The thinking on "strategic thinking" has evolved significantly over the years. In the previous century, the independent school strategy was to focus on long-range planning, blithely projecting 10 years into the future. For decades this worked well enough, but in the late 20th century, independent schools shifted to "strategic planning," with its curtailed three- to five-year planning cycle. But given the increasing volatility of the economic and social landscapes, even a five-year planning cycle turned out to problematic. In the immediate aftermath of the market crash in September 2008, to put it bluntly, many schools' five-year plans, at least in part, were rendered irrelevant. In this article, the author explains the difference between strategic planning and strategic thinking and suggests that schools must be in a strategic posture constantly to achieve success. (Contains 3 notes and 2 resources.)