Creative Thinking and Problem Solving
Creative thinking is the new essential leadership competency (IBM 2011). And according to the Institute of the Future (Phoenix University) creative thinking will be number 3 on the list of workplace skills. Yet there is currently a huge skills gap in this area in most organisations. How does yours measure up?
Dr. Irena is a genuine expert in this field with a PhD in complex problem-solving for creative outcomes. Work with her to liberate the creativity within your people to ensure a future-ready organisation.
Program
Solution Centred Teams
Escape Default Thinking, Boring Results And Poor Teamwork. Multiply Your Team’s Creative Output, Collaboration And Solution Quality. [read more]
Keynotes
From Wow To Kapow
How can we keep our thinking fresh and creative in the face of heavy workloads, time constraints and entrenched practices? [read more]
Solution Centred Teams: Key To The Productive Workplace
Understanding our creative thinking preferences is an essential first step to enhancing innovative outcomes, productive work relationships and team effectiveness. [read more]
Workshops
Beyond Boundaries: Creativity For Real-World Success
Creativity is the new core leadership skill. By 2020 creativity will be number three on the list of top 10 workplace skills. However research shows that most organisations have a skills gap in this area. Fortunately creativity can be learnt and nurtured. We are all capable of creativity!
In this workshop discover how to access, apply and leverage your vast store of knowledge, understanding and wisdom to produce creative outcomes. [read more]
Feeding Innovation With Solution-Centred Teams
This workshop develops creative teams who can celebrate their diversity and capitalise on their mix of creative thinking styles. [read more]
Solution Centred Teams Program
Escape Default Thinking, Boring Results And Poor Teamwork. Multiply Your Team’s Creative Output, Collaboration And Solution Quality.
Organisations today are desperately seeking teams that can solve challenges more creatively and collaboratively, that avoid default solutions and deliver better outcomes – faster. Organisations NEED to develop and better utilise the creativity, expertise and talent of their people if they want to achieve their organisational goals in the Innovation Age.
This program is for organisations that want teams who can:
- Come up with SOLUTIONS rather than problems?
- Function more cohesively by understanding and capitalising on their mix of creative problem-solving styles?
- Identify skill gaps so they can address them to increase productivity?
- Confidently collaborate and problem-solve together?
- Use creative thinking tools to boost performance and innovation?
- Harness their inherent creative talent to produce more innovative outcomes?
- Perform at the highest levels by proactively seeking and delivering fresh thinking and better solutions?
The Solution-Centred Teams Program is a comprehensive package of education, on-line resources, psychometric assessment, tools and practical application. It is based on cutting edge content and original research from Dr Irena’s areas of expertise in cognition and complex, creative problem-solving.
The program facilitates Clarity, Creativity and Collaboration within teams over a 3-4 month period using authentic problems and challenges.
Clarity – Team members use Dr. Irena’s unique, psychometric tool to identify their creative problem-solving preferences.
Creativity – All team members design a plan to capitalise on and develop their personal creativity using the resources provided.
Collaboration – The team learns how to leverage their inherent diversity to collaborate and problem-solve more creatively.
You will love this program if you have ever:
- Participated in a failed or frustrating brainstorming session dreaming you were somewhere else.
- Been frustrated by the amount of time and effort wasted in unproductive meetings that don’t deliver outcomes.
- Longed to break out of the ‘same old…..same old’ approaches to solving increasingly complex workplace problems.
- Wanted to understand the creative problem-solving process and become confident using it.
- Wondered what planet your co-workers live on because their thinking style and approach to solving problems is so different to yours.
- Felt like the ‘deer caught in the headlights’ when you’ve been asked to come up with an ‘innovative solution’ to a workplace challenge.
- Thought that you and your team were capable of so much more creativity if only you had some useful tools to help you tap into it.
- Aspired to go from WOW to KAPOW with your and your team’s organisational impact.
- Wanted to harness the creative talent that resides within your team/teams to produce more innovative outcomes.
- Wanted your team to work together more collaboratively.
- Wanted to have more FUN at work while getting better team outcomes.
Download the White Paper
Train your leaders to deliver the program!
There are different ways of engaging with this program.
- I can personally deliver it for your teams
- I can train your leaders so that they can implement the program with their teams. If you have a number of teams that would benefit from participating, then this will be a more cost effective approach. It also has the added advantage of providing additional development for your team leaders.
The leaders training package includes an additional suite of supporting on-line resources to assist and empower leaders in the process of implementing the program with their teams. These include:
- Training videos
- Reproducible resources and templates
- PowerPoint slides with scripts for leaders to use with teams.
An organisation where all teams are leveraging their inherent talents will amplify their success.
