Wise Thinking Skills
Course Outline
Course Overview
As people working in organizations rise through the managerial ranks, the less important specialized knowledge is, and the more important wisdom becomes in order to guide knowledge workers. This course will share an approach to wiser thinking for those who need to lead themselves, teams and organizations towards a more desirable, sustainable future based the common good of humankind and the earth.
The course features The Balanced Tripod of Wise Thinking, an array of thinking skills in three categories: creative, critical and normative. These can be used by organizations for problem-solving, strategy formulation and innovation. In addition, transdisciplinary analogy (TDA), a methodology developed by this company’s founder, is introduced both as a creative thinking technique and as a tool for wisdom development. The goal is to develop a “professional generalist” mentality and skills that will allow one to understand and utilize concepts from any one field of human endeavor and apply them to any other for the purpose of both problem-solving and innovation.
Who Should Take This Course
- Individual contributors or managers wanting to explore new, integrative thinking skills
- Individual contributors or managers who want to balance both their creative and critical thinking skills and develop optimal solutions for all stakeholders
- Individual contributors or managers who want to create new products, services or businesses in ways that best serve the common good of humankind and the earth
- Managers or leaders of specialized functions or departments who want to effectively lead across different functions or disciplines of the organization
- Leaders or team members of transdisciplinary projects in research, business or government
- Human resource development professionals wanting to improve employees’ integrative thinking skills
Why You Should Take This Course
- Power up your array of thinking skills for both yourself and your team to use in problem-solving and innovation for your organization.
- Balance and guide your thinking to develop wise solutions and innovate optimally for the common good
- Understand what wisdom is and how you can develop your own personal wisdom
- Practice applying your unique talents and knowledge to any other, seemingly unrelated fields to solve problems and innovate
- Develop skills and confidence as a “professional generalist” even if your current role within your organization is that of a specialist
- Get a Certificate in Wise Thinking Skills upon completion of course
What You Will Cover
The Goal of Wise Thinking
Overview of Wisdom
- Overview of Wisdom
- Thinking Styles and Global Differences
- Highlights of Wisdom Research
- Practical versus Intellectual wisdom
The Balanced Tripod of Wise Thinking
- