Strategic Thinking - Science topic

Reverse your thinking: Problems can be technical, complicated, and complex. Complex problems are messy—chaotic by definition. Complicated are within reach but multifaceted. Technical requires the right know how but has been done before. Most leadership problems resulted from a mixture of the three—there is no one, right answer.

Thank you very much for your comment Nazario, do you think it would be possible to try and gain the strategic perspective of the DRC government itself instead, or are there any other African insurgencies you know of that might be more accessible to research on?

alignment or misalignment between strategic thinking and organizational culture impacted an organization's ability to innovate, adapt, and achieve long-term success,

my opinion: this is relate to knowlegde management.

if an organization want to innovate, adapt an achieve long-term success, first the company need to be aligned the strategic thinking with organization culture.

Dear David

I agree with you, but I hope that in the future this technology will be better known and due to the high value of heritage, we will be able to preserve and use them. It is my dream to justify the costs against the values ​​of our cultural heritage. Thank you very much for sharing your idea about HBIM with me.

Yours sincerely,

Ali

Dear Luis Fernando Gallegos-Rodríguez,

Yes. In my opinion, crises such as the natural crisis, climate crisis, pandemic crisis, etc. are the source of economic, social, political crises, etc. In such difficult situations, the importance of general social awareness of various aspects of social justice, social political responsibility, democratization and liberalization of various spheres of life is growing citizens, fairer management and distribution of goods, sustainable development. In the conditions of serious crises threatening the effective development of civilization, the importance of social civic responsibility grows, social undertakings are undertaken from the bottom to increase social justice in the field of a more even distribution of goods, new social organizations co-create civil society and opportunities for socio-economic and civilization development increase in accordance with principles of sustainable development. Thanks to these processes, there is an increase in the possibilities of solving problems resulting from economic crises (e.g. causing an increase in unemployment, a decrease in income, an increase in the scale of economic stratification of the society, an increase in the income disproportion of key social strata), natural and health crises (e.g. natural disasters, plagues of infectious diseases and pests on farmlands, epidemics and pandemics, including the SARS-CoV-2 / Covid-19 / Coronavirus pandemic), climate crises (e.g. droughts, soil barrenness and desertification in farmlands, forest fires, ongoing global warming process, increasing scale weather anomalies and climatic disasters), etc. Therefore, the development of civil society favors the possibility of a real implementation of the principles of sustainable development into economic processes.

Best regards,

Dariusz Prokopowicz

Uno de mis ámbitos de trabajo es el pensamiento estratégico, estudio de casos en ecuador. Puedo estar interesado.

The objective of brain storming is to check whether the initiators of the session have missed any blind spots. So if you give the driving forces up front it could have two outcomes - stereo type answers which the team already knew, or something new which the team had missed earlier.

This is where the moderator's expertise comes into play - to constantly track the progress and if the session is heading in a direction which we already knew, the Moderator needs to play the devil's advocate to divert the discussions into unknown terrains.

But personally I would not give the driving forces earlier. Let the participants come up with a list of driving forces and the scenarios for different combination of these forces. That way the ideas generated will be large in numbers.

The question of the extent to which org culture influences strategic thinking invites us to explore how it does this, as the preceding answers show. I would start with Ahmed Quinn's point that org culture and strategic thinking affect each other, and add that they are both constantly adapting to their environment, especially the forces of globalization.

Yes, I will be happy to work on 'strategic thinking in Arab organisations'

This is a difficult question to answers as the context for raising this question is unknown, but its quite an interesting one. I will try to answer this question in two parts:

1. We can define the two types of Arab organization as - Public or governmental organizations and the private companies. These are the two key stakeholders, in which the governmental organizations play a role of creating and managing the framework for creation of wealth while the private companies exploit this framework to assimilate and disburse wealth.

The government organizational strategization process is seemingly driven by goals that are primarily focused at political, security, health, education and socio-economic development. (you can get a perspective of strategic thinking in public sector by reading a report on how strategic thinking is applied by UK - https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201012/cmselect/cmpubadm/1625/1625.pdf)

The private companies goal is wealth creation by exploitation of opportunities and resources. They strategize based on their internal capabilities and changes that are happening in the external environmental, this is a matter of great importance in the Arab region, where the external environment has been hit with sudden unpredictable shocks and surprises, either unknown to private businesses or if known difficult for them to adjust.

2. Approach to understanding strategic thinking in these Arab organizations - would involve evaluating the vision and mission, evaluating the political and cultural dynamics, slicing and dicing the data on performance, aligning performance data with expected goals and objectives as per the vision and mission, identifying strengths and weakness along with opportunities and threats to growth, regional, national and global dynamics that affect competitiveness status and resource availability and limitations of these organizations.

Politics and cultural differences play a very important aspect of influencing decision making in Arab organizations and need to be incorporated in any evaluation study to provide a true perspective of strategic thinking in these organizations.

Dear Yousif Riyadh Mahmood,

The topic is important. In my opinion, this is an important and interesting question. It is very good that this question appeared on the research portal Research Gate. This is a very interesting and scientifically important topic.

I would add to the above issues also creative thinking, the effect of which are inventions invented, new technological connections, rationalization solutions in production processes, product and other innovations, etc.

Best wishes

The following sources should also be helpful, particularly: Banking business model; Relationship lending/marketing in SME banking; SME lending/finance; Equipment lease; Risk management; Bankruptcy predicting elements/model; Bank competition analysis; Bank service-quality measurement, etc. 

 Thanks Prof. Gustavo Concari.

