Strategic Thinking

We live in an environment where many factors affect the outcomes we desire. Some will help us, some will hinder us and some may be positively designed to stop us.

Learning how to think strategically will help you to take account of these factors and help you work out the best way through them to achieve your goals, building on the other skills you learn in our training.

Tips

Playing games such as chess, go, bridge and poker are great ways of building your strategic thinking muscles. They enable you to plan ahead, to assess strengths and weaknesses in a competitive situation, to learn about the psychology of competition as well as developing general strengths such as memory and concentration.

Consider the following quotations from Sun Tzu's book on military strategy, The Art of War.

all warfare is based on deception

the general who wins a battle makes many calculations 'ere the battle is fought. The general who loses a battle makes but few calculations beforehand

the clever combatant looks to the effect of combined energy, and does not require too much form individuals. Hence his ability to pick out the right men and to utilise combined energy

Think of these sayings as a metaphor for some problem or challenge in your life. In what way could you adapt and apply them to your life?