Companies and organisations who need assistance in developing effective strategies and business models can expect professional strategy development, and access to useful strategic thinking tools, from Strategic Mindsets. Our expertise includes:

• Research into key driving forces
• Facilitating strategy and business model processes using tools and processes for risk-based strategies
• Identification of criteria and processes for prioritisation of strategic actions
• Training on strategic thinking tools such as scenarios, systems thinking, sense-making, and more
• Identification of shifts required in operating models to enable implementation
• Identification of contingency plans to address uncertainty and emerging risks

Considering the VUCA environment we live in, effective integration and cohesion of strategy and risk processes are critical for the sustainability of businesses. Strategic Mindsets will help your business improve productivity, agility and resilience, to ensure that uncertainty is optimally and swiftly addressed.

How these processes are, or are not, integrated in a company, will be carefully reviewed by Strategic Mindsets in the following ways:

• Review of governance processes
• Review of internal strategy and risk processes
• Interviews with key role players
• Identification of key activities that can be aligned and integrated
• Provision of practical steps and recommendations to ensure full integration
• Training on key issues, where required

We support you in recognising opportunities early on, by considering strategic risk upfront and integrating effective risk management into strategy. We understand that organisations do not always integrate strategy and risk, often leading to weak strategies that cannot be fully realised. Integration, therefore, ensures a more competitive, agile, and risk-resilient organisation that can course-correct.

Strategic Mindsets uniquely combines strategic thinking, integrated risk and strategy management, and leadership training into one integrated process. This results in strategy that is relevant and agile, and people that are committed and able to implement it. This is a major competitive advantage that enables companies to flourish in an uncertain world. For strategy to be effectively implemented and uncertainty and risk addressed, leadership must be able to:

• Think critically
• Balance risk and opportunity
• Foster innovation
• Define what actions to take, and when
• Lead and motivate teams

We work with organisations to develop the right mindsets and action at three levels to ensure that:

• The results are hardwired
• The process has been clearly identified
• There are measurable outcomes

Risk appetite; determined by people’s thoughts and actions; is unique, personal and subjective, and it drives all major decisions and actions in any organisation. Yet, when companies do leadership training and development, they do not always understand their people’s approach to risk and strategy.

The new normal will require new ways of work and the ability to innovate and act on new opportunities as they arise. This will also require new leaders, with the right mindsets and abilities, who can proactively plan for disruption and change rather than reactively respond to it.

This means not just being resilient as an organisation or as an individual, but rather bouncing back to a more beneficial place, in a new context (agility), instead of bouncing back to where you were (resilience).

This enables organisations to respond quickly and effectively to unfolding events, and rapidly kickstart new growth and opportunities. To do this, organisations need to:

• Understand the context organisations operate in and the uncertainty leading to risk and opportunity
• Manage stakeholder and shareholder expectations and retain or improve their reputation
• Develop risk-based, proactive strategies that maximise the positive risks or opportunities and minimise or manage the negative risks
• Plan for change and manage strategy implementation with flexibility and agility, across a variety of potential futures and addressing implementation risks as they arise
• Be able to deal with known and unknown risks quickly, act decisively and build resilience
• Build agile leadership that can lead in the face of exponential uncertainty and risk

To understand your and your teams’ risk appetite and therefore improve awareness, deal more effectively with risk, and set effective strategic direction, see where you fall on the profile.

Individuals are faced with ever-increasing levels of stress and uncertainty in today’s world. Strategic Mindsets offers both business and individual coaching to build self-awareness and help navigate these challenges.

Current leaders therefore need the ability to be emotionally intelligent, open to new ideas, assess emerging trends and risks, and make sense of their environments to support informed decisions.

This means having a deep awareness of their own skills and thought patterns, as well as understanding what drives their teams.

This new breed of leadership needs to be built and honed through exposure to new tools and techniques, supported through focused coaching to optimise performance and self-awareness.

Self-motivated and learning teams can be built when leaders and their staff receive this kind of training. In turn, this can catalase positive change in organisations and minimise negative risk.