If strategic thinking features in your organisation’s competency framework, you are not alone. Talking to a talent specialist the other day who was in the process of developing a new competency framework for her organisation, she said, “if we don’t end up with strategic thinking as a competency at manager levels then we are doing something wrong”. We all know it is important, but if it is going to be in a competency framework, we need a way to measure a) who has it, b) to what degree, and c) individual development needs. The very first thing to bear in mind when measuring strategic thinking is that, by definition, it is a cognitive competency. I have heard of consultants selling competency frameworks derived from personality measures who then up-sell a development offering for a strategic thinking competency which is based on the personality assessment. Yes, there are definitely some aspects of personality that will give us an insight into strategic thinking. Yes, personality and cognition do overlap to a large extent. But strategic thinking is primarily a cognitive competency and should be measured by an appropriate cognitive assessment. Secondly, strategic thinking is far, far more than intelligence. There is some overlap – people with higher intelligence do have greater capacity for the cognitive demands of strategic thought. You have probably never met an experienced, successful senior leader who does not come across as intelligent or scored highly on an intelligence test. But I bet you’ve met one who doesn’t think strategically! For strategic thinking, you need to be able to think about dynamic concepts, see patterns and trends, connect dots, envision the future, analyse and synthesise large amounts of detail, prioritise, and make judgements. And tying together all of these skills is the ability to try different ways of thinking about something, notice what is working and not working, and adapt your thinking. And that skill, called meta-cognition, cannot be understated. I use the Cognitive Process Profile (CPP) to measure strategic thinking because it is designed around theories of meta-cognition. There are a couple of important differences between intelligence measures and the CPP:
Intelligence measures are static not dynamic. That is, they confuse speed and power. You can work quickly and inaccurately, or slowly and accurately, and get the same score. The CPP is far more sophisticated. It measures speed of work, appropriateness of pacing (spending less time on the easier parts), and the timing of understanding and deciding (preferably in that order).
Intelligence measures look at the answer you come to, not how you got there, which means there is no way to know how to improve or adapt for different cognitive challenges. The CPP looks at cognitive process by measuring how you go about solving novel problems.
Intelligence measures provide a very rough proxy measure of how quickly or effectively you pick up new information, adapt your thought processes, and learn. The CPP measures these things specifically.
In short, yes strategic thinking can be measured, and my pick of assessments is the CPP!
Opportunities to do the CPP
The CPP is part of my Strategic Thinker Development Programme which also provides learning and reflection about both the mechanics, and the day-to-day human realities and challenges of strategic thinking. All of this happens alongside 5 other peers who are on the same journey (and this is one of the most valuable aspects of the programme I’m told). I also use the CPP alongside coaching where it is relevant.
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Photo by Eran Menashri on Unsplash
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