Episode 32 What skills are needed for an innovative entrepreneur? Part 2
5 Strategic Thinking Strategic thinking encompasses any skills that enable you to use critical thinking to solve complex problems and plan for the future. These skills are essential to accomplish business objectives, overcome obstacles, and address challenges—particularly if they’re projected to take weeks, months, or even years to achieve. Strategic thinking skills include:
• Analytical skills: To ideate a strategy that helps your organization reach its objectives, you must be capable of analyzing a variety of inputs—from financial statements and KPIs, to market conditions, emerging business trends, and internal resource allocation. • Communication skills: Putting a strategy into place for your company, regardless of its size, requires solid communication skills. The ability to communicate complex ideas, collaborate with internal and external stakeholders, build consensus, and ensure everyone is aligned and working toward shared goals are all central to strategic thinking. • Problem-solving skills: Strategic planning is often used to solve problems or address challenges, such as missed financial targets, inefficient workflows, or an emerging competitor. Implementing a strategy that addresses the central challenge you face requires you to first understand its scope and potential solutions. From there, you can craft a strategy that solves it. • Planning and management skills: Strategy isn’t just about thinking of a solution— it involves implementation, too. Once data has been analyzed, the problem is understood, and a solution has been identified, you need strong planning and management skills to bring everything together. The advantage of having a strategic mindset is learning how to think rather than what to think. Although you might not always have the right answers, strategic thinking skills can enable you to spot new opportunities, address emerging challenges, and plan for success. 6. Negotiation Building a company requires engaging in negotiation with potential investors, early employees, and prospective partners. As you work to get your business off the ground, it’s vital to know how to create value and overcome differences to form lasting partnerships.
The entrepreneurs behind Unshrinkit, a product that unshrinks wool garments, recount how they used negotiation skills to close a deal with their supplier Sourcentra. After reaching an oral agreement, Sourcentra sent Unshrinkit a written contract with modified terms because its CEO felt his company was assuming too much risk.
Instead of taking a contentious approach and bargaining over contractual obligations, Unshrinkit’s founders focused on the CEO’s motivations to salvage the deal. They emphasized how the partnership would allow them to grow their company, which spoke to the CEO’s entrepreneurial background and desire to help small business owners. By appealing to the CEO’s emotions, the team was able to convince him to proceed with the partnership and reach a favorable agreement.
How to Create Value in a Negotiation 1. Build Trust Trust is a foundational component of any effective negotiation strategy. Deal-making comes with an inherent level of risk, making it vital to build a rapport with the other party.
2. Find Uncommon Ground Value creation requires focusing on areas where you and the other party have different interests and perceptions, rather than commonalities.
“It’s not a matter necessarily of finding things you agree on but things that you disagree about,” says HBS Professor Mike Wheeler, who teaches Negotiation Mastery, in an HBS Online video. “That could be the value of something. You might treasure something you own, but somebody else is just nuts about it. You ought to be able to make a swap there.”
3. Be Agile Being a successful negotiator involves knowing how to think on your feet and be agile.