You know the little voice in your head that (hopefully) kicks in when you’re doing something stupid and tells you to “hold on just a minute…” You also probably recall times when the little voice failed to kick-in and you did something that you instantly regretted.

Psychologists call the little voice “metacognition”. It sounds intimidating but actually the term metacognition has been used by educators for many years. Metacognition is now recognized one of the essential qualities needed for effective learning. Without that little voice acting as the brain’s “command center” we would probably not question what we are doing and learn new behaviors.

Metacognition is the brain’s higher level reasoning control center. It is similar in concept to emotional intelligence popularized by Danial Goleman, however this deals more with the emotional control centers of the brain.

If you have read this far you are probably saying “so what!” Well, if you are hiring or promoting people in your organization you need to consider their ability to improvise, adapt, and overcome (as the Marines would say it). These are skills that are important in the current challenging climate – and to be successful, they depend on our metacognative thinking ability.

Knowing someone’s metacognative ability would be useful when making a hiring or promotion decision, but without a way to measure an indiviual’s metacognitive skills it is of very little practical use. Luckily there is a way to assess metacognition using a computer based simulation called the Cognitive Processes Profile – or CPP.
The CPP is a laptop based assessment that takes about an hour and a half to complete. It tracks an individual’s ability to monitor and control their own thinking and it is also able to assess problem solving abilities and the person’s judgment quality.

If you are considering hiring or promoting someone into a position that requires sound judgment and well developed thinking skills then busing a well researched assessment tool such as the CPP can provide you with valuable information for your decision.

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Strategic thinking is all about effective anticipation! So says the National Defense University and they should know – they are the people responsible for preparing candidates for senior strategic roles in the US military. In a tight spot, they say, a leader’s ability to correctly anticipate the outcome of a course of action can be the difference between winning and loosing on the battlefield. The same is true in organizations where anticipation and effective decision making can make you a hero.

So can strategic thinking skills be developed? The evidence says yes! In general, thinking skills can be divided into upper level and lower level skills. According to Bloom’s Taxonomy, the bible on such matters, upper level thinking skills are: Analysis, Synthesis, and Evaluation, while lower level thinking skills are defined as: Knowledge, Understanding, and Application.

While many organizations hire or train for the lower level thinking skills, relatively few hire or train their employees for the higher level ones. This may explain why people with effective strategic thinking capacities at the senior executive level are frequently in short supply. This is not to say that knowledge and application skills are unimportant, only that the importance of strategic thinking capacity increases significantly as one ascends the leadership ladder.

So how do you develop strategic thinking skills? A good starting point is increasing self awareness – the ability to reflect on and accurately assess one’s own behaviors and skills as they are manifested on the job. Self assessments and assessment by others are rarely fully congruent, however, and this lack of congruence is called “the coefficient of self-delusion”. Unfortunately self delusion has been the downfall of many “want to be” strategic decision makers.

Some of the tools that organizations can use to close the gap on the “coefficient of self-delusion” are 360 feedback assessments and simulations such as the Cognitive Processes Profile. These tools can provide an accurate evaluation of current and future strategic thinking capacities for new hires or for current employees. They are particularly useful for employee development when combined with support from an experienced coach.

So leaders can develop effective strategic thinking skills by exploiting opportunities to better understand themselves and how they react under pressure when solving complex problems. This understanding is critical since the more you are in touch with the reality of the situation, the more likely you will be to call the shots correctly and anticipate outcomes better than the next guy.