This article by Valeria Maltoni ‘The 12 Qualities of Extremely Valuable, Highly Paid Strategists’ provides an interesting insight into the skills of strategic advisors.
![](https://thefourthrevolution.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/strategist.jpg)
The skills she mentions are the following:
- Know which problem the insight can solve
- Have a broad and expanding scope of knowledge
- Understand the psychology of leaders
- Respect high-value experts
- Improve the person, not just the project
- Be fluent with language
- Be adept with varied tools and techniques
- Understand the power of words
- Know how to write and present
- Preserve the expert’s voice
- Work fast
- Work well
I find this list quite interesting, and in particular the statement “improve the person, not just the project”. It is something I have always felt, taking a coaching certification to enable this work on the client as a person in addition to working on harder stuff.
Certain skills make a huge difference when advising on strategy. And they are not about being better at strategy! A lot deals with interpersonal skills and asking the right questions.