Strategic Leadership and Decision Making

9 STRATEGIC THINKING
Nine-tenths of tactics are certain and taught in the books; but, the irrational tenth is like the kingfisher flashing across the pool. This is the test of generals. Success can only be ensured by instinct sharpened by thought. At the crisis, it is as natural as a reflex. T. E. Lawrence The Science of Guerilla Warfare THIS CHAPTER
PERSPECTIVE CAPACITIES VS KNOWLEDGE & SKILLS SELF AWARENESS METACOGNITION CONCEPTUAL CAPACITY EXECUTIVE FLEXIBILITY CREATIVE AND CRITICAL THINKING RISK TAKING

"What will give you competitive advantage as a strategic leader?" A corollary question is, "How do you develop the requisite skills in order to gain competitive advantage?" Military organizations, and organizations in general, are concerned about leadership and leader development. Until the 1980s, the focus was on the direct level of leadership. Only recently has executive level thinking become significant. A basic premiamorphoournmse of Stratified Systems Theory (SST) is that the strategic leader operates within an increasingly complex environment, characterized by greater information-processing demands and a need to solve more ill-defined, novel, and complex organizational problems. Executives must develop skills and cognitive capacities to navigate successfully within such a complex environment (Zaccaro 1996). Strategic leaders must not only possess these capacities and skills but also be able to apply them, and effective application of these capacities requires highly developed self-awareness. PERSPECTIVE How do executive-level leaders regard decision making and thinking at the strategic level? At this level, there is a great premium on anticipation. If I am not drawing on my experiences and an intuitive sense of understanding of the situation, then I am not

functioning as a four-star. One of my first requirements is to be a good anticipator. Number two is that at the four-star level, if I am anticipating right, I can shape issues, rather than issues shaping me. When anticipating, I have to have an intuitive judgment that says, "These things are important." The anticipation and shaping (of) issues are what this job is all about (Stewart, 1993). Officers who succeed at the three- and four-star levels have the individual capacity to cope with complexity, amorphousness, and uncertainty. You do not have to have everything laid out for you. You have the resiliency and ingenuity to adapt to new and different circumstances (Franks, 1994). The most important phase in the exercise of strategic leadership is the front-end work. The in-depth, serious thinking by a leader and his or her team results in the creation of an intellectual framework for the future. Imaging the future first takes place in the mind of the leader and then must be communicated throughout the organization. Intellectual change guides the physical changes that manifest transformation. Without the tough up-front work of intellectual change, physical change will be unfocused, random, and unlikely to succeed (Sullivan & Harper, 1996).
BLOOM'S TAXONOMY OF LEARNING UPPER LEVEL THINKING SKILLS EVALUATION SYNTHESIS ANALYSIS

LOWER LEVEL THINKING SKILLS APPLICATION UNDERSTANDING KNOWLEDGE

This is your last educational opportunity before entering the strategic leadership environment, and your best opportunity to explore the vast strategic environment that lies before you. This SLDM curriculum is designed to help you develop skills for thinking and functioning in an environment where there are no right answers, and only a range of solutions, some of which work better than others when implemented. Your focus is on developing your higher order thinking skills. The strategic environment requires leaders to develop both individual and team thinking skills. It is important to differentiate between individual and collective thinking. In the Consensus Team Decision-Making Model (CTDM), you will find a paradigm for a team approach to strategic thinking. This collaborative problemsolving approach is what you will participate in and manage as your careers progress. A group/team approach to decision making requires you to adopt a different frame of reference about your own work in relation to others'. CAPACITIES VS. KNOWLEDGE AND SKILLS

