6 Habits of True Strategic Thinkers

6 Habits of True Strategic Thinkers

You're the boss, but you still spend too much time on the day-to-day. Here's how to become the strategic leader your company needs.

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In the beginning, there was just you and your partners. You did every job. You coded, you met with investors, you emptied the trash and phoned in the midnight pizza. Now you have others to do all that and it's time for you to "be strategic." 

Whatever that means.

If you find yourself resisting "being strategic," because it sounds like a fast track to irrelevance, or vaguely like an excuse to slack off, you're not alone. Every leader's temptation is to deal with what's directly in front, because it always seems more urgent and concrete. Unfortunately, if you do that, you put your company at risk. While you concentrate on steering around potholes, you'll miss windfall opportunities, not to mention any signals that the road you're on is leading off a cliff.

This is a tough job, make no mistake. "We need strategic leaders!” is a pretty constant refrain at every company, large and small. One reason the job is so tough: no one really understands what it entails. It's hard to be a strategic leader if you don't know what strategic leaders are supposed to do.

After two decades of advising organizations large and small, my colleagues and I have formed a clear idea of what's required of you in this role. Adaptive strategic leaders — the kind who thrive in today’s uncertain environment – do six things well:

Anticipate 

Most of the focus at most companies is on what’s directly ahead. The leaders lack “peripheral vision.” This can leave your company vulnerable to rivals who detect and act on ambiguous signals. To anticipate well, you must:

• Look for game-changing information at the periphery of your industry
• Search beyond the current boundaries of your business
• Build wide external networks to help you scan the horizon better

Think Critically

“Conventional wisdom” opens you to fewer raised eyebrows and second guessing. But if you swallow every management fad, herdlike belief, and safe opinion at face value, your company loses all competitive advantage. Critical thinkers question everything. To master this skill you must force yourself to:

• Reframe problems to get to the bottom of things, in terms of root causes
• Challenge current beliefs and mindsets, including your own
• Uncover hypocrisy, manipulation, and bias in organizational decisions

Interpret 

Ambiguity is unsettling. Faced with it, the temptation is to reach for a fast (and potentially wrongheaded) solution.  A good strategic leader holds steady, synthesizing information from many sources before developing a viewpoint. To get good at this, you have to:

• Seek patterns in multiple sources of data
• Encourage others to do the same
• Question prevailing assumptions and test multiple hypotheses simultaneously

Decide

Many leaders fall prey to “analysis paralysis.” You have to develop processes and enforce them, so that you arrive at a “good enough” position. To do that well, you have to:

• Carefully frame the decision to get to the crux of the matter
• Balance speed, rigor, quality and agility. Leave perfection to higher powers
• Take a stand even with incomplete information and amid diverse views

 Align

Total consensus is rare. A strategic leader must foster open dialogue, build trust and engage key stakeholders, especially when views diverge.  To pull that off, you need to:

• Understand what drives other people's agendas, including what remains hidden
• Bring tough issues to the surface, even when it's uncomfortable
• Assess risk tolerance and follow through to build the necessary support

Learn

As your company grows, honest feedback is harder and harder to come by.  You have to do what you can to keep it coming. This is crucial because success and failure--especially failure--are valuable sources of organizational learning.  Here's what you need to do:

• Encourage and exemplify honest, rigorous debriefs to extract lessons
• Shift course quickly if you realize you're off track
• Celebrate both success and (well-intentioned) failures that provide insight

How to Avoid Office Politics

Every workplace has some individuals who like to spread their version of every story to other employees. This practice is often undertaken to gain some kind of advantage. People involved in office politics may consider it harmless without realizing that it could cause severe harm to others, either by increasing their stress levels or triggering them to resign from their jobs. Politics is also used by some, as a means to avoid changes in job location, the burden of which is transferred to someone else. To avoid falling into prey to such things going on in the office, here are a few pointers.

#1 Be Yourself
Many people tend to wear a false mask of goody behavior at office, to make an impression on others. Avoid doing such things and be who you are. Show people your real self so that they do not get an opportunity to talk behind your back. Do not pretend to be master of some and slave of others at the same time. Learn about your duties and responsibilities at office and behave accordingly.

#2 Identify "The" Coworkers
It is easy to identify coworkers who are involved in politics. Note their behavior and try not to befriend them. Avoid going to lunches, dinners or parties along with them so that, they know little about you to gossip with others. Ignore them when they seem to be interested in you because it might just be a trick to bring out information from you.

#3 Do Not Contribute
When you find yourself stuck in a situation where a work-related discussion has taken-up the shape of a nasty gossip session, take immediate action. The easiest way to deal with it, is to simply walk away. Remember, that even though you do not contribute to the gossip, staying there will be considered as a participation. That's why, it is better to move out. Another way to deal with such a situation is to reverse the discussion back to work-related topic. By doing so, you will also prevent others from indulging in this non-productive activity.

#4 Be Observant
Even though, you keep yourself out of such activities, it is important to know what kind of politics is going around in your office. By being observant you can learn what's going on and prepare yourself to face a difficult situation.

#5 Do What is Right
People involved in politics might attract you towards something that is not ethical or against your wish. Make sure you are not influenced by any of these, and stand for what you feel is right. This will let such people know that you are no puppet and can take correct decisions for yourself and the organization.

#6 Disclose Minimum Personal Information
Revealing too much personal information can have a negative impact on your work. Gossipers love to know what's happening in the lives of their coworkers. They can use your personal information as a political tool to cause harm to you or benefit themselves. 

#7 Focus on Your Job
Organizations hire employees to fulfill their job responsibilities and duties and not to sit back and gossip. Remember this key point to help you focus on your work and stop from being involved in petty discussions. Focusing on work will not only help you in achieving your targets, but also help you in climbing the ladder of success. 

