Strategic Thinking
Hello, I'm MDRT President Randy Scritchfield and I'd like to share one of my leadership touchpoints. Today the topic is strategic thinking. One primary planning principle I followed in my life both professionally and personally is to reflect frequently on it from three perspectives. The past, where I have been. The present, where I am, and the future, where I am going. Reflecting enables me to think about matters beyond my daily responsibilities and duties and the tactics I have to employ to achieve them. Our routine day-to-day endeavors are important, but so is critical thinking about the future, and the strategic thinking skills we use in our daily lives can also be highly impactful in our MDRT leadership roles. Every day, more than 90,000 MDRT members worldwide are thinking strategically to sustain and grow their businesses and meet clients' evolving needs. We do this, but we have the added responsibility to apply our strategic thinking to our work in MDRT leadership.
The best strategic leaders are proactive and focus on optimizing opportunities to succeed. They are not afraid to take reasonable risk in support of organizational goals, and they realize the value of lifelong learning and seeking others' advice. Just because you are a leader does not mean you have all the answers. How can you harness and apply these attributes as MDRT leaders? For starters, when you are engaging with your committee members and encouraging them to consider the bigger picture, understand what MDRT is striving to achieve and how your committees' work supports those goals. This will guide how you lead your committee and facilitate strategic thinking by everyone. Also, keep the MDRT Strategic Plan in mind. Through the plan you know what we want to accomplish, and strategic thinking will help you ascertain how we can do so. So, I encourage you to reflect often on your past, present and future, and to ask yourself meaningful questions in the process. These efforts will make you a more efficient and effective leader and help MDRT continue to meet its member needs.