A blend of:

Strategic You need to think things through from the organisation's perspective, decide on where you are, where you want to get to and how you will get there. You need to be realistic in your assessment of your capabilities but clear about your objectives.

Creative If you always do what you have always done, you will always get what you've always got. If you don't come up with something different to your competition, you will never gain an advantage.


Systems The world is complex and issues are often interconnected. Applying what seems to be the obvious solution to your problems often leads to more problems. You need to think systemically as well as systematically.


Project Implementing the changes you come up with need to be thought through, planned and structured.


Critical You need to adopt a critical stance - challenging the assumptions you make and the conclusions you reach. You need someone to act as "Devil's Advocate" to help you avoid the obvious solutions that cause more problems than they solve.


Lateral Real world problems don't always respond to logical, linear thinking processes. To find more possibilities and better, more robust solutions - you need a wider range of thinking processes.


ProcessIt can be useful to combine these thinking styles or use them in appropriate sequences. This is process thinking, it will helps you select the right thinking style for the situation and decide on the order in which to apply them [and recycle if necessary].


Reflective To help you learn and benefit from experience, it is useful to adopt a reflective thinking style. This allows you to look at what you have done in the past and the results you got.