How can you identify new opportunities for growth and innovation when working with senior stakeholders?

Strategic thinking is an important skill, in particular for leaders and executives. It involves the ability to envision and plan for the long-term success of an organization or a project. One great way of assessing the maturity of your skill is to reflect on your past projects and roles. Did you have the long-term perspective in mind while setting clear milestones and SMART goals? Did you anticipate potential risks and mitigate them? And how did you communicate your thoughts, direction and ideas? By reflecting these situations you can learn for your future endeavors.

Senior stakeholder relationships are very important and must be managed with tact and finesse due to the persona of the C-suite level. With limited time on hand and a lot to do in one go, being strategic is the way to go if you want to get the buy-in to innovative ideas and growth opportunities. It is unfortunate many think about the plans instead of thinking from the plans. This is where value can be gained from the strategic thinking process. One needs to carefully assess complex projects with regard to their success or failure using the worst, ideal, and best-case scenarios framework. This will go a long way to help the forging of plans, and processes, whilst ensuring smart executions.

SOLVE CUSTOMER PROBLEMS! The biggest rock stars on my teams told stories. They went out met with the customer, told us of the problems the customer was facing and came back with ideas on how to solve those problems. They tested those problems, noticed patterns, and created value for the customer. Bring ideas not just problems to sr. leaders. Better yet, get purchase orders for your ideas and you will win with Sr. leadership.

Think about the following topics: Active Listening Truly hear what they're saying. It's about understanding their perspective. Be Solution-Driven Don't just highlight problems, propose solutions! Timely Updates Keep stakeholders proactively in the loop. Provide regular updates on key initiatives. Respect Their Time Efficient meetings are a must. Keep it focused, concise and to the point. Adapt to Their Style Understand their preferred communication methods Walk the talk Consistency builds trust. Deliver on promises and commitments. Learn Their Goals Align your efforts with their strategic objectives. Show how your work contributes to their success. Anticipate Needs Think one step ahead. Offer solutions before they ask.

Communication and collaboration are some of the currencies in the new normal that must be wielded with speed and care in a way that ensures valuable outputs. With limited time on hand coupled with decisions to take, there must be strategic alignment with senior stakeholders to eliminate the collision of ideas and instead enable congruence of plans. Consistent insight generation and strategic alignment meetings between senior stakeholders will go a long way to ensure a lockstep effect regarding roles whilst ensuring effectiveness through apt communication.

Learning is the oxygen for every senior executive member and Continuous Performance Development (CPD) must become a culture and lifestyle for all senior stakeholders. We must constantly unlearn, learn, and relearn what we know and have known to gain new insights and perspectives. As members of the C-Suite, we can easily miss our way, become stuck, or set in our ways. But as change agents, we must be adaptable and amenable to change in all its forms. Self-appraisal, insight sharing, troubleshooting of concepts, not being afraid to receive reviews and ideas other than ours, and being courageous to ask when unsure are some of the ways we can adopt to ensure that we are effective at driving the leadership bus to profitable destinations.