Short-term thinking is great in a crisis.

After all, when COVID-19 happened in 2020, it was short-term, adaptable thinking that saw restaurants sell groceries to customers, homemakers turn to sewing face masks, and events companies pivot to online events $Growth Faculty included$.

Short-term thinking is not wrong, but it is wrong if it is the _only_ thinking you do, says Dorie Clark, author of _The Long Game_ and todays masterclass speaker.

Problem is, studies show 96% of executives say they have no time for long-term or strategic thinking.

Everyone says its great, but no-one does it, says Dorie. Yet its a huge competitive advantage if you carve out time to do it.

Simply put, companies need to do upstream thinking so they have the strategy to succeed at their most important goals.

[**Free Download** : 10 Leadership Qualities That Will Help Solve Challenges in 2023](https://thegrowthfaculty.ac-page.com/leadershipqualities)

To ensure that you are not winning at the wrong thing altogether, work through these techniques for shaping your strategic thinking.

Dorie Clarks 10 Ways to Harness Long-Term Thinking

Dorie shared a story of her becoming retrenched from her first job as a newspaper journalist  the day before the 911 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre. Being traumatised while job hunting in an upturned world made her acutely conscious not to ever again be reliant on one income stream.

* What lessons can you learn from your professional life? What can you learn from your mistakes?

1.Learn from the past

The average person believes they can learn to do a yoga-style handstand in two weeks. However, yoga coaches say its likely to take six months of practice.

Those who have not scoped out this information may give up after a good two months of practice _You know what? Its not for me._ Yet, we know that four more months could see them succeed.

In other words, many people fail because they quit too early, and they quit early because they havent scoped out information.

Of course, your goal may be taking your skill beyond a basic level. Dorie says her research into how long it takes to become a recognised expert at something shows it take 2-3 years of consistent effort to get recognised a little bit, and about 5 years to be recognised in the way that you might want.

* What have you done thats taken longer than you thought it should? How did you stay motivated?

2.Power of scoping

If you want to be a long-term thinker, constraints can be put to your advantage.

Dorie shared an example of creative thinking by performance coach Todd Herman, author of _The Alter Ego Effect_.

With no money to market his startup business in youth sports mindset coaching, he appealed to schools to let him give lectures to their students. Lectures were free as long as parents were invited along $Todd was hoping they would sign their children up as clients$.

Two parents asked if he did coaching for adults, and his performance coaching business was born. Thanks to those well-connected parents, his first two clients were the Canadian Government and the Canadian National Hockey League\!

* What creative ideas that dont cost much $or anything$ can you come up with?

3.Harness the constraint  money

With zero experience, can you still achieve success in a given area? Yes, by using the constraint to your advantage.

Dorie shared an example of Joanne, a maths major from Harvard University who wanted to transition into becoming a chef. With nothing to lose, she wrote personal letters to every chef she admired, telling them why she admired them, and asking what opportunities they could offer so she could learn from them and what could she contribute that they needed?

The effort saw all chefs respond, one with the offer of a prep cook job.

* With no experience, what are other ways can you break in, create connections, and get hired, in your chosen industry?

4.Harness the constraint  experience

There can be a benefit to limiting the amount of time you devote to something.

Michael Parrish DuDell, the bestselling author of _Shark Tank Jump Start Your Business_ , the official business book from the U.S. show Shark Tank, once gave himself one month to get one client.

He threw everything at the effort, with the proviso that if he failed, he would stop.

By the end of one month, Michael had three clients, and his business was off and running.

One client doesnt seem like much, but Dorie says this is akin to looking for raindrops before a storm arrives. Keep alert to very early signs of success or, conversely, for early warning signs of a crisis.

* What constraints can you use to your advantage?

5.Harness the constraint  time

Referencing the book _Uncommon Service_ by Frances Frei and Anne Morriss, Dorie says that when it comes to being successful it is a zero sum game, you have to make strategic choices.

Being the most accessible bank might mean you are bad at providing the lowest interest rates. You might need to be willing to be bad at housecleaning or responding to emails, if it opens up better opportunities elsewhere.

* What strategic choices are you making; what are you willing to be bad at?

6.What are you willing to be bad at?

Strategic thinking requires unstructured and unscheduled time. This time can be spent understanding what you want to be working on next year or into the future.

Our masterclass participants said techniques they used to create white space included blocking time in or colour-coding their diary, beginning work at 5.30 a.m., saying no to opportunities, meditating, keeping a gratitude journal, reading _The 5AM Club_ book by Robin Sharma, and having a routine.

Dorie says she uses the concept of Manager Time $meetings etc.$ and Maker Time $scheduled blocks for creative and strategic thinking$.

She also says that for every opportunity that comes her way she asks:

_What is the actual time required?_

_What are the physical and emotional costs? $If too busy you might get run down$_

_What is the opportunity cost? $What gets put aside for me to do this?$_

_How will I feel about this in a year?_

* How do you protect white space for yourself? What techniques work?

7.White Space

At a certain point in your career you will be offered many wonderful opportunities  but you cant say yes to them all.

There are more demands on your time so we have to do the hard and painful thing and say no to good things.

* What do you need to say no to  even if its great?

8.Say no to good things

Google expanded to 20% 3Ms employee initiative of setting 3% of time aside for discretionary, speculative activities. So, one fifth of an Google employees time can be legitimately spent on more creative projects.

As Dorie says, no-one can predict the future so by allocating 20% of time to think strategically and creatively, you effectively create back-up plans. They could save the company.

Dorie says hedging your bets make you more resilient.

* How can you carve out up to 20% of your time to work on discretionary or speculative activities?

9.20% time

Instead of betting the house, try to make speculative projects that allow you to fail without losing everything. _Good to Great_ author Jim Collins calls this concept [Bullets and Cannonballs.](https://www.thegrowthfaculty.com/blog/Jimcollinsvideosnippets)

Dorie used the example of a marketing expert who built over six months an online course that didnt sell.

In his second iteration of his startup, he put up simple one-page briefs on his website along the lines of Im thinking of creating a course with these features, you get a discount if you want to be a beta client. Pay $ $fully refundable$ if you want to be part of the pilot test.

By doing this, he spent his time, energy, and money only on those courses that had enough interest clients willing to pay up front.

* What small projects can you try that wont sink the ship?

Many of these concepts are further explored in our annual Growth Faculty program of live virtual and in-person leadership development events.

If you'd like to increase your professional and personal development why not consider becoming a [Growth Faculty Pass ](https://join.thegrowthfaculty.com/growthfacultypass/)holder? Unlimited access to 40 live virtual masterclasses and Global Headliner virtual events - PLUS year-round leadership content at On Demand with videos, podcasts and book summaries. Join a community of knowledge seekers who are inspired by the best. [**See who's up next**](https://www.thegrowthfaculty.com/?promoCode=Blog#liveevents)[ **.**](https://growth.lightning.force.com/lightning/r/Blog_Post__c/a1d4G000004oYwKQAU/view)

Keep informedStay Inspired

Keep informed
Stay Inspired