The hypotheses for understanding executive development was presented at a U. S. Army Conference on Strategic Leadership. This theory suggests that executive development should be divided into two major areas. The first area accents technical, intellectual, and inter-personal knowledge and skills. The second area, one that is of particular interest to us, stresses capacities. Capacities include perspective-taking, visioning, and metacognition. Traditional military education emphasizes knowledge and skills as most important. This focus may just be the primary reasons for the huge success of leadership at the direct leadership level in the defense community. However, research evidence suggests that capacities are essential for the executive leader at the strategic level. This is not to say that knowledge and skills are unimportant, only that the importance of capacity increases significantly at the strategic levels. SELF-AWARENESS Executive development efforts such as the SLDM course are designed with the belief that enhanced self awareness leads to higher levels of performance. Self awareness is defined as the ability to reflect on and accurately assess one's own behaviors and skills as they are manifested on the job. It is an important ability for achieving leadership excellence. Rarely are self assessments and assessment by others completely congruent. We call the lack of agreement between self assessment and assessment by others "the coefficient of self delusion." This coefficient can be positive (when others' ratings are higher than self ratings) or it can be negative (when others' ratings are lower than self ratings). The positive coefficient of self delusion occurs with people who either are genuinely humble or may be trying to avoid over-inflating their self ratings for a variety of reasons. The negative coefficient of self delusion usually occurs with people who are not conscious of the impact of their behaviors on others or they have an inflated sense of self. In either case, it is important to investigate why the assessment gap exists and reflect upon ways that it can be narrowed, perhaps even closed.
EXECUTIVE DEVELOPMENT AREAS*
KNOWLEDGE AND SKILLS TECHNICAL EXPERTISE TACTICAL EXPERTISE KNOWLEDGE OF THE ENVIRONMENT COMMUNICATIONS SKILLS DECISION MAKING SKILLS PROBLEM-SOLVING SKILLS MOTIVATING SELF AND OTHERS CAPACITIES BREADTH OF PERSPECTIVE FRAME OF REFERENCE METACOGNITION SELF-AWARENESS VISIONING POLITICAL SENSITIVITY INTEGRATIVE CAPACITY

JUDGMENT CHARACTER

*Adapted from "The Preparation OF Strategic Leaders" (Forsythe 1992).

METACOGNITION As you begin to understand what influences your decisions, it is also critical to understanding of metacognition so that you are better able to control and influence your own thought processes. Metacognition is a key variable which differentiates effective thinkers from less effective thinkers. Cognition is the mental faculty or process by which knowledge is acquired through perception, reasoning, and intuition. The basic process of acquiring knowledge is simply learning. This includes the creation and management of aggregated knowledge in the form of complex cognitive structures or mental maps. Metacognition is cognition directed at monitoring and controlling the process of cognition. Metacognition is thinking about thinking. The result of metacognition is the conscious regulation and rearrangement of how you think in the face of complex problems requiring novel solutions. Metacognition is both a process and a skill. As a skill, metacognition is about selfawareness and strategic management of self. As a process, metacognition involves conscious, self-directed investigation of one's mental process. This includes perception and understanding of context as well as the notions of perspective-taking and multi-frame thinking-walking in another's shoes. Therefore, the process of metacognition often involves temporarily suspending assumptions, including one's own values and belief systems. This also can be construed as placing self in perspective, or "decentering." Argyris' (1977) notion of double loop learning is a nice analogy for comparing and contrasting cognition and metacognition. Construe the smaller, inner circle as cognition and the larger, outer circle as metacognition. The ball in position A orbits in the realm of acquiring knowledge-cognition. If, for some reason, the ball breaks its smaller orbit and gets out on to the larger, outer circle-say, in position B-the ball can look down and into the smaller, inner circle. This is the process of metacognition-getting out on the outer circle, then investigating from a higher position the cognition going on the smaller, inner circle. The benefits of metacognition would be realized when the ball returns to the smaller, inner orbit and manages itself in a new way, appropriate to the times and situation. If double-loop learning doesn't work for you, Markessini (1990) developed a model which juxtaposes metacognitive processes with cognitive processes. It construes metacognition as an umbrella or executive control function under which cognitive functions occur.

