A Walk in the Woods: A Lesson in Thinking Strategically

It was before lunchtime at the leadership training session in Genesse, CO (west of Denver in the foothills). The facilitator, Wayne Philippi of WolfCreek Partners, commanded us – a group of leaders from St. Joseph Hospital – to “go outside and walk around and think strategically…you’ve got one hour.”

Fortunately for us, we were in a beautiful, forest setting, and this was not an undesirable task. However, the struggle was immediate. For the first 45 minutes I wandered around, not able to shake all the operational thoughts plaguing my brain. Then I started to get frustrated with myself. It was a bad cycle.

I’m not sure what changed or why, but something flipped, and my thinking shifted from current problems and challenges over to a new vision of what I wanted for my team. And, new ideas started to flow about how we were going to get there. It was a breakthrough moment for me, and I was excited to return to the group and share what I had learned.

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So what did I learn?

The importance of getting out of the day-to-day grind to free yourself up to shift into “strategic mode.” I believe some unique, strategically gifted folks can just turn it on, but for many of us it requires both a mind and environmental shift to really get into the zone.

I’ve applied this learning many, many times over the years, including just last weekend when Nicole and I headed to the mountains to spend 1½ days on mission/vision/values development and long-range planning for Strategic Impact Group.

I cherish all of the times I’ve been able to take my own teams (and my clients) offsite – again, often up in the mountains – to change our attitudes and latitudes and set the stage for fruitful strategic work together.

It all started with a walk in the woods.