At the end of this course the participants will be able to:

• 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

Leveraging Personal Thinking Styles

Introduction

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

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 non dominant 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 non dominant 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 whole-brain presentation
• Strengthening your non dominant position
• Adjusting communication to thinking styles
• Transforming confrontation into communication

Continuing your development

• Conducting self-checks
• Being persistent: a key trait of successful creative
• Mapping thinking skills to your business

Your Personal Decision-Making Toolkit

• Your personal thinking style
• Your stakeholders' styles
• Flexing to colleagues' styles
• Committing to your Personal Action Plan
• Checklists for success

Individuals at any level of an organization who want to apply creativity and critical thinking skills to their decision-making process