I’ve never been big on New Year’s resolutions for a variety of reasons that I’ll spare you. Suffice it to say in the past couple of years, I’ve tried to do a better job of personally committing a few overall goals to writing - albeit written during the Christmas holiday on a bunch of 25 year old note cards still in my room at my parent’s house.
Nevertheless, throughout January we’ll sprinkle in a few lessons and underlying challenges to consider while improving your strategic thinking & innovation successes in the new year. No need to take them all on or to report back on how you’re doing, but read them, grab the immediate learnings, and pick one or two of the challenges to work on throughout the year.
The first one is “Finding a Strategic Thinking Mentor.”
A mentor can be invaluable for any business person as part of your informal business team, providing a different and more experienced perspective than you’d have on your own. Not all mentors are suited to fill every role, so it’s beneficial to have various mentors to satisfy specific experience gaps.
Here’s Your Challenge – Do you have a strategic thinking mentor - one who can help you identify the things that matter in your business situation and provide new insights & perspectives on how to approach things innovatively? When seeking one out, look for the following characteristics - beyond those that any great mentor possesses. The best strategic thinking mentors are:
- Smart
- Experienced & diverse
- Adept at asking productive, probing questions
- Oriented toward innovation
- Gifted with perceptive, accurate instincts
- Able to identify “what matters” in a particular situation
- Visionary
- Open to challenging both you and the status quo
- Comfortable holding a contradictory view
- Able to make solid, insightful connections
I've had several great strategic mentors, two of whom I was able to spend time with over the holidays. One is Bill McDonald, my first boss in a professional job, at Kansas City Infobank. It would take pages to list what I learned from Bill about strategy, secondary research, and great business writing. Another is Greg Reid, who I met eleven years ago today and has been a wonderful strategic thinking mentor ever since.
Strategic mentors are out there - find one of your very own this year! – Mike Brown
