What are the best ways to use your professional network for strategic thinking validation?

1 Identify your network goals

Before you reach out to your network, you need to have a clear idea of what you want to achieve and how you want to use their input. Do you want to test your assumptions, explore new possibilities, challenge your biases, or get support for your decisions? Depending on your network goals, you can select the most relevant and appropriate people to contact and the best way to communicate with them.

2 Choose your network sources

Your professional network can include different types of sources, such as mentors, peers, experts, clients, stakeholders, or industry influencers. Each source can offer you different benefits and drawbacks for strategic thinking validation. For example, mentors can provide you with guidance and wisdom, peers can give you feedback and collaboration, experts can share their knowledge and experience, clients can reveal their needs and expectations, stakeholders can express their interests and concerns, and industry influencers can expose you to trends and opportunities. You should choose your network sources based on their relevance, credibility, diversity, and availability.

3 Prepare your network questions

Once you have identified your network goals and sources, you need to prepare your network questions. These should be clear, concise, and focused on your strategic objectives, as well as open-ended to invite network members to share their opinions, insights, and suggestions. For example, you may ask what the main strengths and weaknesses of your strategic vision are, how to improve strategic alignment with organizational goals, what the potential risks and opportunities of the strategic plan are, how to leverage core competencies and capabilities for strategic advantage, or what the best practices and benchmarks for the strategic domain are.

4 Engage your network effectively

After you have prepared your network questions, you need to engage your network effectively. This means that you need to choose the right time, channel, and tone to communicate with your network. You should respect your network's availability and preferences, and use the most suitable mode of communication, such as email, phone, video call, or face-to-face meeting. You should also use a respectful, courteous, and appreciative tone, and acknowledge your network's contribution and value. You should avoid being defensive, arrogant, or dismissive of your network's input, and instead listen actively, ask follow-up questions, and thank them for their time and feedback.

5 Apply your network insights

The final step is to apply your network insights to your strategic thinking. This means that you need to analyze, synthesize, and integrate the input that you received from your network, and use it to refine, improve, or validate your strategic ideas and plans. You should look for patterns, themes, gaps, and contradictions in your network's input, and compare and contrast them with your own assumptions, perspectives, and evidence. You should also evaluate the validity, reliability, and relevance of your network's input, and weigh the pros and cons of different options and alternatives. You should then use your network insights to make informed and confident strategic decisions and actions.

6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?