Can Strategic Thinking Be Taught or Nurtured [VIDEO]

If you’re feeling the pressure to build a future-ready leadership team—and fast—you’re not alone. Research revealed that the number-one concern for business owners is the lack of people truly ready for C-suite roles. Not because they can’t execute tasks, but because they lack the critical and strategic thinking required to navigate complexity, change direction on the fly, and make sound decisions under pressure.

And in a world increasingly shaped by AI, this gap becomes even more dangerous.

AI can process data. It can streamline work. But it cannot—and will not—replace the leader who sees around corners, anticipates problems, and builds solutions before anyone else even names the issue. That’s why developing your team’s thinking style is no longer optional. It’s your competitive mandate.

In this video, you’ll discover:

• Why traditional “grow them over decades” leadership development is officially obsolete

• A simple SIR Formula that forces emerging leaders to think strategically from day one

• How to identify your future executives by the quality of their problem-solving

Your organization cannot afford thinkers who report problems—you need thinkers who bring solutions and action plans. This video shows you exactly how to build them.

Watch now. 

Ken Blancher wrote several books years ago, but he did a research study. And what he found was the number one concern that business owners had: there weren’t enough people ready to have C-suite positions. In other words, they lacked the critical thinking skills. They lacked the strategic thinking. They could do what they were told to do, but they didn’t know when to change course, how to change course, and how to assimilate the information that was coming at them and make good choices—and make them on the fly.

Developing our people’s thinking style has never been more important.

Yes, AI can do so much of the thinking, but it can’t do the strategic thinking. And so in the future, many of the jobs that existed in the past are, quite frankly, just going to be gone. But for those who can bring critical thinking skills—those who can see around corners, those who can anticipate problems and already put together plans to address those problems—those will be the executives of the future. And here’s the problem: we can’t spend thirty years growing them.

We’ve got to start teaching people as they come into our organizations how to bring critical thinking skills to the decisions that they make. I created a little formula called the SIR Formula that I have them fill out. Basically, whenever they have a problem, they bring a solution in this formula, and it forces them to use critical thinking skills from the get-go. So in a top five-percent performing organization, we have no room for those who complain about something that isn’t great. We do have plenty of room for those who bring a SIR in with an action plan that somebody can enact right away to fix whatever the problem is.

What’s really happening, though, with the SIR process is they’re learning how to bring critical thinking skills to the equation very quickly. And those are your future executives because they’re showing you that they can see around the corners, that they’ve thought through all the possibilities, that they’ve discerned through all the challenges, and they’re making good choices. And what could be more important in advancing your team members in the world of AI?