The Big 5 of Strategy Assessment | Measure Strategic Thinking Capability

What The Big 5 of Strategy Measures

The first science-backed assessment designed to measure strategic competencies — not personality, not preferences — but actual strategic capability.

The Big 5 of Strategy identifies five essential competencies behind real-world strategic capability.

When you understand your leadership team's strategic competencies, you can assign the right people to strategy formulation, execution, and adaptation and stop wasting time in sessions where people aren't equipped to contribute.

Develop Strategic Competencies Across Your Organization

Identify Strategic Capability Gaps for Succession Planning

Assign the Right People to the Right Parts of Strategy

Understand Who on Your Team Thinks Strategically and How

Stop Forcing Everyone Into Generic "Strategic Planning"

The Five Strategic Competencies

Each competency breaks down into 20 sub-competencies that show exactly where you excel and where you need development, helping individuals and teams understand how you contribute to strategy.

1. Grasp: Understand complexity and make sense of your environment. Can you read patterns, synthesize information, and see what others miss?

2. Shape: Design vision and direction with purpose. Can you articulate compelling futures and translate ambition into clarity?

3. Move: Translate ideas into momentum and coordinated action. Can you mobilize resources, build coalitions, and create urgency?

4. Deliver: Execute with discipline and follow-through under real constraints. Can you navigate obstacles, make trade-offs, prioritize effectively, and drive results to completion?

5. Adapt: Learn, evolve, and respond to change. Can you pivot when conditions shift and integrate feedback into strategy?

Personalized Strategy Reports

Detailed individual reports showing:

Strengths across each of the five competencies with radar graph visualization of your strategic profile
Breakdown of 20 sub-competencies showing exactly where you excel and where to focus development
Concrete recommendations for growing strategic capability

Organizational Strategic Dashboards

Collective view of your leadership team's strategic competencies showing:

Where your team is strategically strong (multiple people with high Grasp, for example)
Where you have strategic gaps (nobody strong in Adapt)
How strategic diversity impacts your planning and execution
Who should participate in which parts of strategic work
Comparisons between internal teams, departments, or divisions

Leader Playbook

Customized development plans for each leader, outlining how to strengthen specific strategic competencies through targeted practice and learning.

Strategic Competency Workshop

Half-day or full-day session practicing the five strategic competencies in real-time on your actual strategic challenges. Build capability while advancing the strategy. Available virtually or in-person.

The Big 5 of Strategy Debrief

Individual or team session (30-90 minutes) where Tracy walks through your strategic profile, identifies strengths and capability gaps, and helps answer the question of “what do we do with this?”

Transformation by Design

Our signature, comprehensive engagement, combining The Big 5 of Strategy with other assessments (TriMetrix®, The Five Behaviors®, etc.) to address eight performance pillars.

Assessment Length: 15 minutes per person

Format: Online, self-paced

Team Size: Works for individuals or leadership teams of any size

Delivery: Results arrive by email. Virtual or in-person debriefs available

What's Included: Individual strategic competency reports with radar graphs and sub-competency breakdowns, Team Strategic Dashboard

Add-On Options: Strategic Competency Workshop for capability building, Executive Team Debrief, Leader Strategy Playbooks

Pricing: Contact for team pricing based on size and debrief options

How is The Big 5 of Strategy different from other assessments?

Personality assessments (like DISC® or Big Five Personality) measure who you are. The Big 5 of Strategy measures what you can do — specifically, your strategic capability. This is specific to strategy, so it goes deeper than tools like CliftonStrengths (previously StrengthsFinder).

Strategic competencies can be learned and developed. Personality traits are relatively stable. This assessment shows you where to focus development to become more strategically effective.

How is this different from traditional strategic planning tools?

Traditional tools (SWOT, Porter's Five Forces, etc.) are frameworks for doing strategy. The Big 5 of Strategy assesses your capability to execute strategy effectively.

It answers: "Can this person actually grasp complexity, shape vision, mobilize action, deliver results, and adapt?" The key is knowing who has which competencies.

Do all executives need to be strong in all five competencies?

No. That's the point.

The best leadership teams have complementary strategic competencies. The weaker teams assume everyone should contribute equally to all parts of the strategy.

What if someone scores low across most competencies?

That's valuable data for succession planning and development.

Some roles require strategic capability. Others don't. If someone is weak strategically but strong operationally (high Deliver, low Grasp and Shape), they might be better suited for operational leadership than strategic leadership.

The assessment helps you make those decisions with data instead of guesswork.

Can strategic competencies be developed?

Yes. Unlike personality, strategic competencies are skills that can be strengthened through deliberate practice, coaching, and real-world application.

The assessment shows you exactly which competencies to focus on and how to develop them.

How long does the assessment take?

15 minutes per person. Results are immediate.

Do we need a workshop, or is the assessment enough?

The assessment + debrief gives you diagnosis and strategic team composition insights. That's valuable for understanding who should be in which strategy conversations.

A workshop is beneficial if you want to actually practice implementing strategic competencies, working through real strategic challenges while building capability in Grasp, Shape, Move, Deliver, and Adapt.

Can we do this virtually?

Yes. The assessment is online, and debrief sessions work great via Zoom.

Who created The Big 5 of Strategy?

The Big 5 of Strategy was developed by Strategy.Inc, a global strategy institute led by Dr. Jeroen Kraaijenbrink and Dr. Timothy Tiryaki. It's based on cutting-edge research into what actually makes people strategically effective.

Tracy Winkler is part of the first cohort of professionals certified to use and deliver The Big 5 of Strategy assessment in her independent consulting work.

How do we use The Big 5 of Strategy for succession planning?

The assessment identifies which leaders have the strategic capability required for C-suite or board roles. You can identify:

Who has the Grasp and Shape competencies needed for visionary leadership
Who has the Move and Deliver competencies needed for operational execution
Who has the Adapt competencies needed to lead through change
Where you have strategic capability gaps in your succession pipeline

The Big 5 of Strategy Assessment: Discover How Your Team Thinks and Acts Strategically

For executive teams tired of unproductive strategy sessions and strategic plans that never get executed.