Exploring the Importance of Strategic Thinking to Strategic Planning in the Strategic Management Process

The purpose of this paper was to explore the importance of strategic thinking to strategic planning in the strategic management process. It has been posited in this paper that, although the two concepts are interrelated, strategic thinking is different from strategic planning and each aspect makes a special contribution to the process of strategic management. Literature was reviewed to clarify the meaning of the two concepts as well as identify the importance of strategic thinking to strategic planning. Major findings revealed that strategic thinking is important in three different stages of the strategic planning: (1) before: Provides acumen, the raw material of strategic planning; (2) during: Prioritizes purposefully, makes trade-offs wisely and allocates limited resources intelligently; and (3) after: Determines key milestones so as to measure achievement. It is therefore critical for individuals as well as organizations to apply strategic thinking and strategic planning as two distinct but complementary concepts in order to benefit from specific inputs of each of them in the pursuit of personal or corporate goals.