Hey, it's Rachel Cook, your modern mentor. I'm the founder of Lead Above Noise, a firm

specializing in retaining, engaging, and developing talent. I run a lot of workshops for teams,

and just a few weeks ago, I did a fun one called How to Amplify Your Strategory for a client of

mine. It started with a call from a senior leader who said,

you know, my team is great. They get it all done and they do it well. But sometimes it feels like

they are kind of spinning in execution. They make to-do lists. They cross things off, but I just

feel like they could be delivering more impact, making bigger, more important things happen.

Can you help? Oh, also, you have 90 minutes to get it done. You know, I've realized that what she was

asking me, in not so many words, was if I could help her team just be more strategic. And yeah,

I could do that in 90 minutes or less. My approach was this. I reviewed my

mental rolodex and I landed on five people in my life who I personally find to be hyper strategic.

They are my go-to people when I need a new way of thinking about something or I'm interested in

trends or I just need fresh eyes on a business problem. These people are

always able to help me move forward. So I interviewed each of them about how they do their magic

things. And I pulled out some themes that ran pretty consistently across. The good news is that what I

learned is really accessible to all of us and applicable, in my opinion, across any industry or

function. I built the program and I delivered it to this team who seemed really to gobble it up.

But today, you be the judge. Here are just a few of the keys that I shared with them about how

to dial up your strategy. Let me know how they land for you. The first is be a map

maker. So here's something you should know about me. I have no sense of direction, like zero.

In my junior year of college, I was given an assignment to draw a map of the campus as I saw

it in my head. And when I turned it in,

...