Critical Thinking and Creative Problem Solving

• Make better decisions through critical thinking and creative problem solving
• Adapt to different thinking styles in group and team environments
• Recognize and remove barriers to individual and group creativity to foster an innovative work environment
• Systematically analyze a target problem
• Present your ideas clearly and concisely for maximum stakeholder buy-in
• Transform your creativity into practical business solutions

Introduction

• Balancing people, processes and tools for optimal decisions
• Business drivers that demand creative problem solving
• Deciphering critical thinking

Leveraging Personal Thinking Styles

The Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument (HBDI)

• MacLean's Triune Brain Theory
• Assessing your preferred approach to thinking
• Leveraging whole-brain thinking
• Identifying left/right-brain dominance

Analyzing personal preferences

• Identifying your own natural brain dominance
• Determining nondominant approaches

Managing thinking preferences

• Avoiding quadrant bias
• Bridging opposing styles
• Predicting coworker profiles

Unleashing Your Creativity

The creative environment

• Setting the creative stage
• The power of positive communication
• Identifying elements that stimulate creativity
• Eliminating barriers to innovation

Group creative thinking

• Brainstorming options
• Challenging assumptions
• Dispelling personal and corporate myths

The iterative mind

• Moving between quadrants
• Valuing nondominant preferences
• Stretching outside your personal style

Recording the creative process

• Drawing mind maps
• Chart writing

Solving Problems Using Analysis and Prioritization

Systematic approaches to problem solving

• Defining criteria
• Focusing on outcomes
• Leveraging left-brain thinkers
• Applying questioning techniques
• Deconstructing problems using stair-step techniques

Analyzing the creative process

• Identifying business-critical ideas
• Categorizing, prioritizing and purging

Avoiding analysis paralysis

• Overcoming the "It won't work here" mentality
• The Five Monkeys Syndrome or "But we've always done it this way"
• Analyzing for outcomes, not solutions

Applying analysis models

• Situation assessment
• Decision analysis
• Problem evaluation

Translating Creativity and Analysis into Practical Application

Organizational politics

• Recognizing the workplace culture
• Maintaining outcome-focused goals

The influence of decision-making styles

• Recognizing your own blind spots
• Self-awareness and self-regulation
• Forming a coalition with style opposites

Deploying your decision

• Clearly expressing analysis results
• Ensuring organizational benefit
• Guaranteeing maximum buy-in

Putting It All Together

Integrating your solution into the business

• Creating a
  Workshop Course
  Through a series of interactive small-group workshops, you gain practical decision-making skills using critical thinking and creative problem-solving techniques. Workshops include:
  • Profiling your personal thinking style and the styles of others
  • Identifying personal and team roadblocks to success
  • Analyzing left- and right-brain characteristics
  • Leading through speaking in another style
  • Applying logical methodologies to transform a range of creative options into supportable decisions
  • Preparing a framework to present your decision
  • Developing your personal decision-making toolkit