Better Situational Acumen,
Better Results.

Decision makers who use Situational Acumen gain mastery of current realities, enabling sounder decisions.

While traditional inventories focus on personal awareness and improvement, Situational Acumen applies six core mindsets that help ensure smart choices and successful outcomes.

This is a critical difference.

The Situational Mindsets Indicator™ (SMI) develops Acumen and delivers results.

Priorities shift to capture changing circumstances and opportunities. The Situational Mindsets Indicator offers a breakthrough framework that provides improved leadership acumen through a structured situational inventory.

Mindsets examine these critical dimensions:

Inventing new products

Catalyzing market position

Establishing systems and policies

Improving quality, safety and return

Building talent and a high-performing culture

Seizing new opportunities and building alliances

The SMI Framework

Awareness must precede action. Recognizing how change shapes opportunities is critical to sustained success.

Situational Mindsets delivers a deep dive into dynamic realities through six situational perspectives.

Recognizing how change and critical thinking leverages opportunities for stellar results

Situational Acumen

The SMI Framework

The evidence-based SMI framework navigates complexity, reveals blind spots, sharpens judgment, and produces better outcomes.

Situational Acumen develops from analyzing six Mindsets—the vital aspects of any operation. Together, Mindsets create a clear, complete view of what action matters most now.

A Mindset is a:

Filter used to collect and evaluate information
Point of view to collect evidence and trends
Examination of current conditions to identify priorities

Because change is constant, mindsets cannot become fixed. Effective leaders know when to shift perspective, adapt quickly, and respond wisely. Flexible mindsets turn uncertainty into opportunity.

INVENTING

MINDSET

● ● ● ● ● ●

Focal Point

To improve products and services, gain status as an industry leader, and discover new internal synergies

Activities

✦ Review of current products/services for extensions

✦ Identify new products and services

✦ Utilize new technology

✦ Scan current research

✦ Identify new synergies

CATALYZING

MINDSET

● ● ● ● ● ●

Focal Point

To gain and retain customers, surpass the competition, and provide outstanding customer service

Activities

✦ Identify key customer audiences

✦ Study competitive factors

✦ Promote outstanding services

✦ Increase market share

✦ Increase sales

DEVELOPING

MINDSET

● ● ● ● ● ●

Focal Point

To develop infrastructure, policies, and systems to ensure accountability, set goals and deliver high-performance

Activities

✦ Determine the right organizational infrastructure and reporting relationships

✦ Integrate systems

✦ Build a chain of command and accountability to prevent gaps

✦ Review and revise policy impact

✦ Set goals

✦ Allocate resources

PERFORMING

MINDSET

● ● ● ● ● ●

Focal Point

To improve quality, safety, workflow efficiencies, and remove waste; streamline work processes and improve financial success

Activities

✦ Monitor milestones and outcomes

✦ Examine workflow barriers, process gaps, and improve cycle time

✦ Improve financial results

✦ Ensure effective use of resources

✦ Improve quality and safety

✦ Examine ways to reduce costs

PROTECTING

MINDSET

● ● ● ● ● ●

Focal Point

To ensure retention of key talent, prepare succession plans; develop talent, and build a high-performing agile culture

Activities

✦ Assess current and future talent needs

✦ Measure levels of engagement, trust, and commitment

✦ Evaluate the effectiveness of the reward
and promotional practices

✦ Support engagement, collaboration and teaming

✦ Sustain a high-performing culture

✦ Develop succession plans

✦ Develop and retain talent

CHALLENGING

MINDSET

● ● ● ● ● ●

Focal Point

To validate current assumptions, assess current trends; identify potential changes to the business model; discover new niches; and prepare for the future

Activities

✦ Identify emerging issues, risks, or ramifications from the environment

✦ Check for customer trends and competition

✦ Conduct lessons learned from projects and initiatives

✦ Identify potential new ventures or niches

✦ Recognize potential partners and alliances

✦ Project future earnings, market, and regulations

Outcomes from Using the Situational Mindsets Indicator (SMI)

The SMI helps decision makers set wise goals using an evidence-based framework. The result is:

✦ Clearly connect the dots to craft wise decisions

✦ Communicate goals and outcomes effectively

✦ Recognize priorities driving others to build alignment

✦ Improve collaboration and teamwork

✦ Resolve conflict by clarifying priorities, aligning interests, and creating win-win solutions

✦ Boost critical thinking

✦ Share Situational Acumen to avoid blind spots and deliver results

The SMI has contributed over the last 15 years:

Leadership Development

Strengthens coaching, accelerates growth, and helps leaders make wiser decisions.

