Strategic Thinking and Writing

CHAPTER 3

Strategic Thinking

Introduction

As author Ellen F. Goldman noted in The Journal of Strategy and Management:

There is widespread agreement that strategic thinking is important for the direction and sustainability of organizations, but is often absent or at least significantly lacking. The gap in practice is fueled by historical confusion of the concept among both scholars and practitioners, where the terms strategic thinking, strategic planning, and strategic management are used interchangeably, and strategic thinking is referred to as both a noun and a verb.¹

Since strategic thinking serves as a prerequisite for strategic business writing, we will use the definition of strategic thinking as identified in Wikipedia as “a mental or thinking ...