A third analogy for metacognition comes from models of information processing. Human information processing occurs at two levels. At the "lower" level, a closed system accepts input, processes it, and produces output without any feedback. At the "upper" level, a control system acts as a feedback processor with a capacity for both rewriting the rules used at the "lower" level and providing feedback to the "lower" level. The action process, cognition, merely executes, resets, and executes again. The executive process, metacognition, can edit or adjust the action process after considering feedback. Unless you master metacognition, you will not be able to manage your personal development as a strategic thinker and leader. Conceptual capacity is a good indicator of how capable you currently are at monitoring and managing your thought processes. CONCEPTUAL CAPACITY One of the basic principles of Stratified Systems Theory (SST) is that leadership performance requirements change at higher organizational levels. The first implication of SST, however, is that leaders must be able to make choices about decision alternatives and problem solutions at all levels. Further, SST states that at higher organizational levels, problem types and decision choices become more ambiguous, less structured, and more differentiated. The complexity of the organization-environment interaction requires more productivity and planning within longer time frames that add to the cognitive demands of senior leaders. An effective executive-level leader is expected to have a high level of conceptual capacity. If you are working for an executive-level leader and you have considerable conceptual capacity, you stand a better chance of understanding the issues and problems at that level, and a higher probability of being a valued asset. What if you aspire to be an executive-level leader and you are not satisfied with your current level of conceptual capacity? The good news is that conceptual capacity increases with age. The bad news is it may not increase at a rate that will equip you to function effectively at the strategic level. Conceptual capacity can be boosted by developmental experiences (e.g., attending a senior service college), by assignments (e.g., working for a strategic leader or serving on a special high level planning group), and by broadening your professional reading program. EXECUTIVE FLEXIBILITY High levels of conceptual capacity are associated with higher levels of executive flexibility. Being flexible allows you to see problems from more than one perspective, allows you to reframe complex problems so that solutions become clearer, and allows you to accommodate seemingly ambiguous solutions. Being flexible allows you to question underlying assumptions about a problem and facilitates the generation of an array of possible solutions. Being flexible also is related to an individual's disposition to work at the strategic level.
COMPOSITE INDICATOR OF EXECUTIVE FLEXIBILITY
SOURCE CONSTRUCT

MBTI MANSPEC

NT VS SF CATALYST PERSISTENCE INGENUITY

SLDI

INTERPERSONAL COMPETENCE

MCPA

CONCEPTUAL CAPACITY

There are several ways to measure executive flexibility. We can use behavioral measures, cognitive measures, and/or dispositional measures. Re-searchers at ICAF are involved in investigating these approaches, trying to determine an integrative measure of executive flexibility. Results of the composite measure of executive flexibility used at ICAF are directly related to indicators of conceptual competence, vocational interests, and style of creativity. The composite measure also is inversely related to mental rigidity. CREATIVE AND CRITICAL THINKING Creative thinking and critical thinking are two sides of the same coin. Both are important skills in strategic decision making. Your careers, to this point, focus mostly on the critical thinking side of the coin. You may not have spent much time generating solutions to complex problems. For some, creativity remains a mysterious gift, an elusive phenomenon that defies scientific description. For others, it provides an opportunity to use their decisionmaking ability. Over the years different theories of creativity have placed varying degrees of emphasis on the personal characteristics of creative individuals, or the dynamics of the social and motivational forces influencing creativity. Some theories stress personal growth or self-actualization, while others stress the historical views of human behavior. Nevertheless, one tenet seemed common to all-creative thinking skills can be developed or learned. One ideology involves the cognitive, rational, and semantic approach to understanding the creative process. The first element, cognition, refers to creativity as an intellectual activity, thoughtful in nature. Rational implies that the activities and skills involved in the creative process do not just happen. A variety of methods and techniques can be used to assist creative efforts. Semantic merely emphasizes that language is a powerful tool to assist in creative learning and the problem-solving process. Creative thinking is associated with the divergent phase of problem solving. In the divergent phase of problem solving, we seek to generate or create as many possible alternatives. We can take existing alternatives and tinker with them to see if we can

adapt something that already is working to the problem at hand. People who exhibit this creative style generally are called adaptors. Or, we can start with a clean sheet of paper. People who exhibit this creative style are called innovators. People who tend toward the MBTI(r) N (intuitive) and P (perceiving) preferences elect the innovative creative style. People who tend toward the MBTI(r) S (sensing) and J (judging) preferences elect the adaptive creative style.
INDICATORS OF RISK TAKING AND RISK AVERSION SOURCE MBTI CREATIVE THINKING E (EXTRAVERSION) N (INTUITIVE) P (PERCEIVING) MANSPEC CATALYST CREATIVE INGENUITY NEW IDEAS PERSUASIVE EXECUTIVE DISPOSITION MCPA HIGHER LEVELS OF CONCEPTUAL CAPACITY CRITICAL THINKING I (INTROVERSION) S (SENSING) J (JUDGING) ADMINISTRATIVE DETAILS PLANNING PRACTICAL RISK CONTROL STIMULUS CONTROL LOWER LEVELS OF CONCEPTUAL CAPAPCITY

