Join us for an interactive day of learning and the practical application of 10 thinking tools at Melbourne’s most prestigious training venue.

People and organisations are seeking improvement and quality across many areas except that which is the most important – the quality of the way they think. If we improve the quality of our thinking the quality of the actions that follow will improve.

The Six Thinking Hats are designed to dramatically improve the way individuals and groups think. The methods are used to look at issues from multiple perspectives and help teams to move beyond their habitual thinking styles to achieve a more rounded and thorough view of a given situation. In this full day session participants will develop:

• a sound understanding of multiple thinking styles,
  

• the ability to design and lay out a thinking process,
  

• The ability to better navigate complex and difficult issues,

• the ability to design and facilitate effective, outcome oriented meetings,     

• the ability to generate genuinely new ideas using lateral thinking methods,     

• and become more thorough and objective thinkers.

The session will be held at Melbourne’s premier training venue and all participants will be provided with an optional work-based assessment with which to immediately start to apply and embed the methods and practice back in the workplace. Successful completion of this assessment provides the “Blue Hat Facilitator” Pin.  Email & telephone coaching will be provided to assist with this at no additional cost.

Course Brochure: Six Thinking Hats ALDC May 29, 2012

To Register: Click Here

For more information, contact Frank at Think Quick on 0400 109727, or think.quick@me.com

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There are two broad pathways to efficiency and sustainable practice.

Mandated requirements to look beyond economic considerations demand that we make a concerted effort seek out new ways and means of developing efficient and sustainable business practices.

The first pathway is one we all understand and routinely apply – i.e. conserving our resources so they are not depleted and therefore available for ongoing use. The second involves designing new and improved ways of doing things that do not tie us to the limiting factors of current thinking, practice and resource.

The first path is about the maintenance of the status-quo. So even when we act sustainably we can in effect be going backward with the quality of our services diminishing. I refer to this approach as Rear-View path. It is largely reactive and although we seek to move forward with good intent, this is in effect like trying driving a car whilst focusing primarily on the rear-view mirror and not the windscreen.

The Rear-View is dominated by austerity methods such as staff cuts, wage-freezes, cost-cutting and a hold on new projects. With the Rear-View to sustainability we adopt reactive and precautionary approaches in which we seek to do the same things we have done in the past but faster and at less cost.  The Rear-View pathway is characterised by  short-term “management” thinking that ultimately contributes to a downward spiral in efficiency given that service demands usually increase, and cheaper and faster rarely equate to better.

The old mantra of doing more with less is fine but let’s focus on the more in addition to the less.

The second path to sustainability is a proactive one and through new design focuses on the “more”.

With design we seek to develop new ways of delivering the same value (or better) but in manners newly conceived. The thinking here is quite different to the Rear-View and I refer to it as Forward-View (not a real imaginative name I know, but it serves purpose!) On this Forward-View pathway we design and navigate our way forward with an eye firmly focused on the future. The Forward-View is characterised by new thinking, design and navigation. This pathway challenges the status quo and asks “Are they other ways we can do this better?”

Longer-term “leadership” thinking forms the basis for the Forward-View as we focus on What can be rather than the usual What is. Forward-View approaches involve the application of methods that assist organisations to build agility and navigate difficult times with greater impact.

These methods include:

1. New ways of focusing on and defining our real issues
2. New ways of thinking and collaborating,
3. New means of tapping into our diversity & knowledge,
4. The means of scanning and understanding the shifting environment,
5. New ways of generating genuinely new perspectives, insights & approaches, and
6. More practical means of safe implementation that are not bogged down with bureaucratic processes and the fear of failure.

Austerity methods absolutely have their place but we need to be aware of their limitations and not overuse them when better ways can be conceived.

Both pathways need to be applied and intertwine, but we must learn not to routinely default to the Rear-View path alone as our management practices to date have had us do.  The degree to which one pathway predominates is wholly dependent on context but an approach to sustainability that involves only one reactive pathway diminishes capacity over time, and this is not sustainable.

Organisations looking to build on their capacity to navigate difficult economic times and make sustainable practice a part of normal business are invited to contact us at Think Quick to discuss how we can assist in incorporating Forward-View thinking and action with a view to building business efficiency and proactive sustainable practices.

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One of the most important things we do in organisations is interact in meetings.