Conflict Management

Turns differing viewpoints into productive conversations that lead to practical win-win outcomes.

Team Building

Team composites encourage objective dialogue, fresh ideas, alignment, trust, and resilience.

Influencing Skills

Helps people understand what matters to others, align with key priorities to build common ground, and gain support.

Coaching & Mentoring

A label-free tool that helps leaders uncover options, improve adaptability, and make better choices.

Negotiation & Communication

Identifies key interests, hidden concerns, and shared goals to break impasses and achieve results.

Problem Solving & Decision Making

Reveals what has been overlooked, opening the door to smarter solutions and new opportunities. Rejuvenates willingness to examine alternatives.

Critical thinking

Builds mental agility, improves analysis, sparks creativity, and strengthens decision-making habits.

Change

Many change efforts fail due to resistance and insufficient analysis. The SMI improves readiness, resource alignment, and buy-in.

Strategic Planning and Board Meetings

Explores trends, risks, opportunities, and partnerships to prepare for their future success.

New Manager Integration

New leaders have a “get to know you” phase, which the SMI shortens by surfacing priorities, perspectives, and clarifying priorities.

Build Your Acumen by Reading Situational Mindsets

by Dr. Mary Lippitt

Is your project priority revenue, quality, customer service, innovation, growth, safety, or culture?

The award-winning Situational Mindsets: Targeting What Matters When It Matters presents a case study showing how the right questions from each Mindset kept plans on track and prevented derailment.

“Dr. Lippitt’s comprehensive approach to leadership focuses on helping both organizations and individuals identify specific decisions and judgments that may be hindering their long-term growth and prosperity. She helps them learn to effectively prioritize, assess risks, and create long-term strategies for success.”

David M.R. Covey
CEO of SMCOV, Coauthor of Trap Tales: Outsmarting the 7 Hidden Obstacles to Success

Buy the book

“Buck the trend and make a lasting and effective change with this book! Every great leader should have it!”

Marshall Goldsmith New York Times #1 bestselling author of Triggers, Mojo, and What Got You Here Won’t Get You There. Marshall Goldsmith is the only two-time Thinkers 50 #1 Leadership Thinker in the world

“Challenge is the opportunity for greatness, and in Situational Mindsets by Mary Lippitt, you will discover the mindsets that leaders must have to navigate current challenges and turn them into exciting opportunities. This is a fresh, insightful, and breakthrough work with a unique perspective that will make you think differently about how you think.”

Jim Kouzes Coauthor of the award-winning The Leadership Challenge and Executive Fellow of the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Leavey School of Business, Santa Clara University.

Our Sponsor

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The SMI can help organizations with:

Smart decision making that reduces risks
Improving critical and systems thinking
Enhancing influence and collaboration
Demonstrating adaptability and change mastery
Recognizing patterns and trends to future-proof decisions
Gaining recognition and visibility
Employing situational mindsets to block conflict
Maintaining a high-performing culture

SMI Research

Our research shows that 45% of leaders rely on a single business mindset, 31% rely on two, and 22% depend on three. As a result, 98% may miss critical perspectives that affect analysis and decisions.

The research also shows that specialization in areas such as finance or marketing often creates mindset silos that limit collaboration, creativity, and critical thinking. Distinct mindset patterns also emerge among first-line leaders, managers, and execution roles during the study. Events such as COVID can quickly alter mindset preferences.

The Situational Mindset Indicator (SMI) is highly reliable (coefficient of .91) and demonstrates strong face and content validity. This research-backed tool helps improve decision-making effectiveness and organizational performance.

Rely on 1 mindset

Use 2 mindsets

Use 3 mindsets

Can overlook multiple critical perspectives

For Placement Only

Questions?

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Have questions? Schedule a call to learn more.

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