Since the mid-1970s, archaeology in the US has become more-and-more an interdisciplinary science. We (practicing/professional consulting/contracting and cultural-resource-management) archaeologists have tended to remain on the forefront of adopting new technologies (e.g. digital photography, aerial photography, remote-sensing, drones, GPR, GIS, GPS ... the Internet-of-Everything ... open access publishing) and working closely/cooperatively with any-and-all scientists in other disciplines who may help us find answers to our problems. Because we have had good and early experience managing our research as interdisciplinarians, that has predisposed us to be early-adopters and exploiters (and purveyors to other disciplines) of any new digital technologies and methods. The academic archaeologists (in universities) have been much slower and more conservative in adopting-and-teaching new digital methods (although we practical archaeologists have managed to more-or-less drag them along, screaming-and-kicking against anything new, trying to maintain the status-quo of traditional methods, into the new digital age). I think, nowadays, even the staid academics are just-about-over their tantrums, and realize that, contrary to what they initially believed-and-argued (feared), the new digital age will not destroy archaeology, but has only aided in its progress and the global realization that archaeology is not a totally esoteric pursuit, but offers one of the best ways we may have to ever understanding how we have become the people (cultures) we are nowadays (and understanding the past challenges we have overcome bearing-on humankind's very survival so that we may chart a better-and-safer path for the future). Perhaps the greatest value of the "digital humanities" is providing timely information to all researchers/teachers on failed experiments, and unproductive lines-of-research, so as to prevent the wasted efforts/resources as in the past ... before such instantaneous and global awareness was possible.

A number of factors are relevant in this regard.Particular insurance packages, simplicity of procedure and various security related issues are very much relevant.

I have not published in this subject, but I have reached the conclusion that we often think about critical thinking in a wrong way.

We refer to critical thinking as an ability, but it is better to think of it as a process.  The PROCESS is to analyse a situation in terms of how it is similar to, and different from, other situations, and to reach conclusions.  

I see many academic papers that do not show much critical thinking.  I think that this is because people have never learned and practiced the process.  

This is an interesting discussion. In answering your question it is important to acknowledge the enourmous diversity in planning and design practices and disciplines. This implies that skills and competencies are diverging as well; in time and place. Many of the debates about the skills and competencies of planners have revolved a certain ideal type planner; one that never existed and never will exist. Furthermore not all planners will work on the same issues and from the same perspective or interest. Contemporary challenges require a different kind of planner, with different skills and compentencies than those of planners who used to formulate and enforce zoning plans for example. Skills, competencies and therefore the education systems need to stimulate diversity and evolve with sociatal demand and challenges.

In an article in Planning Theory (see attach) we argued that a design perspective can enrich planning systems, and planners can indeed become designers. But we have also shown that this might entail some risks. The benefits and risks are community and time specific, as the co-evolutions of planning and design have shown, and should therefor always be considered in a specific context.

I would like to separate two factors in Strategy: the methodology and the thinking content (strategic thinking). If you look to the warfare principles  they look more or less the same in western countries but they may differ consistently if you consider them basing  the decision process on the oriental approach (see Sun Tzu principles).  I had in my organization  about twenty years ago an Army General and we were sometimes talking of the basic principles to define a strategy in the battlefield. He was always recalling a repetend : "ma-ma-ri-sor- si" , that in Italian stands for  massa, manovra, riserva, sorpresa, sicurezza . Similar simple war principles are declined in all the languages and you have to take care of them, of course. You must anyhow consider that by adding some "lateral thinking"  you may come out with many different strategies to be evaluated, and apparently responding to the above principles in comparable way.

Usually, by the book strategists , are very good in the technical part of the game (e.g. logistics , in Army General cases) but in today Management and competitive environment complexity, It is becoming more and more important  the capability of generating potentially winning strategies expressed  and generated via an interdisciplinary management approach, culture and experience.

A preminent technical approach to Planning might prove to be weak in the competitive practice and operation, if forgetting that  effective Strategic "Thinking" is to be considered a prime factor regarding the strategic process.The subsidiary importance of proper Technical Planning, should be then considered, in my opinion , as  an added value factor.

I have significant case histories in my mind  to outline that, Strategy Wise,  If you have good Planning and poor Thinking, the final result you should expect, is a poor one!

Kind regards

Alberto

The good scientific reference is Ron Adner, The wide lens a new strategy for innovation". The author spent a decade studying the root causes of innovation success and failure. His perpective inludes the Ecosystem.

Dear Krishnan and Artur,

Tqvm for sharing. Truly appreciate it. Helps me a lot.

@Jalal, as an engineer trying to give an answer to your thread, I borrowed the definition of metaphorical thinking, in a meantime! Here it is, while my answer will follow later. Actually, I have to think a lot and do a lot of reminds.

So: "Metaphoric thinking is a substitutional mental process in which implicit comparisons are made between qualities of objects which are usually considered in separate classifications. By poetically sensing and analogically developing the hidden connections between these normally separated qualities, the student is able to synthesize new mental constructs as forms that may be called creative. With the great over emphasis in education on making clear, linear, and literal connections, the synthesis of new evocative forms is an important productive thinking skill for all students who hope to do more than memorize information."

For case study analysis, first & foremost is to understand and note the situations in the case. Further study of the case, must lead to identification of the problems which the organization, under study, is facing. These two factors, viz, Situations & Problems in the case, will help in further analysis, using strategic model. Case analysis could be done, using the concept of SWOT ( Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats ), ETOP ( Environmental Threat and Opportunity profile) & SAP ( Strategic Advantage Profile) analysis, Matrix analysis ( e.g. BCG, GE Nine Cell etc. ). The strategic decision on analysis, must lead to competitive advantage & value creation for the organization to overcome the problems.

This method is based on basic concept of strategic management. There could be other methods of analysis.