What Others Are Saying
“The StrateGEE® psychometric tool was an excellent individual and team based assessment model. It was quick to implement, easy to understand and has provided significant insight for my team, not only as individuals, but also in identifying team gaps and areas for development. In only one hour I knew individual and our team’s creative problem-solving preferences. Within two hours the team was looking at strategies to develop into areas they are less comfortable in. These developments were incorporated into their individual performance appraisals and will be recalled when forming project teams.”
C. Jackson. Deputy Director. Institute of Social Science Research. University of Queensland.
“The tool is easy to apply and not intimidating. Leaders can easily understand it and relate it to their teams.”
Danielle Anderson. Executive Director. DSITI.
“One of the key wisdoms from the Ancient Greeks is to “know thyself”. To truly know yourself and identify your strengths and weaknesses is incredibly powerful. Dr. Irena’s model and process does just that. It is a simple and structured method that brings self-awareness about the type of ‘creative problem-solver’ you are and what traits typically represent you. Most importantly, it is adaptive and doesn’t ‘pigeon-hole’ you, but rather gives insight into how you can evolve your thinking. It then goes a step further to help you develop and capitalize on that. With this important knowledge, you can get the best out of your team, your peers and yourself.”
S. Duke, Senior Manager Sustainability. North Queensland Bulk Port Corporation.
“Irena’s program has provided increased knowledge for our team, built their skill and also their confidence to challenge their perceptions and change their behaviour. She has an ability to relate to and engage with everyone in the group when presenting, bringing in everyone’s contribution. I am already seeing great results in altered thinking, and application of the learnings. Thank you Irena for your contribution in helping our leadership team master collaboration for dynamic business outcomes.”
Sandra Gillanders. CEO. Hy-Performance Fluid Power Pty Ltd.
“StrateGEE® is a very useful tool to help facilitate the development of high performing teams.”
R. Gibb. Account Manager. DSITI.
“I love the concept of a simple, no frills, easy-to-use tool that helps me understand the rest of the world. Now I know to allow space for others to offer ideas and how to encourage others to follow my lead without overpowering them.”
P. Burgmann. Project Manager. DSITI.
“I have done a lot of programs in my career and have found this to be one of the most useful. Irena’s training was snappy and well run. And the tool is easy to use and implement in the business.”
Sarah Vandersee. Director Advisory Services. QSS. DSITI.
“The StrateGEE® psychometric tool was a great introduction for helping us to understand our thinking styles. It is useful for team building exercises and a lot of FUN.”
Brendan Moffat Change Manager Department of Natural Resources and Mines
Keynotes
“From Wow to Kapow: How to Turbo-Charge Your Creative Thinking!”
How can we keep our thinking fresh and creative in the face of heavy workloads, time constraints and entrenched practices? How do we avoid the lure of established systems that we know work – in favour of new and innovative solutions that may fail? How do we creatively use our vast database of knowledge to solve complex workplace problems? Find out in this compelling keynote.
Creativity has emerged as the new core leadership competency but in most organisations there is a huge skills gap in this area. Discover some simple principles and tools that can close the gap and help to shift your thinking into high gear.
Key ‘Take-Aways’ From This Presentation
- Why creativity has become the new core leadership competency.
- Simple tools for kick starting and firing up your creative thinking.
- Escaping the shackles of ‘business as usual’ thinking to see and solve problems differently. • Understand the creative process.
- How to take a whole brain approach to complex problem-solving and effective decision making.
- Confidence in your creative abilities and how to further develop and celebrate your essential creativity.
“Irena is a wonderful and inspiring speaker! I was so entertained that I hardly realised I was being educated.”
R. Sidwell, TAFE SA.
“Excellent, motivating, interesting. Challenged our paradigms!”
J. Swanton, Centrelink Manager
“Very enlightening, fast paced and entertaining. Great use of time!”
T. Sutton, Southern Queensland Institute of TAFE
Solution Centred Teams: Key To The Productive Workplace
Understanding our creative thinking preferences is an essential first step to enhancing innovative outcomes, productive work relationships and team effectiveness.
Because different creative thinking styles have different approaches to problem solving and decision making, these differences among people can sometimes be the source of conflict if not understood. Such conflicts can lead to reduced productivity and less than excellent outcomes on projects requiring creative thinking. Understanding these differences and how they complement each other, can significantly improve a team’s productivity and innovation capability.
In this entertaining and informative keynote Dr. Irena shares her original and ground-breaking method for understanding different approaches to creative thinking, problem-solving and decision-making. Use this valuable knowledge to make you team more innovative and productive.
Key ‘Take-Aways’ From This Presentation
- Understand the four different creative thinking styles and their characteristics.
- How to identify your style and those of your team members.
