People strong in Strategic Awareness seem to have a natural gift of achieving their goals through knowing what to do and when to do it. What can we learn from them? The key lesson, from my perspective, is to look at how Strategic Awareness combines with the other strengths in your profile, and the dynamics this creates.

Understanding your wider strengths and drivers can provide you with a deeper understand of the "why" you want to achieve, as well as a better grasp of the "how" you are most likely to achieve it. Across all of these combinations, add Strategic Awareness into the mix, and you will have a much better sense of changing external circumstances and what these will do to help or hinder you along the way. Further, if you're strong in Reconfiguration, you'll be very well placed to adapt and make the most of these changing circumstances as you do!

Let's look at seven different strengths pairings, and see how they each play out in relation to Strategic Awareness:

1. Go for it! Pair Action and Catalyst, and you're the sort of person who will just get started and inspire others to get started as well. With Strategic Awareness in the mix, you have a good chance of getting started on the right things and in the right way. Without it, and you could risk lots of activity being dissipated in the absence of a clear goal.

2. It's worth the risk! People strong in Adventure and Courage will always be prepared to put themselves out there and take a risk or defend a position. Pair these with Strategic Awareness, and there's a very good chance this strategy will pay off. The biggest opportunities exist before others have spotted them. It takes guts to stand out on your own, but this strengths trio means you're the person who will do so.

3. Stick to the plan! With Planful and Time Optimiser, you're geared to knowing what you're working to achieve and by when, making the most of the time you have along the way. Combine with Strategic Awareness, and there's a good chance that your plan will factor in the changes along the way, as well as helping you to avoid sticking to the plan when the plan actually needs to change.

4. There is another way! If you want another perspective on things, look no further than Counterpoint and Innovation. Combine these strengths with Strategic Awareness for a strengths dynamic that is all about looking at things differently and challenging the status quo - but doing so in a way that will be fit for the future in relation to forthcoming needs and developments.

5. We can do better than this! This could well be the catchphrase of people with the combination of Change Agent and Improver. They always see that there is a better way. Through linking with Strategic Awareness, they see how to get there and make it happen, as well as what the future is likely to throw into the mix along the way.

6. We can make a difference! Pair Mission and Legacy with Strategic Awareness and you find a strengths dynamic that is all about working towards a longer term outcome that will make a lasting difference. It's difficult to make a lasting difference in the absence of Strategic Awareness, since things can change so much before we get there - but combine these three, and you have the recipe for lasting impact and success.

7. Have you thought about this? With all of these dynamic combinations, you might well be left asking this question. For people strong in Incubator and Judgement, this is likely to come naturally. When these strengths combine, they'll think things through to ensure they make the right decision - and with Strategic Awareness combined, that decision will always be informed by their attention to changing trends, patterns and developments.

Strategic Awareness is all about paying attention to wider factors and the bigger picture. It's about understanding the changing trends, patterns and developments that will shape our world into the future. And crucially, it's about linking that understanding back to what matters to us in terms of achieving our goals and objectives. As we've seen above, Strategic Awareness is always useful, but it will have distinct dynamics depending on how it combines with the other strengths in our profile.

With best wishes,

Alex Linley