If I could bottle uninterrupted thinking time and sell it - I reckon I'd be onto something!
Quality thinking time is something that doesn't come easily, or cheaply. I'm not talking about money necessarily, but there is a cost. Time, like money, is spent. We have choices about what we spend it on, and our choices reflect our values and priorities. Once we use it, it is gone. It can be budgeted, and sticking to the budget is the hard part. It can be invested, it can even create more of itself if it is invested well.
Here's a question for you - what does your schedule for the past week say about your values and priorities?
When I talk about capacity in my 6 C's model, I mean the personal capacity to do quality thinking. The vast majority of people who look at the model say the one stand-out challenge for them is capacity.
In one of my past blogs you can read about Barak Obama's decision-making process. One part of his process is giving himself time to think. If a world leader can, surely we can!
I am convinced that nurturing capacity is one of the biggest leverage points for people to develop their strategic thinking skills and leadership skills more generally, and it is especially relevant when people make a leadership transition and jump up a level of management (I did a recent webinar on this which you got access to when you signed up - let me know if you can't find it). But I believe it requires some brave reflection and soul-searching to really understand why we find it so hard to put time aside both for thinking and for looking after ourselves. And it also takes a genuine conviction that you will have more to contribute if you do.
Of course, we take a deep dive into this in the Strategic Thinker Development Programme. Learning alongside others in this very personal space is such a special opportunity. I can't promise a bottle of uninterrupted thinking time comes with the programme, but I can promise that your mind will be opened to new possibilities and you will have the choice to make them a reality in your world.
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