#8 Do not Criticize
Even if you are filled with anger and want to drain out your frustration, try not to criticize anybody in front of someone else. Doing so, will land you on the same page as gossipers, which is definitely not what you want. Stay calm and do not let your ego control you.

#9 Hear Some Music
The best way to keep away from office distractions is to hear music. Always carry your iPod and earphones along with you. The moment you listen nasty discussions flaring up, put on your earphones and listen to your favorite music. This will not only act as a stress buster for you, but will help you escape unwanted office politics.

#10 Be Positive
A positive attitude in the workplace is important for being productive. Be positive and create a positive environment around you. Remain happy and energetic. Smile a lot! You never know, your positive attitude might help your colleague to come out of office politics blues. 

Being a part of politics can only lead to trouble. Try being a neutral party at the office which will save you from being dragged to one side of the politics. This facet of the work culture cannot be eradicated completely. However, one can always learn measures to prevent it so as to lead a peaceful and stress-free office life!

By Priyanka Kosta Sonkushre

http://www.startupnation.com/10-Tips-to-Avoid-Office-Politics/topic/

Source: http://www.buzzle.com/articles/how-to-avoid-office-politics.html

Responsible Recycling vs Global Dumping

E-waste dumping in Ghana. Photo by Basel Action Network. Copyright BAN 2009

Responsible recycling

When we drop off our old computers at an e-waste collection event, or have a recycler come and get them from our offices, we want to believe that the recycler is going to do the right thing: to reuse them if possible, and handle them in ways that are safe for workers and the environment. Electronics contain many toxic chemicals, and so a responsible recycler is one that is making sure that he – and the other vendors he may sell parts or materials to – is managing all aspects of the business as safely as possible.

Global e-Waste Dumping

The problem is that many electronics recyclers don’t actually recycle the electronics they collect from us. They can make more money by selling old electronic products to exporting waste traders than by processing it here in the U.S.  Traders send it to developing countries where workers earn extremely low wages (often a few dollars per day) and where health and safety and environmental laws, enforcement, infrastructure and citizens’ rights are very weak.

Simply stated, we are solving our e-waste problem by exporting it to poor countries around the globe.

Primitive Processing Contaminates Workers, Residents

Former farmers cooking circuit boards. "We can make 10 times more money doing this than we can from farming because the local government taxes farmers to much."Taizhou, China April 2004. ©2006 Basel Action Network (BAN)

In these countries, the e-waste ends up in backyard recycling operations, often literally behind peoples’ homes. One example is Guiyu, China, an area where a lot of our e-waste goes. They use crude and unsafe methods of taking apart our old computers and TVs to get to and remove the metals, which they can sell, causing great harm in the process. These dangerous practices include:

• Bashing open cathode ray tubes with hammers, exposing the toxic phosphor dust inside.
• Cooking circuit boards in woks over open fires to melt the lead solder, breathing in toxic lead fumes.
• Burning wires in open piles to melt away the plastics (to get at the copper inside).
• Burning the plastic casings, creating dioxins and furans – some of the most poisonous fumes you can breathe.
• Throwing the unwanted (but very hazardous) leaded glass into former irrigation ditches
• Dumping pure acids and dissolved heavy metals directly into their rivers.

These horrific working conditions plus weak labor standards in China and many of the other developing countries where e-waste is sent, mean that women and children are often directly exposed to lead and other hazardous materials.

Exporting Harm: The High Tech Trashing of Asia

This is a pile of circuit boards next to a river where circuit boards were first treated with acid to remove metals (the acids flowing into the river) and burned openly. Massive amounts of dumping of imported computer waste takes place along the riverways. Guiyu, China. December 2001. ©2006 Basel Action Network (BAN)

In 2001, the Basel Action Network (BAN) led several groups in an investigation of e-waste processing in China, India, and Pakistan. The investigation uncovered an entire area known as Guiyu in Guangdong Province, surrounding the Lianjiang River just 4 hours drive northeast of Hong Kong where about 100,000 poor migrant workers are employed breaking apart and processing obsolete computers imported primarily from North America. The workers were found to be using 19th century technologies to clean up the wastes from the 21st century.

Electronic waste dumped in residential area just outside of Alaba market in Lagos. This e-waste is routinely burned here.©2006 Basel Action Network (BAN)

Digital Dump: Exporting Reuse and Abuse to Africa

In 2005, BAN produced a film and report on e-waste export to Africa, for the reuse market, called “Digital Dump: Exporting Reuse and Abuse to Africa.” This shocking film shows how a large quantity of the computers exported to Lagos, Nigeria supposedly for reuse are really mostly non-working, non-repairable trash. With no real electronics recycling infrastructure, Lagos ends up burning these toxics-laden products in open pits, very close to residential areas.

How much e-waste do we export each year?

There have been no rigorous studies of exactly how much e-waste we export to developing nations. Industry experts estimate that of the e-waste that recyclers collect, roughly 50-80 % of that ends up getting exported to developing nations. That would mean that we export enough e-waste each year to fill 5126 shipping containers (40 ft x 8.5 ft). If you stacked them up, they’d reach 8 miles high – higher than Mt Everest, or commercial flights.

Photos on this page © Basel Action Network, 2009

Federal GAO Report Finds E-Waste Exports Handled Unsafely

In August 2008, the federal Government Accountability Office (GAO) published a scathing report on e-waste exports from the us, finding that “a substantial amount ends up in countries such as China and India, where they are often handled and disposed of unsafely. These countries often lack the capacity to safely handle and dispose of  used electronics if the units are not in reusable condition when received, and the countries’ extremely low labor costs and the reported lack of effective environmental controls make unsafe recycling commonplace.”