6 Ways to Bring Strategy into Your Work Every Day

The Nugget

Being strategic in your daily work involves making small decisions that accumulate to drive success towards your goals by focusing on impactful actions and aligning choices with your strategy.

Make it stick

🧠 Identify the actions that matter: Focus on critical decisions, interpreting signals, influencing colleagues, and addressing behaviors that hinder progress.
📊 Focus on the most important problem: Address the significant challenges that align with strategic outcomes.
💡 Explore the choices you face: Consider your role, distinctiveness, impact, and learning opportunities in every situation.
💪 Master the capabilities required: Learn from past experiences, seek advice, observe proficient individuals, and focus on skill improvement.

Being strategic requires making coherent choices daily to achieve goals despite obstacles.
Small decisions throughout the day accumulate to impact the success of a strategy.
Personal mindsets and behaviors can be more limiting than organizational obstacles.

Identify the actions that matter
- Map out ideal schedules focusing on tasks that positively impact strategy success.
- Allocate time for critical decisions, interpreting signals, influencing colleagues, and addressing obstructive behaviors.
Focus on the most important problem
- Prioritize addressing significant challenges aligned with strategic outcomes.
- Frame problems as opportunities to drive strategy forward.
Explore the choices you face
- Consider roles, distinctiveness, impact, and learning opportunities in every situation.
- Embrace optionality to contribute positively to the strategy.
Master the capabilities required
- Learn from past efforts, seek advice, and observe proficient individuals to enhance skills.
- Focus on improving specific capabilities aligned with strategic goals.
Create alignment between elements of the strategy
- Reframe situations to reduce misalignment and enhance chances of fulfilling organizational and personal needs.
- Find innovative ways to approach tasks that align with both company and personal objectives.
Assemble the resources you need
- Develop foundational resources like exercise and strong relationships to perform at your best.
- Use mental, relational, and environmental resources to make wise decisions in the moment.

"Being strategic — that is, making a coherent set of choices to help you pursue an ambition or goal — is a nonnegotiable skill for business leaders."
"Small decisions about where to focus and what to do throughout your day may feel inconsequential, but their impacts accumulate."
"Personal mindsets and behaviors can be more limiting than organizational obstacles."
"In any moment — a task, conversation, email exchange, or meeting — there are more choices about what you can do and how you can show up than you might realize."
"Use two types of resources wisely. First, develop the foundational portfolio of resources you need to perform at your best, which include healthy nutrition, good exercise, enough sleep, personal interests, and strong relationships with your spouse, family, and friends."

This summary contains AI-generated information and may be misleading or incorrect.