RISK TAKING The strategic environment rewards or punishes risk taking and quickly sensitizes decision makers to resource issues. This resource-constrained environment demands that leaders must do more with less, and often increases the risk of failure to achieve the desired end state. Because the strategic environment is rapidly changing, decision makers must learn to think smarter and more creatively in order to get the most out of dwindling resources. Creative solutions are not achieved without taking risk, and often deviate sharply from known ways of doing things. There are several indicators of creative thinking ability and critical thinking ability. It is important not to focus on any one of these indicators. Rather, you will find it useful to integrate all of these indicators into a mosaic of your creative and critical thinking abilities. CONCLUSION

A leader can develop more effective strategic thinking skills. This is done by exploiting any opportunity to better understand yourself, how you think about complex problems, and how to go about making decisions. This understanding of yourself is critical, since this information that forms the foundation for developing your strategic thinking capabilities necessary in the strategic environment. The more you understand yourself, the more control you have over both the process, and the products you produce. Virtually all of you will be required to serve in strategic environments. This means there will be many opportunities for you to function as a strategic thinker or advisor. You must, therefore, continue to develop a new and broader set of thinking skills. The SLDM course, and the overall ICAF experience have been designed to help you understand and develop effective strategic thinking skills to solve the complex, fast changing, unstructured problems you will soon encounter

Reading Better and Faster by Dennis Doyle

For most people, it is easy to learn to read faster. Your reading rate is often just a matter of habit. But to begin, you may need to try to change some habits and try these tips: 1. Pay attention when you read and read as if it really matters. Most people read in the same way that they watch television, i.e. in an inattentive, passive way. Reading takes effort and you must make the effort. A wise teacher once told me that you can learn anything if you do three things: PAY ATTENTION PAY ATTENTION and PAY ATTENTION. There are some simple methods that you can use to pay better attention and get more out of your textbook reading time. Different authors call it different things, but many researchers say that you will improve your comprehension if you somehow "preview" the passage before you actually sit down and read every word. To do a preview you:

take 30 to 60 seconds. look over the title of the chapter. look at all the headings, subheadings and marked, italic or dark print. look at any pictures or illustrations, charts or graphs. quickly skim over the passage, reading the first and last paragraph and glancing at the first sentence of every other paragraph. close the book and ask yourself: ---What is the main idea? ---What kind of writing is it? ---What is the author's purpose?

You might not think that you could possibly answer these questions with so little exposure to the material, but if you do the preview correctly, you should have some very good general ideas. If you have a general idea of what the passage is about before you really read it, you will be able to understand and remember the passage better. When you finally get to the point where you are actually slowly reading the passage, read in a "questioning" manner -as if you were seaching for something. It sometimes helps if you take the heading or title of a chapter and turn it into a question. For example, if the heading of a section in the text is "The Causes of the Civil War", take that title and switch it into a question like: "What are the causes of the Civil War?". Now you have a goal; something to look for; something to find out. When you are goal-oriented, you are more likely to reach the goal. At least you'll remember one thing about the text which you have just read.

2. Stop talking to yourself when you read. People talk to themselves in 2 ways, by:

vocalizing, which is the actual moving of your lips as you read, and subvocalizing, which is talking to yourself in your head as you silently read.

