21 May How To Think Like A CEO

In today’s competitive world, everyone wants to be a leader, but to be completely honest, not everyone has the mindset for it. A worker’s mindset is not the same as a CEO mindset, but many workers go into business looking to become their own boss and be able to “leave the rat race” for greener pastures. Well it takes a certain type of thinking to be a successful CEO, and I’d like to break down that thinking for others to take advantage of that as well.

CEO’s Don’t Think Like Everyone Else

CEO’s inherently think different than everyone else. If this wasn’t the case, everyone would be a CEO. They don’t view the stage from a workers stand point, but instead see it from a higher vantage point. This thinking style allows them to see the right moves to make for an entire organization and how to make them with the highest chance of success.

Most people today think from a specialist standpoint point. They have their area of expertise, work in that focus, and rarely venture far outside of that specialization into other completely different departments. This type of mode of work is designed for business efficiency of someone who is responsible for handling one specific area. It is not however conducive to the way a CEO works on a day to day basis. The CEO may work on many different things, but this is because to be a CEO, you need to be a generalist and focus on the forest and not the trees.

It’s All About The Big Picture

Thinking like a CEO is all about the big picture. Seeing things from a 10,000ft view and how they impact each other. This is necessary when you’re in charge of a company with many different departments that handle many different roles. You don’t need to be a specialist in all of them, but you need to be familiar with them enough to know how to leverage their strengths and mitigate their liabilities.

Big picture thinking is about the broad strokes. You’re not honing into your target like a single bullet, you’re lighting it up like a nuke. It’s about making the big moves that really matter vs getting lost in the weeds for things that have no real impact. This is why a CEO’s mindset is valuable and sought after as it’s a mindset that produces achieved results, not just incremental progress.

How To Win With Big Picture Thinking

How to think from a big picture perspective is a bit difficult to teach. The reason for this is that, no matter how you feel about it, some are simply better at it than others. It is natural to some people since birth while others may do better with details. This doesn’t mean that it is impossible to learn for someone who specializes, but that you will need to put in a lot more effort and be more mindful of your thinking. One technique that I love using to teach people to see the big picture is to tell them to “zoom out”. This simple phrase instantly allows them to see they are too close to something and that taking a step back is needed.

For example, a friend was stressed out about some family drama and was getting bogged down with who said what and who did what. They felt terrible about the situation and I could tell it was negatively impacting their life. I could see what the problem actually was, so I told them to “zoom out”. They zoomed one level and saw a bit more clearly of the situation. I said “zoom out” again and they could see the situation was really about them and not others. I said “zoom out” one more time and they could then see that the whole situation unfolded because they allowed it to unfold. The problem to address were not the other peoples behaviors, but their own lack of boundaries.

Be Strategic In Everything

Thinking from a big picture perspective is only the first step towards making moves like a successful CEO, the next is being strategic in everything you do. This is directly related because strategy is all about understanding the big picture and creating a plan of action to take advantage of it to your benefit. It’s about knowing the right goal, coming up with the right plan, and implementing it in the right way to produce a win.

In marketing people often confuse tactics for strategy. Getting hung up on what time of day to post on social media instead of first figuring what platforms would be best for their brand; or if they should even be using social media at all for their specific goal. Strategy in the business world would be akin to wisdom in the personal world. Knowing the right info and how to apply that info to produce the result you want.

Conclusion

To think like a CEO, you need to not get caught up in the details when strategizing and instead focus on the big picture. Don’t be a specialist going a million miles deep in one area, but instead be a generalist who knows a little about many areas. This allows you to navigate many different situations and make the big decisions needed that really matter for results. What ever way that you approach taking on a CEO’s mindset, just be sure to “zoom out” and see things from the 10,000ft view. Thinking from the big picture perspective is what’s needed to take action that makes a real impact, and exactly how you think like a CEO.

GI Griffin is a brutally honest cultural commentator and author, founder of The Tribe Academy, and host of the GI SAID IT show where bold perspective meets unfiltered truth. Known for his no-BS insights on human behavior and modern culture, GI challenges conventional thinking, exposes uncomfortable truths, and delivers bold insights for independent minds. View his show & essays here, or subscribe to his FREE newsletter here.