Strategic Thinking is for Everyone
Strategic planning is often seen as a senior leadership event, but this episode argues that everyone in the company has a role to play. Learn how to empower frontline employees to gather real-time market and industry intelligence that leaders miss. Discover how this constant flow of information can lead to earlier course corrections, prevent costly mistakes, and give your company a proactive advantage over being reactive.
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Strategic Planning is for Everyone
As leaders, we've all felt the pressure. The annual strategic planning meeting looms, but between day-to-day operations and urgent tasks, finding the time to conduct comprehensive environmental scanning feels impossible. We know we need to understand the external landscape—our industry, the economy, and our competitors—but the process often feels like a cumbersome, last-minute event. Yet, in a fast-paced business world, bringing this external intelligence inside, and doing it in a timely manner, is not a luxury; it's a necessity.
At Revela, we believe that true strategic planning is not a top-down directive, but a powerful, company-wide conversation. So, on a recent episode of our Leadership Hustle podcast, we discussed this challenge and how it affects organizational growth.
The Flaw in Traditional Strategic Planning
The traditional model of strategic planning places the burden of gathering market intelligence squarely on the shoulders of senior leadership. This top-down approach has significant pitfalls. The information is often limited in scope, arrives too late, or is incomplete, leading to missed opportunities and a lack of agility.
Many leaders lack the time for this critical pre-work because they view it as a one-time event rather than an ongoing process. As Michelle Hill pointed out, leaders may have a lot of years in the business, making them wise, but also very removed from the day-to-day interactions. This distance creates a knowledge gap. It’s a reactive stance that can cause us to miss early warnings of market shifts, technological disruptions, or changing customer needs, all of which are essential for sustainable organizational growth.
When we don't engage the entire organization, we are operating with a partial view of the world. We might be using public-facing data and reports, but we're missing the unique, ground-level insights that only our employees have.
For example, a senior leader might know that the general economy is slowing, but an employee on the front line can tell you that a specific key customer is taking longer to pay their invoices. This is a much more specific and actionable piece of business intelligence than a broad economic report. Relying on traditional methods alone forces us to be reactive rather than proactive, always scrambling to catch up.
Environmental Scanning as Everyone's Job
The most effective way to address this proactive vs. reactive challenge is to transform environmental scanning into a shared responsibility. Instead of relying solely on a small group of executives, we can empower every single employee to become a sensor for external information. This approach is rooted in the understanding that the most valuable insights often come from the people closest to the action. Here’s why it’s effective:
Frontline Insights: Our individual contributors are our most valuable source of business intelligence. They are in direct contact with the external world—talking to customers, interacting with vendors, and negotiating with suppliers. They see and hear things that are invisible from the executive office. As Andrea Fredrickson said, they would tell you, "'Oh, yeah, I'm noticing that it's taking a lot longer to get trucks to be able to deliver pick up.' I'm noticing that customers are taking longer to pay...Or we're noticing that this vendor has a big inventory or supply of product." These are unique observations that can signal a shift in the market long before it becomes big news.
Practical Examples: These seemingly minor observations can be early indicators of major trends. Hill shared a great story about a leadership group she was working with. She advised them to go to their employees and ask open-ended questions to find out "what's going on in their world." By getting these different lenses, they could uncover things happening in their own business. For example, a customer might tell a sales representative that a competitor is doing something they really value. This information is a form of competitive business intelligence that's far more immediate and specific than a generic market report.
Cultivating a Culture of Proactive Information Gathering
To make this vision a reality, leaders must actively cultivate a culture where sharing observations is not only encouraged but expected. This is a key component of strong leadership skills. It’s not just about telling people what to do; it's about building a system that promotes proactive vs. reactive behavior. We need to create an environment where every employee feels empowered to contribute to our collective understanding of the world. Here are some actionable steps to make this happen:
Ask Open-Ended Questions: Encourage employees to ask questions like, "What is new or unique as it relates to your business?" or "What are some of the things that you’re finding challenging?" This helps them gather valuable insights from their conversations without it feeling like a formal interrogation. Even a simple observation like, "everything seems the same," is valuable data. Hill suggested asking customers, "What are some other vendors similar to us that, you know, what are they doing that you really value and appreciate that we're not doing?" Such direct feedback is invaluable for strategic planning.