Yet 90% of people I speak to indicate their meetings are not as productive as they could be or worse, a waste of their time. There is a general consensus across industry that our meetings are all too often insufficiently focused, lacking sound collaborative approaches, have a limited outcome orientation and consume way more time than is necessary.

The importance of meetings in an organisation cannot be understated. In terms of knowledge-transfer and decision-making our meetings are potentially our most potent method because we:

• have the right subject matter experts invited and in attendance,
• if they are in attendance, they should be there with intent, and
• they are in a face-to-face setting where the most meaningful communication should be possible.

There are a number of methods doing the rounds that focus on improving meeting processes and many of these work well but the key to effective meetings is addressing the thinking that takes place within those processes. At Think Quick we have facilitated many difficult and potentially difficult meetings using the Six Thinking Hats and have high levels of success.

Not all meetings of course require such facilitation, I suspect a great deal could be run simply and efficiently if the participants could simply develop some tolerance and empathy for opinions that differ from their own. However, we routinely use the  parallel thinking of the Thinking Hats when:

• there are strongly held views
• there are challenging issues at hand
• there are diverse perspectives on offer
• the conversation is rambling and unfocused, and
• when time is short

The challenge is to incorporate the methods into meetings so they become a part of business practice and are routinely applied. This challenge when accepted is one that can bare great benefits.

To date, just a few of our client’s successes using parallel thinking in their meetings have been:
• Millions of dollars worth of savings in one Department where such saving could not be envisaged prior.
• A $600,000 saving within a business unit as a result of training in the thinking and its subsequent same day application to a key issue.
• The smooth planning of moving 20+ city locations into one newly constructed building.
• A business restructure planned and implemented without any of the associated angst by getting everyone thinking in parallel throughout.

Meetings can be productive, focused and enjoyable. They are the primary engine-room for transferring knowledge and making decisions in organisations, so if you get the thinking right in your meetings right, the flow-on effects are substantial.

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As the economic climate tightens and the challenge not just to thrive but survive increases, the need for Business Efficiency has rarely been greater. Irrespective of industry type we are all going to need to do more with less, increase savings & revenue and improve our product and service delivery. Not only this, it’s all going to have to be done in a sustainable manner.

We don’t however, just suddenly flick a switch and become “business efficient.”  To start down the business efficiency path we need to ensure we have four key elements in place:

We must start with an understanding that everything we do can be improved – even those things that are working well at the moment. Once any new process is implemented the impact-clock starts ticking because the environment for which it was designed inexorably changes and it’s efficacy starts to diminish. If we wait until we can sense the loss of impact we have usually lost the opportunity to intervene in a time and resource effective way. Like it or not all of our processes are in some way failing or moving toward failure without the appropriate oversight.

How do we know when our organisation has this understanding? Organisations that have this understanding don’t only speak of Problem Solving, they have a substantial focus on Opportunity Identification and designing genuinely new ways forward.

Once we acknowledge this we must then have a willing disposition to continuously improve all of our efforts. Easily said, but this is often ignored in favour of the status-quo or superceded by the day-to-day demands of business as usual. The most successful organisations have a willing disposition and commitment to work both “on” and “in” the business as standard practice.

How do we know if our organisation has this willing disposition? Organisations with this disposition typically commit  resources to ongoing improvement methods and tend to maintain or even boost these resources in challenging economic times when business efficiency is most needed.

The third element is a toolkit of simple and easily applied tools and methods to apply to the challenge of being more efficient in business. If asked, most of your staff will readily point to areas that need improving or could be more efficient, but they don’t have the right techniques at their disposable to readily tackle them. When this happens improvement efforts can be hap-hazard and tackled with inappropriate methods resulting in a frustration, failure and reduction in the disposition to continuously improve.

How do we know when we  have these methods at our disposal? If your organisation has these methods there will be a dramatic reduction in the reliance on external consultants. There will also be less tendency to invest and apply old methods that are context-inappropriate and offer no reasonable means of measuring dollars saved, efficiencies gained or return on investment.

The fourth key element is the clear authorising environment that enables people to continuously work “on” the business. In such an environment business efficiency is not only encouraged but mandated and expected.

How can we tell if we have an authorising environment? There is no exhaustive list here but some of the indicators are your Organisational Change related leaders will be a part of the Leadership Team, not just reporting to it. All staff with have time allocated to undertake improvement related tasks. Personal development plans will explicitly include activities for working “On” the business and you will have a more empowered workforce more likely to commit greater discretionary effort in improving services and the bottom-line.

