Michael D. Watkins is a Professor of Leadership and Organizational Change at IMD in Switzerland and a world-renowned expert on leadership transitions. He’s written 15 books, including the best-seller The First 90 Days, which has sold over 1.5 million copies and is available in 23 languages. Watkins has taught at Harvard Business School and INSEAD and co-founded Genesis Advisors, a consultancy focused on helping leaders navigate transitions. In 2023, he was recognized as a top management thinker and inducted into the Thinkers50 Management Hall of Fame for his groundbreaking work in leadership and management.
In 2024, Watkins released his latest book, The Six Disciplines of Strategic Thinking, which gives people practical tools for building essential strategic thinking skills. This book draws on his deep expertise, offering actionable frameworks to help you tackle challenges and innovate better.
Why should designers be interested in his work?
Strategic thinking is one of the most important skills a designer can have. It’s the key to making a real impact in your role. Watkins’ work is all about helping you build this essential skill. With strategic thinking, you can take on more meaningful projects, make informed decisions, and expand your influence within your company. Watkins provides practical, straightforward advice to help you develop and apply strategic thinking every day.
Strategic thinking for designers
Strategic thinking is important to designers for many reasons.
- It shifts your role from executing tasks to participating in larger conversations, allowing you to add value beyond design.
- It aligns your work with business goals, helping you make a greater impact on users and your company’s success.
- Understanding business objectives means you can advocate more effectively for users, pushing for user-centered design at higher levels.
- Strategic thinking lets you make better decisions. It weighs long-term goals, market trends, and business constraints to prioritize the most impactful features.
- A strategic mindset encourages you to approach challenges differently, leading to more relevant, compelling, impactful and innovative ideas.
- Strategic thinking is key to advancing your career if you’re aiming for a leadership role.
- It improves stakeholder collaboration and helps you keep the big picture in mind, ensuring your work is sustainable and adaptable.
The six disciplines of strategic thinking
In The Six Disciplines of Strategic Thinking, Watkins outlines six key disciplines that help leaders and designers develop strategic thinking skills. He emphasizes that these skills can be learned and developed with practice and provides practical tools, frameworks, and real-world examples to make these concepts accessible to anyone looking to grow.
- Pattern recognition: Spot trends, connections, and opportunities (or risks) in complex situations.
- Systems analysis: Understand how different factors within a market or organization interact.
- Mental agility: Quickly adapt to new information and changing situations.
- Structured problem-solving: Take a systematic approach to challenges, from defining the problem to brainstorming and implementing solutions.
- Visioning: Set ambitious yet realistic goals and shape a clear direction for your work.
- Political savvy: Navigate workplace politics, build alliances, and influence key stakeholders.
1 / Pattern recognition
Pattern recognition is a foundational skill for leaders and designers. Watkins explains that it helps you cut through complexity and make sense of challenging situations by spotting important signals within the noise. It’s about understanding not just what’s happening but why it’s happening and how things are connected. This process helps you recognize opportunities that others might miss.
This skill is foundational because it helps you grasp what’s happening, understand why it’s happening, and see how different elements are linked together. You can spot strategic opportunities by digging into the ‘why’ and uncovering these connections. Once you see the relationships, you can start predicting how changes in one part will affect the rest—giving you an edge in anticipating challenges and opportunities.
At the heart of pattern recognition is the recognize-prioritize-mobilize cycle.
- Recognize critical patterns or changes in the environment.
- Prioritize based on potential impact.
- Mobilize the right resources and actions to respond.
Building mental models is another key aspect of pattern recognition. These models help you grasp the deeper structures and relationships within your field, enabling you to see beyond the immediate situation and anticipate future challenges or opportunities. Watkins references a chess grandmaster who doesn’t just see the pieces but recognizes deeper patterns and vulnerabilities; leaders and designers who master pattern recognition can see what others don’t and propose better ideas.
2 / Systems analysis
System analysis, as outlined in The Six Disciplines of Strategic Thinking, helps leaders and designers make sense of complex systems. It’s all about breaking down big, complicated situations and focusing on the most important parts. In today’s world—whether in business or beyond—systems can get really complex. No one can model every little detail, but that’s okay. Even simplified models can guide smart decisions.
Watkins references climate models. They don’t capture everything but do a good job of predicting what matters. In business, the same idea applies. You don’t need to understand every variable to make a good strategic call. What you need is to focus on the key dynamics that drive outcomes.
System analysis starts by breaking down complexity into smaller pieces. Then, you figure out how those pieces interact with each other. This process is interesting because once you understand the relationships, you can start predicting how changes in one part of the system will impact the others.
Systems analysis gives you a clearer, bigger-picture view. You see how internal parts of the organization (like processes and functions) are connected and how external factors (like market trends, customer behaviors, or regulations) affect the system. Recognizing these connections lets you anticipate ripple effects and respond before things spiral out of control.
