Imagine you have an elevator that instead of taking you to different floors in a building, can move your thinking up and down different levels of detail and perspective.
At the top, you have the penthouse view – the big picture, the strategic oversight. From this vantage point, you can see the city spread out beneath you; all the components are visible and connected. This is akin to asking the "Why?" questions in strategic thinking. Why is this important? Why are we doing this? In the heading, I've called this 'Levelling up'. Pardon the pun, but the idea of riding an elevator is one I find a really helpful visual metaphor to use with my programme participants. One client came up with his own term - layering up. He knew he needed reminders to get his thinking up to the next layer.
Now, take the elevator down a few floors. Here, you’re not seeing the entire city, but you’re starting to notice more details – individual buildings, parks, and streets. This level is where you ask the "What?" questions. What do we need to achieve? What are the main obstacles? What approach do we need?
Finally, you descend to the ground floor. Your view is now focused on the immediate surroundings, and you're right there in amongst it. Here, you deal with the "How?" questions. How do we implement this plan? How do we navigate these specific issues?
Although 'levelling up' or 'layering up' is the most common challenge I see amongst senior professionals, some have the opposite problem and need to take the elevator down. They need reminders to get their heads out of the clouds and connect to the realities of execution.
Autopilot vs Elevator Thinking
Shifting from an automatic, reactive mode to strategic, elevator thinking is challenging, especially in the whirlwind of daily tasks. We've all had those moments – inundated with emails, meetings, and to-dos, and it feels like you’re stuck on the ground floor. But stopping to "take the elevator" up for a broader view can provide much-needed clarity.
I vividly remember the first few months of my first leadership role. I experienced what I know looking back was sheer overwhelm, and I have seen so many others in the same space. Information on top of more information, and trying to fit everything together was daunting. Over the years, I realised that learning to go up that elevator, to see things from strategic heights, is what allows us to figure out what to attend to and how to manage this complexity rather than be buried by it.
Thinking about your thinking
Strategic thinking isn’t just about finding the right answers, because, newsflash - there are no right answers. Or at least there is no way of knowing without hindsight, what the right answer for the future is. The best we can do is know that we've done our best thinking with as much information as we have had to hand, then step into the future with confidence that we won't regret making the best decision we were able to make at the time.
To do this, we must know how to think about our thinking. It's called meta-cognition, and it is a human superpower that improves how we approach problems dynamically. Elevator thinking is one tool for thinking about your thinking. It is the simple but powerful awareness of a thinking model or framework, of where you are in that model at any given time, AND of when and how to move around it. It gives you insight, flexibility, and connections that you simply wouldn't have otherwise.
The power of thinking about your thinking doesn't stop with the individual either. When we can communicate how we are thinking about our strategic decisions, we are then in a position to articulate and communicate with clarity so that others understand and get on the same page. Within a team, we can also have strategic conversations without missing each other. When everyone in the team understands what level the elevator/conversation is on, or needs to be on, communication becomes more fluid, and the potential for strategic alignment dramatically improves.
Practicing Elevator Thinking
Here’s a little exercise for you. Next time you’re faced with a decision, take a moment to ask yourself:
1. Why? Go up the elevator – how does this fit into the bigger picture of what we are trying to achieve and who we are?
2. What? Mid-level – what is the most impactful approach here?
3. How? Ground floor – what specific steps are required to move the needle?
This practice will not only enhance your strategic thinking but also make you more adaptable in the face of change and complexity. And the more you practice, the more intuitive this process becomes.
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