Both of these will slow you down to the point in which you find that you can't read any faster than you can speak. Speech is a relatively slow activity; for most, the average speed is about 250 WPM (words per minute). Reading should be an activity which involves only the eyes and the brain. Vocalization ties reading to actual speaking. Try to think of reading as if you were looking at a landscape, a panorama of ideas, rather than looking at the rocks at your feet. 3. Read in thought groups. Studies have shown that when we read, our eyes must make small stops along the line. Poor readers make many, many more fixations (eyestops) than good readers. Not only does this slow you down, but it inhibits comprehension because meaning is easier to pull from groups of words rather than from individual words or even single letters. Try to read in phrases of three or four words, especially in complete clauses and prepositional phrases. Your mind may internalize them as if the whole phrase is like one big meaning-rich word. 4. Don't keep re-reading the same phrases. Poor readers habitually read and re-read the same phrase over and over again. This habit of making "regressions" doubles or triples reading time and often does not result in better comprehension. A single careful, attentive reading may not be enough for full comprehension, but is often more effective than constant regressions in the middle of a reading. It is best to work on paying closer attention the first time through. Do a preview first before the careful reading and try the tips I mentioned above. You'll remember better without the rereading. 5. Vary your reading rate to suit the difficulty and type of writing of the text. Poor readers always read at the same slow rate. An efficient reader speeds up for easier material and slows down for the hard. Some things were not meant to be read quickly at all. Legal material and very difficult text should be read slowly. Easier material and magazines and newspapers can be read quickly. Poetry and plays were meant to be performed, and if not acted out, then at least, spoken out loud orally. This obviously will conflict with good speed reading method which forbids vocalization. Religious writings and scripture were originally written to be recited and listened to by an audience which was likely to be intelligent, but illiterate. The "fun" of poetry, plays, or prayer is not really experienced if you "speed read" the text.

Speed Reading Self-Pacing Methods

Speed reading is not magic nor is it a big expensive mystery. Professional speed reading classes simply teach a handful of easy techniques that help a person focus his or her attention better. The eye is drawn to motion. Speed reading techniques put that motion on the page. Your starting position is important. You should sit up straight, hold the book down with your left hand, and use your right hand to do the pacing. You should already be a good reader before you attempt to speed read. Speed reading will not help you if you have problems in comprehension and vocabulary. In fact, it may hurt you to

try to rush through stuff that you can't comprehend. You should have the basics down already first. Before you start speed reading, you should do a survey of the information first to get a general idea of what you will be covering and of the type of writing.

The Hand
The first method is to simply place your right hand on the page and slowly move it straight down the page, drawing your eyes down as you read. Keep an even, slow motion, as if your right hand has its own mind. Your eyes may not be exactly where your hand is, but this simple motion will help you go faster. Don't start, read a little, stop, read a little, start, read a little. Keep the movement slow and easy. Only do it once per page. If you are "left-handed" use your left hand as the dominant pacing hand.

The Card
The next technique is to use a card or a folded-up piece of paper above the line of print to block the words after you read them. Draw it down the page slowly and evenly and try to read the passage before you cover the words up. This helps break you of the habit of reading and reading a passage over and over again. It makes you pay more attention the first time. Be sure to push the card down faster than you think you can go. Slide the card down once per page.

The Sweep
Another method is to use your hand to help draw your eyes across the page. Slighty cup your right hand. Keep your fingers together. With a very light and smooth motion, sweep your fingers from left to right, underlining the line with the tip of your tallest finger from about an inch in and an inch out on each line. Use your whole arm to move, balancing on your arm muscle. Imagine that you are dusting off salt from the page.

The Hop
Similar to the "sweep" method is the "hop", but in the "hop" you actually lift your fingers and make two even bounces on each line. Each time you bounce, you are making a fixation which hopefully catches sets of three or four words. Moving to a "hop" method also makes it easier to keep a steady pace as it is a lot like tapping our fingers on a desk. Balance on your arm muscle, don't just wiggle your wrist.

The Zig-Zag or Loop

The last method is a type of modified scanning technique. In this one you take your hand and cut across the text diagonally about three lines and then slide back to the next line. Now the idea here is not necessarily to see each word, but to scan the entire area, letting your mind pick out the main ideas. I wouldn't recommend this for material that requires very careful reading, but it is a way to help you get the general ideas of easy material.

These methods seem simple and easy, but don't let that fool you. These are very useful methods which can help a good reader read faster and better in very little time. But these techniques will not do you any good unless you PRACTICE them. It usually takes about three or four session before you get accustomed to a particular technique. As you move along and learn the methods,you may find that one is more suitable for you than the others. Find the one that works for you and use it.