3 / Mental agility
Mental agility is crucial for leaders and designers who must think on their feet and adapt to constantly changing situations. It’s about shifting your thinking between different levels of detail—what Michael Watkins calls “cloud-to-ground” thinking. Picture yourself moving from the big picture (up in the clouds) to the fine details (on the ground), and then back up again. This fluid and intentional shifting between perspectives allows great strategic thinkers to stay flexible and make smart decisions.
At the heart of mental agility are two key abilities. First, level-shifting is the ability to analyze a situation from different angles, whether thinking broadly about the business or focusing on specific details. Then there’s game-playing, where you anticipate how other key players (like competitors or market forces) might react and factor that into your strategy.
Mental agility also means absorbing new information quickly and refocusing on what matters most. Especially in fast-moving, uncertain environments, it’s all about zeroing in on the relevant details and adjusting your approach. This thinking requires flexibility, allowing you to switch between tasks and shift your attention as needed.
Mental agility helps you continually reassess and rethink the best way forward and balance perspectives—seeing both the immediate details and the long-term implications of your decisions.
4 / Structured problem-solving
Structured problem-solving involves breaking big, complex challenges into manageable steps. It’s a crucial skill that helps you cut through the noise and focus on what really matters.
Designers often face constraints like tight deadlines, unclear problem spaces, or limited resources. Despite these challenges, finding ways to follow a structured process is crucial—even if it’s a lightweight version. A structured approach ensures a better outcome for all.
Watkins breaks this down into five simple phases: defining roles, framing the problem, exploring solutions, deciding on the best option, and committing to action. This structured approach is especially useful when dealing with messy, uncertain problems where clarity is key.
The process starts by defining roles and ensuring everyone understands their part and responsibilities. It then moves into framing the problem—getting really clear on the actual challenge so you’re solving the right thing.
Next, you explore solutions. It’s important to examine all possible angles and consider different ways to address the challenge. After that, it’s time to decide on the best option, which means weighing the pros and cons, assessing trade-offs, and figuring out which idea makes the most sense.
Finally, it’s about committing to action, planning the steps, assigning responsibilities, and implementing the solution. This way, you’re not just coming up with ideas—you’re making sure they get executed effectively.
5 / Visioning
Visioning is about creating an inspiring picture of where your organization or product can go and why that future matters. Vision sparks excitement and gives people a clear sense of purpose. A great vision brings everyone together around a common goal. But it’s not just about goal setting. It’s about creating a picture of the future that excites people and gives them a clear sense of purpose, creating a path to a shared destination.
Here’s how Watkins frames it.
Your vision should be ambitious enough to inspire but also achievable enough to keep people from feeling discouraged. If it’s too far-fetched, the team may feel overwhelmed. If it’s too easy, they might not feel challenged or engaged. The key is finding that sweet spot where the vision stretches the team but still feels possible.
Visioning provides a clear focus for your product. It acts as the North Star that guides decision-making and keeps everyone aligned, ensuring efforts are cohesive and moving in the same direction. Visioning is not just about addressing immediate needs; it requires a long-term perspective, looking beyond today’s challenges and envisioning the future of your organization or product.
An effective vision is not rigid; it’s adaptable. As circumstances shift and new information becomes available, leaders and designers must refine the vision to keep it relevant. This adaptability ensures that the vision remains practical while still inspiring progress. Communication plays a critical role here. A vision only works if it’s clearly and consistently communicated to everyone involved, from leadership to front-line teams.
Visioning goes hand-in-hand with strategic planning. The vision defines where you want to go, while strategic planning creates the roadmap. It’s an ongoing process that requires constant reassessment and adjustment, balancing ambitious goals with realistic steps to keep the vision motivating and achievable.
6 / Political Savvy
Every workplace has politics.
Watkins defines political savvy as understanding power dynamics and working with them effectively. It’s not about manipulation; it’s about recognizing the human side of organizations and using that insight to get things done.
One key part of political savvy is building alliances and influencing stakeholders. Watkins talks about using a sequencing strategy: be thoughtful about how you approach people to build momentum. Start by gaining support from key individuals, and once they’re on board, it’s easier to win over others.
Another important aspect is managing opposition. It’s about avoiding actions that could make others feel threatened, which might cause them to push back. Instead, think of moving people toward your goal gradually—step by step—instead of trying to make everyone leap at once. This incremental approach helps create genuine buy-in.
Ultimately, political savvy is about knowing who you need on your side, figuring out how to get them there, and bringing others along without creating unnecessary resistance. It’s about building real relationships and understanding the organization’s dynamics to move things forward—one careful, intentional step at a time.
Michael Watkins’ six disciplines offer a clear, actionable guide for building strategic thinking skills. Whether you’re a designer looking to align your work with business goals, a leader navigating complex systems, or someone aiming to inspire and influence others, these disciplines provide the tools needed to thrive in today’s fast-paced environment. By practicing skills like pattern recognition, systems analysis, mental agility, and embracing visioning and political savvy, you can make a greater impact in your role and do more meaningful work.
