Here's how you can cultivate strategic thinking within your team's culture.

The human animal is innately curious. As is every other living being. Is there anything, then, that sets humans apart? And that is- we are not only using curiosity for instinctive purposes but also to understand and to make meanings. This is exactly what embracing curiosity entails. A team, although working towards a common goal, retains its unique multidisciplinary way of making meaning. Facilitating a proactive ground of meaning-making and meaning-matching is the way to harness the power of curiosity. It is a difficult skill. yet, this is what makes the best use of curiosity.

Let's see what diversity of perspective can give you. what sort of food do you eat at your workplace? Or better, ask everyone to bring their homemade/bought food to the table at lunch. What do you see? you can still categorize Asians, orientals, or Westerns. but can you name the whole range of food? It's the entire world on your table! You can stick to your food, it is known, safe, and tasty. you can even claim it to be the best. But that way offers you a very narrow space to move. How about, we taste other foods on the table? Granted, they will be weird and might be spicy, salty, and downright scary, to begin with! But now you know your palate, its tolerance, and the flavor profiles you can work with. So, how about some flavors?

This one is a hard nut to crack. Here's why. No one wants to learn continuously unless it's tagged with some form of reward/punishment and the variety of rewards/punishments is endless. Also, learning itself doesn't offer any advantage on its own. You don't want to learn unless it makes you proud or makes you rich! So, no. We do not encourage learning. we explore the philosophies and the psychology of rewards and punishment together. We talk about missing opportunities and promotions. We talk about involvement, recognition, and respect. We talk about giving a hand and asking for one. We talk about the joy of learning. We talk about bragging rights. We don't urge them to learn. We nudge them. We reinforce the learning environment.

One word- inconclusive. Being inconclusive doesn't mean you are hesitant to call a legit shot. Or that you have too little to call a shot. Strategic thinking is about being deliberate (and discerning) at these times and bringing modulation and tact at other times. and you can't always predict when to what. Strategic thinking is about iterating (for fine-tuning) a certain method while operating under the same. The world is interpretable. To Interpret the world, you need time. Inconclusiveness will buy you the much-needed time to contemplate, comprehend, and contribute. Strategic thinking drives a diplomat who negotiates. A diplomat negotiates time, skills, resources, risks, impacts, and even failures.

Do a little fun test yourself. Ask any AI to give you an answer to a fairly technical question. Then ask AI to rearrange the same answer with metaphorical accounts and analogies. After that, Ask to reflect on how the AI came to the ways of the answer, metaphors, and analogies. The Answer will fascinate you. AI can reflect on its sources, methods, steps, and rules of logic in detail. Now, How can we (humans) reflect? I won't answer you in technical details, but will give you some groundwork. Read about metacognition. Read about synectics. Read about metastrategy. Read about Microgenetics. Now, try to stitch them together (in any variation). if you can see a process, you are probably onto something. Keep on reflecting.

One aspect I found that can add enhance strategic thinking in teams is creating space for risk taking. Strategic thinking often involves taking calculated risks. It’s important to develop a culture where teams feel safe to experiment. When risk-taking is encouraged and supported, it can lead to breakthroughs that move your business forward.