Is the way you think like the color of your eyes – something you are born with and cannot alter? Or is thinking a skill, like swimming or golf, which can be improved with practice? The answer is that thinking is a skill. Anyone can build their thinking skills through awareness, attention and practice. Thinking is the ultimate human resource. The quality of our thinking determines the quality of our problem solving, decision making, leadership, relationships and communication.

Just as we seek continuous improvement in our products, services and business processes, it is vital that we seek continuous improvement in our thinking skills. Consider “thinking” as a set of processes. For example, analysis, logic and judgment are valuable thinking processes. But these are not sufficient. Additional processes such as constructive thinking, creative thinking and designing a way forward encourage broader, more expansive thinking that leads to more effective results in any context. By choosing and practicing the most effective thinking processes for a given situation, we strengthen the links in our “thinking chain” and become more productive thinkers.

This evening, you will learn how to:

• stop someone from being persistently negative
• express your intuition and gut feeling in a serious meeting
• shift from adversarial thinking to cooperative exploration
• switch people from their usual thinking pattern and get them to think differently about the matter at hand.

Take away with you powerful and easy to use thinking tools you can apply immediately.