Use Strategic Thinking to Improve Your Communication

Contributed by: Curtis Newbold, PhD

Difficulty level: Intermediate

If you’re in a leadership role or you work in a department or position where communication with diverse stakeholders in complex situations impacts efficiency, morale, or public perception, you’ll need to know how to engage strategic thinking to improve your communication approach.

In this Shortcut, I lay out a quick-and-dirty guide to strategic thinking for communication planning and execution. Let’s jump in!

What Is Strategic Thinking?

Strategic thinking, simply put, is a mental process where you critically evaluate a situation, evaluate its impacts and possibilities, and seek goal-oriented solutions. It’s both an art and a science. When you engage in strategic thinking, you develop creative possibilities for achieving specific, often measurable objectives. If you can learn to apply strategic thinking to communication planning within your organization, you’ll be in a much stronger position to reach people in ways that make clear, positive impacts.

In the field of public relations, it’s well understood that, for a communication campaign to effectively impact their intended “publics”—or the diverse groups of people being influenced by an organization—there must be a strategy in place. Whether the goal is to increase employee retention, to enhance consumer awareness of a brand, or improve relations with citizens of the local community, the approach to communication ...