In organisations I have worked in and with, I have NEVER seen all four elements together. Even the co-existence of three at the same time is very rare. Of course there have been many using the words and language of business efficiency because we are good at crafting aspirational missions and visions, but we are correspondingly poor in moving them into reality through action.

In today’s changing world and tough economic climate we actually need to DO and ACT. We can no longer continue to talk and analyse and expect to be successful. We need to raise our heads and start designing our forward.

If we want our organisation to prosper, we need to take the focus off categorising personality types or analysing employees past performance to determine where and how they fit.  Instead, we need to empower them with new approaches and methods that will allow them to move the organisation forward with efficiency and also determine where and how they fit themselves.

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In a recent budget update, the Victorian Government announced a number of austerity measures to reduce spending and create a “more sustainable public service.” This makes 100% sense to all of us, but exactly what does “sustainability” mean in this instance?

Various definitions tell us it is: a capacity to endure; an ability to be supported or upheld; or being maintained at a steady level without depleting resources or causing damage. Mostly the word is used in an environmental sense but the definition transfers well into a Government context given ongoing need, limited resources and a duty of care for the community.

No one doubts the need to be more efficient and do more with less – this is now a given. Simply applying the notions of enduring, upholding and maintaining however tend to spawn management practices focused on viewing the world with rear-view vision.

A standard management practice is to do the same things we did yesterday but only cheaper and faster. In a time of resource scarcity and rapid change however there is an urgent need to keep moving forward, keeping an eye on the road ahead through the windscreen. The rear-view is an aid to navigation that helps ensure efficiency, compliance and safety. It is not the sole way to navigate forward.

Some extant management mindsets don’t often see new thinking, new design and new approaches as the way forward and with a failure to design forward, short-term views prevail with respect to sustainability. When this happens spending cuts and efficiency gains are focused on at the expense of new thinking and new action. Classic examples of this default thinking include reducing the resourcing of functions such as Learning & Development, Organisational Development and other developmental areas.  These are areas that no one can deny are important for the long term survival (sustainability) of an organisation.

Sustainability is a function of both leadership and management. Where the manager will seek to control and reduce, the leader needs to counter this by taking a longer term view and ensuring those functions that are necessary for long-term (sustained) survival remain resourced and fully functional. They also need to be equipped and engaged to assist everyone else to generate new and improved ways of doing things to ensure both short and long-term sustainability.

There is an absolute need for both approaches using the windscreen and the rear-view, but but we tend to default to the rear-view all too often.

In an environment starved of resources simple reduction can be self-defeating. We can’t just stop, cut, reduce, save and speed things up. We need to be able to commit to designing entirely new means of developing more sustainable practices that include addressing our issues and creating new opportunities going forward.

When your Managers are faced with developing more sustainable practices, will their primary focus be the windscreen or the rear-view mirror?

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Thinking is invisible and none of the actions we undertake can ever take place without it, yet we don’t pay thinking the serious attention it requires. The quality of our performance is determined by the quality of our thinking.

Think Quick can help your organisation improve the quality of its thinking, and in doing so the quality of its performance.

We can help build your organisation’s ability to adapt and perform at their best in a world that is complex and shifting. Accelerating change is now the norm and the familiar ways of doing things are not always sufficient to address our current issues.

We require new thinking methods to develop improved service offerings, generate savings, increase revenue and ensure ongoing viability.

No business is easy these days. Increasing demand and shrinking budgets mean we must do more with less. If we are to continue to survive and thrive, our thinking must adapt to keep pace with the world around us. In addition to keeping pace we face the additional challenge of doing so in a sustainable manner.

At Think Quick we liken ourselves to river-navigators that help guide your people’s thinking “back upstream to the river’s source” where they can generate their own, improved downstream outcomes. This is done with a unique blend of methods to utilise and build upon the current knowledge and expertise of your people.

We focus on the practical application of the new and different thinking to current issues and on generating a return on investment to the client. Think Quick has three primary foci:

We will also assist in the design and implementation of projects where new perspectives, new insights and new ideas are required. These include Evaluations, Knowledge & Change Management, Strategy, Planning, and initiatives to positively impact Workplace Culture.

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