How to Shift the Odds in Your Favor in the Best of Times and the Worst of Times

Nov 30, 2007

📄 Contents

␡

Uncommon Good Sense: Doing the Strategic Math
Seeing Strategic Opportunities
Do the Right Thing
Strategic Shifting
Good Judgment
A Missing Dimension
An Added Dimension
Chapter Recap

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This chapter is from the book 

Advantage-Makers, The: How Exceptional Leaders Win by Creating Opportunities Others Don't

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Seeing Strategic Opportunities

What enables Advantage-Makers to see strategic opportunities that others overlook? Advantage-Makers are able to strategically shift to find commanding vantage points. Strategic shifting is adopting the right angle, the most useful perspective(s), to see a situation and maximize opportunity.

From the higher ground of a commanding vantage point, leaders are able to

Read complex situations
Take advantage of constantly changing, dynamic circumstances
Spot opportunities that others can’t see from their more limited vantage points
Establish a superior strategy, a favorable situation, or a profitable course of action

Leaders with the penetrating insight and sound judgment of an Advantage-Maker are able to turn everything to their best possible advantage while guarding against the designs of their competitors.

Whatever outcomes you are achieving, the perspective of the Advantage-Maker helps you create a superior outcome.

The advantage-making strategies can be applied to an array of management challenges:

Strategic

Do more with less, faster
Enrich strategic thinking and decision making
Create strategies for business growth

Organizational

Build a team of Advantage-Makers
Fix interdepartmental and collaboration conflicts
Design the underlying performance structures to be more effective
Create momentum and correct lack of alignment

Leadership

Direct a major change
Improve leadership influence and effectiveness
Boost performance of newly promoted executives
Pull your—or someone else’s—feet out of the fire

As a leader, whether you need to beat the odds or take advantage of an opportunity, the consequences are significant for you and your organization. You either create an advantage or react from a disadvantage.

Advantage-Makers do the right thing to spot opportunities, create advantages, and influence outcomes.

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