Comprehensive, Critical and Creative Thinking for Today’s Professional
Introduction
Why is our thinking usually dull, ineffective, biased and un-creative? What does “out of the box” really mean and how can we truly attain this? This workshop will teach participants how to tackle basic problems in thinking and how to sharpen their mind to ensure that their thinking is continually fun, objective, perceptive and, most of all, original. Best of all, such thinking will powerfully change the way you view and engage with the issues in your business, community and personal life.
Learning Objectives
After attending this course, you will be able to:
- Understand and overcome the common problems of human thinking
- Systematically focus their thinking for more efficient results
- Develop the habit and environment of curiosity and channel this towards future value
- Generate ideas in a fast, effective way
- Make use of Mind-Maps
- Detect fallacies of thinking
- Avoid problems of ‘group-think’
- Develop more objective perception-maps of their world
- Practise their thinking on corporate and contemporary issues
Duration: 2 days
Who Should Attend
Anyone who wishes to make thinking an enjoying, systematic and creative habit to be applied to all areas of business and life
Methodology
Participants will enjoy an interactive learning experience. Slides, video presentations and worksheets will be used. Participants will also get the chance to engage in hands-on application of the principles and techniques learnt.
Key Topics:
Module 1 – Introduction to Thinking
- Characteristics of a strong thinker
- Biggest Mistakes of Thinkers
- Thinking as a Skill
Module 2 – Attention Directing (COMPREHENSIVE Thinking, Pt.1)
- The difference between directed and non-directed thinking
- The various ‘software programs’ your brain has
- How to apply directed thinking in making everyday decisions and evaluations
- Why there must be a “time and place” for thinking
- Using a Mind-Map
Module 3 – Thinking as Game (COMPREHENSIVE Thinking, Pt.2)
(Image Credit: Gerd Altmann)
(License: CC0)
- A (very) brief history of thinking (from Socrates to Steve Jobs)
- Why critical thinking is insufficient
- How to ‘free’ ourselves (and our thinking) from prejudices and biases
- How to develop objective and holistic thinking
Module 4 – Moving Up the Pyramid (CRITICAL Thinking)
- Characteristics of a critical thinker
- Applying Bloom’s Taxonomy
- Detecting fallacies of Relevance
- Detecting fallacies of Insufficient Evidence
Module 5 – Achieving Eureka! (CREATIVE Thinking)
- Why is it so hard to be creative?
- Understand why logic and experience are usually obstacles to creativity
- Basic principle of creativity and ‘lateral thinking’
- 8 Tactics to think more creatively
Course Code: AL-PD01