Regular Check-Ins: Create a simple mechanism for employees to share their observations regularly. This can be as informal as a five-minute discussion at the beginning of a team meeting or a shared online document. During the podcast, we talked about the sudden onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Our usual quarterly meeting structure wasn’t enough. We had to move to more frequent, micro-bursts of conversation to keep up with the changing world. This is a perfect example of why continuous environmental scanning is so important.
Explain the "Why": Help employees understand how their contributions connect to the bigger picture and contribute to organizational growth. This makes them feel engaged and invested in the company's future, transforming a mundane task into a meaningful contribution. As Hill said, when employees feel they have input and a "say or some guidance," they become more invested in the success of the company. It's a win-win: we gain invaluable business intelligence, and they gain a sense of purpose and ownership.
The Power of Early Course Correction
The tangible benefit of a continuous environmental scanning process is the ability to make a course correction. As Fredrickson stated, "...it's a lot easier to make a course correction sooner rather than oh my gosh, we have to." When we have early access to information, we can make minor adjustments that prevent major catastrophes down the line.
A company that was paying attention to early signs of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020 could have begun making small adjustments to their supply chains or operational plans. Those who waited were forced to make drastic, reactive changes when it was almost too late. This highlights the importance of timely business intelligence. Without it, we risk making significant investments that turn out to be worthless.
This demonstrates that true leadership skills are not about reacting to problems, but about building systems that enable informed, timely, and proactive decisions. It's about empowering our people to constantly be looking at the horizon, anticipating change, and bringing that information back to the team. The ability to make a timely course correction is the hallmark of a resilient and successful organization. It saves money, time, and stress.
Beyond the Boardroom
Effective strategic planning is not a solitary, annual event. It's a continuous, company-wide effort that is fueled by a constant flow of business intelligence. When everyone from the C-suite to the frontline contributes to environmental scanning, a company is better equipped to adapt to change and achieve sustainable organizational growth. Start small, but start now.
At Revela, we believe that the foundation of true organizational growth is not a rigid plan, but the agility to make a timely course correction based on front-line insights. It's about building a culture where everyone feels responsible for the company's future, because in reality, we all are. Be sure to listen to the rest of The Leadership Hustle podcast for more insights on how you can make your business more proactive!
About the Hosts
Andrea Fredrickson
Andrea Fredrickson is a thought leader and consultant at Revela, an organization based in Omaha, Nebraska specializing in the development of leaders, culture alignment, and business strategy for private and family businesses of all sizes. Revela is one of the region's most experienced thought challengers, helping individuals and companies find their greatness. Andrea has built an amazing team by believing that fundamentally people want to be successful and become better versions of themselves.
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Andrea has degrees in education, management, and business. She is the author of Insight Unseen; How to lead with 20/20 business vision. She helps people see things differently, self-reflect, and never stop looking for ways to improve themselves on a personal and professional level. Andrea has spent more than 30 years researching and developing methods to help people communicate and lead more effectively.
When Andrea isn’t working with clients, you’ll find her spending time with her family & friends and making memories by exploring new cities.
Michelle Hill
Michelle Hill is a master facilitator and coach at Revela, an organization specializing in the development of leaders and aligning the culture of privately held and family businesses of all sizes. Revela is one of the region's most experienced thought challengers, helping individuals and companies find their greatness.
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An ambitious leader, Michelle has the natural ability to create forward momentum to build teams and get results. She inspires others to look within themselves and to challenge the status quo. She helps create high-performing environments. Michelle brings a diverse background: operations, employee development, and sales in the steel, hospitality, and consulting industries.
Outside of work, you will see her competitive side engaged in her daughter’s sports and ISU athletics. She loves life, her four-legged companions, and captures all the moments through her camera’s lens.
TRANSCRIPT
Andrea Fredrickson: On this episode of The Leadership Hustle, we're going to discuss how to bring the intelligence outside of your company inside the company, sooner rather than later. Hello, and welcome to the Leadership Hustle for executives whose companies are growing fast and need leaders who are ready. Hi there, and welcome back to this episode of Leadership Hustle. I'm Andrea Frederickson and I'm joined with my co-host Michelle Hill. Hello. And today's topic is being recorded during what I would call the early to beginning time, where we do a lot of strategic work. We've already been doing strategic planning meetings with clients for two months already. And so it's now the middle of September, and people are going to want their plans and their goals set up. But the topic that we're going to bring up is really about how strategic information is not just the responsibility of the senior leadership team.