 12, Outubro de 2010, PMI Publishing.