- Essential insights for leaders in how to lead different thinking styles • What drives thinking and behaviour within each creative thinking style and how to leverage that.
- How to use this insight to develop both individual and team aptitude for creative thinking.
Workshops
Beyond Boundaries: Creativity For Real-World Success
Creativity is the new core leadership skill. By 2020 creativity will be number three on the list of top 10 workplace skills. However research shows that most organisations have a skills gap in this area. Fortunately creativity can be learnt and nurtured. We are all capable of creativity!
In this workshop discover how to access, apply and leverage your vast store of knowledge, understanding and wisdom to produce creative outcomes. Creativity is NOT the exclusive domain of the lone genius creating the next breakthrough idea. It is an everyday skill that can be developed and harnessed. It is the simple act of thinking about things in new ways to come up with fresh ideas that depart from established practices to add value.
Dr. Irena teaches a simple but powerful methodology for understanding, developing and utilising your creativity. Based on her ground breaking research into creative problem-solving she shares her Meta-Tool called StrateGEE®. Using StrateGEE® you will be able to generate, explore and implement your creative ideas more effectively. You will also discover your creative thinking style preference, how that influences your decision making and how you can use this knowledge to produce richer, deeper more innovative solutions.
Who should attend?
Anyone who wants to:
- Develop their creative thinking skills
- Understand their creativity and how to enhance it
- Learn some easy to use methodologies to unleash their creative problem-solving ability to deliver original solutions – faster.
Key ‘Take-Aways’ From This Workshop
- Insights into how creativity works
- A clear plan for individual creative development.
- A deep understanding of how you approach the creative problem solving process.
- How to work with others to leverage creative thinking.
- How to achieve more creative outcomes faster – and have fun in the process.
- The four different kinds of thinking that collectively produce creative outcomes and how to leverage them.
- What we can do on a daily basis to avoid default thinking and unleash new ideas.
- Practical tools and approaches to support creative problem-solving and how to use them effectively.
Feeding Innovation with Solution-Centred Teams
This workshop develops creative teams who can celebrate their diversity and capitalise on their mix of creative thinking styles. In a world where creativity has become a core skill it is imperative that people understand their own approaches to creative thinking and how to work with people who have different styles.
Who should attend?
- Leadership teams
- Project teams
- Departmental teams
- Self-managed teams
- Functional teams
- Cross-functional teams
- Virtual teams
Key ‘Take-Aways’ From This Workshop
- Questionnaire that identifies each person’s creative thinking style with accompanying individualised graph.
- Clear plan for developing and extending individual and team creativity.
- Report and reference guide that explains each style.
- Understanding what drives decision-making and behaviour when solving problems for creative and innovative outcomes.
- How to harness the creative talent that resides within the team in the service of innovation.
- Identification of skill clusters as well as gaps within team profiles and how to manage the profile.
- How to use this knowledge and insight to inform PDPs, Performance Appraisals and project team constituency.
“I enjoyed the workshop as it not only brought out my own creativity but generated new thinking skills in dealing with challenges that I face in my life and work.”
Dr J. D’Souza, Principal, School of Social Work, Mangalore (India)
“Irena your workshop was exceptional! I felt motivated and inspired and my dormant creativity seemed to jump to attention. You have an amazing delivery that is inclusive, informative, consultative and challenging.”
A. Walker, Dispute Resolution Centre, Cairns
“Irena is a very professional and engaging speaker and workshop presenter, who brings true value and deep knowledge into her presentations. Irena has a warmth and friendliness that radiates out, such that when a group of strangers in a workshop come together they feel comfortable to interact and participate. This is a rare quality in a presenter. Irena clearly has a passion for bringing innovation and creativity into businesses. She has good analytical skills to assess company positioning and the areas requiring improvement.”
S.Tannock, Chief Engineer, Algal Bioreactor Technology, University of Queensland
“Effective creative problem-solving is so important today for any business or work area whether they see themselves as being “creative” or not. Being able to think outside the square and to bring innovative perspectives to challenges can make the difference between average performance and admired success. During our “Thinking Beyond Boundaries” workshop, Irena was able to share many useful tips and techniques in an engaging, thought-provoking and fun way. She created a safe environment where attendees felt supported and their ideas valued. She was also able to relate to a variety of learning styles and kept her audience engaged throughout. Irena succeeded in conveying quite complex theory in an accessible and understandable way, providing attendees with a considerable array of creative-thinking tools. The proof in the pudding was to actually use the creative problem-solving theory in practice with real “too hard basket” examples from our work-place. The idea generation which occurred was quite powerful and energising. There were members of my staff who would not normally have seen themselves as being creative or having opportunities to contribute creative thinking to the workplace who now feel more empowered and able to do so. Thank you Irena!”
J. Slattery, Redland City Library Service