CTL Strategic Thinking & Vision 5 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: A team leader is preparing for a strategic planning retreat. Which tool BEST helps the team anticipate plausible futures to prepare for uncertainty?
- Regression analysis
- Scenario planning (Correct answer)
- Root cause analysis
- Critical path method
Correct answer: Scenario planning
Scenario planning involves developing multiple plausible future stories to help teams prepare strategies that are robust under various conditions.
Question 2: Which of Porter's Five Forces would MOST concern a team leader whose organization faces a growing number of low-cost online competitors?
- Threat of new entrants (Correct answer)
- Bargaining power of suppliers
- Threat of substitute products
- Bargaining power of buyers
Correct answer: Threat of new entrants
A growing number of new low-cost competitors directly increases the threat of new entrants, one of Porter's Five Forces affecting industry profitability.
Question 3: A team leader wants to ensure the team's strategy is both bold and realistic. Which approach BEST achieves this balance?
- Setting only incremental goals to guarantee success
- Establishing a BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal) paired with a clear near-term roadmap (Correct answer)
- Deferring all goal-setting to senior leadership
- Avoiding commitment to measurable targets to retain flexibility
Correct answer: Establishing a BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal) paired with a clear near-term roadmap
A BHAG provides inspiration and long-term direction while a near-term roadmap ensures concrete, achievable steps guide execution.
Question 4: Strategic vision is MOST useful to a team when it is:
- Detailed enough to serve as a daily task list
- Inspiring and directional, guiding priorities without micro-managing actions (Correct answer)
- Kept confidential to prevent competition from gaining insight
- Updated monthly to reflect changing market conditions
Correct answer: Inspiring and directional, guiding priorities without micro-managing actions
A vision guides directional thinking and priorities without prescribing every action, leaving room for team initiative and adaptability.
Question 5: A team leader observes that the organization has strong operational capabilities but a poorly defined strategy. According to strategic management principles, this creates risk because:
- Operations will slow down without strategic guidance
- Efficiency without direction leads to doing the wrong things very well (Correct answer)
- Employees will demand higher salaries in the absence of a strategy
- Technology investments will become unaffordable
Correct answer: Efficiency without direction leads to doing the wrong things very well
Drucker's principle states that efficiency is doing things right, but effectiveness (strategy) is doing the right things—operational excellence without strategy can optimize the wrong activities.
Question 6: Which of the following BEST describes the role of a team leader in strategy execution?
- Delegating all execution tasks to project managers
- Translating strategic intent into team priorities and removing barriers to progress (Correct answer)
- Waiting for detailed instructions from senior leadership before acting
- Focusing only on reporting progress to stakeholders
Correct answer: Translating strategic intent into team priorities and removing barriers to progress
Team leaders bridge strategy and execution by converting organizational goals into actionable team priorities and actively clearing obstacles.
Question 7: A team leader is evaluating two strategic options: one has high potential reward but high uncertainty, the other has moderate reward and low uncertainty. A sound strategic thinking approach would be to:
- Always choose the high-reward option regardless of risk
- Always choose the low-risk option to protect the team
- Evaluate both options against organizational risk tolerance and available resources before deciding (Correct answer)
- Escalate the decision to senior leadership without a recommendation
Correct answer: Evaluate both options against organizational risk tolerance and available resources before deciding
Strategic decision-making requires weighing risk against reward in the context of the organization's risk appetite and resource capacity, not applying a fixed rule.
CTL Strategic Thinking & Vision 5
A team leader is preparing for a strategic planning retreat.
Which tool BEST helps the team anticipate plausible futures to prepare for uncertainty?