This interactive two-day seminar gives participants a working knowledge of basic critical thinking skills and a method to build individual and collective thinking strengths. The complexity and fast pace of today’s business environment demands that every employee and manager be able to think fast on his or her feet to resolve increasingly challenging problems. This program trains thinkers to find out what they know and what they don’t know.

Goals

• Learn what critical thinking is
• Apply critical thinking to daily work
• Practice thinking and planning strategically
• Become familiar with  various styles and approaches to thinking
• Learn to ask the right questions
• Find the best possible alternatives
• Integrate critical thinking strategies into your business processes

Course Outline

1.       Review sources and strategies of critical thinking

• Training and education
• Professional life
• Personal life

Define and understand core critical thinking terms

• Assumptions
• Inferences
• Conclusions
• Reasoning
• Evidence
• Questions
• Critical thinking
• Strategic thinking

Learn critical thinking tools and techniques

• Analytical thinking tools
• Organizational thinking tools
• Entrepreneurial thinking tools
• Interpersonal thinking tools
• Application at work

Identify thinking styles

• History and review
• Style assessment (Mindex or HBDI)
• Answer questions
• What’s your home base?
• What types of questions does each style ask?
• What are the pros/cons of each style
• Application at work

Create effective thinking teams at work

• Style mapping
• Putting Your Company’s Whole Brain to Work (Harvard Business Review)
• Guidelines

Apply critical thinking strategies in business

• Ask the right questions
• Find the possibilities
• Search for the next best outcome
• Case studies

Resources

• Sample appendix with other resources
• Outline of techniques and where to find them
• Samples