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It’s Wednesday, January 10th, and today we’re talking about what it means to be a sharp, strategic thinker.
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Lazy thinking, data, and strategy
A successful community demands strategy. You can have the most charismatic and engaging community manager around, but if you’re not taking members anywhere in particular, churn will eventually take you down.
The word strategy in and of itself is a wee bit tricky. I once asked a community of entrepreneurs, and no two answers were identical:
Like any other part of business, both strategy and execution need to be present for a community to thrive, making the hunt for a good community manager challenging. But what makes someone a strategic thinker? I recently read a great post on the Four Characteristics of a Strategic Thinker and was struck by just how divorced upper management and brand communities can be. Stakeholders want data. They’re in love with numbers and charts that go up and to the right.
I propose that this quantitative approach is not nearly as useful as we think. So we’re going to look at these four characteristics through the lens of community. They have the potential to radically change our approach.
Let’s get into it.
Four Characteristics of a Strategic Thinker
1) Seeks to Influence What is not in Their Control
Here’s a bit of advice we don’t often see. While modern pop psychology would urge us to “let go of that which we can’t control”, the goal here is to reframe the way we think about our member’s behavior.
Inside of our community world, we have variables that we mostly control, such as:
Headcount
Tech stack
Programming
Platform
But there is one big one that we cannot control: members. They will always be our wildcard. We cannot force them to behave the way we want. Instead, we can make sure that each controllable variable is providing a parameter that keeps nudging them along the desired path. I often see two ends of the spectrum here; communities that are too prescriptive and heavy-handed and some that have lost all sense of direction. Each decision you make is a container for your desired outcome.
2) Consumes Information Omnivorously
“Statistically significant”
I have a love/hate relationship with those words. I want them to be present in clinical trials, but in community, they’ve become a bit of a crutch. Stakeholders ask for strong data points without considering that the future is devoid of data.
There cannot be data in a world that doesn’t exist yet. Past data is helpful, yes, but even more helpful is the willingness to embrace a broader range of information. We're talking qualitative, singular, metaphorical—the stuff that doesn't always fit into neat statistical boxes.
I often speak of community metaphorically when chatting with clients. One of my favorites is that of a garden. You’ll have seedlings, maturing plants, and those who are deeply rooted. How do you nourish each while also pulling the weeds?
Martin gives another great example:
“Think of Steve Jobs using calligraphy to shape Apple's interfaces—no hard data, just the power of metaphor speaking volumes.”
Strategic thinking devours everything. The goal is to consider all kinds of non-statistically significant data to make decisions about what's coming next. Observing behavior is the food of community kings (and queens).
3) Leverages Abductive Reasoning
Traditional logic has its limits. Most of us are taught two traditional lenses for logical thinking:
Deductive: “If all mammals are warm-blooded, and a cat is a mammal, then it can be deduced that the cat is warm-blooded.”
Inductive: “The sun keeps rising in the east, so it stands to reason that the sun will rise in the east tomorrow as well.”
But we are not taught abductive thinking, which is the Sherlock Holmes kind of deduction—figuring out the most probable explanation based on the available data.
A very elementary example:
Your blind date is glued to their iPhone throughout dinner. (data on hand)
This isn’t going well. They’re not enjoying themselves. (best explanation)
Again, Martin makes a great reference:
“As the great American pragmatist philosopher, Charles Sanders Peirce, pointed out, you can’t use inductive or deductive logic to come up with a new idea. But the world is full of new ideas, so there must be a third form of logic, which he termed abductive logic, the use of which is an essential characteristic of strategic thinking.”
Abductive thinking allows us to:
Generate creative and innovative solutions.
Make informed decisions in situations with incomplete information.
Create hypotheses that can be explored and refined through further investigation.
Identify the most plausible explanations for observed phenomena, fostering adaptability and problem-solving in complex and uncertain scenarios.
Let’s say you’re running a book club for folks who can’t get enough of the Roman Empire (weird trend alert). You and your community team are meeting to discuss the state of your community. The above principles might look like this:
Deductive Logic: Given that all successful book clubs involve active member participation, and our book club has active member participation, we can deduce that it is a successful book club. (yikes)
Inductive Logic: After interviewing members from various successful book clubs and finding a common thread—engaging discussion topics—we can inductively reason that incorporating engaging discussion topics in the book club will likely lead to increased engagement. (ok)
Abductive Logic: We've noticed a drop in engagement from some members, and we're trying to figure out the cause. While no clear data is pinpointing a single issue, we've received feedback and observed changes in community dynamics, so it may not be about book choice. It's worth exploring if external elements, like going into the holiday season or subject fatigue, are influencing our members' engagement. (good—opens the door to ideation and experimentation)
4) Considers Multiple Variables Simultaneously
Strategic thinking is like juggling a bunch of balls at once vs lining them up like dominoes. It’s more chex mix than check list. (Oh my gosh, that was so bad it hurts. But I’m keeping it).
Sometimes these variables may even be at odds with each other. Scott Fitzgerald famously wrote: “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.
Head into any subreddit or YouTube comments section for a sobering look at just how rare this is.
But that’s precisely what makes it such a valuable skill set. Taking all of that input—the numbers, the stories, the feedback, the observations—and using it to create a plan on multiple fronts to shape the future behavior of the one thing we can't fully control: the member.
I love Wes Keo’s write-up on lazy thinking, and I would add that people who rely solely on statistically significant data, stick strictly to inductive and deductive logic, or think strategy decisions can be made sequentially are also lazy thinkers. Strategic thinking isn’t for the minor leagues, but it is exactly what you need to build something extraordinary.
Onward,
April
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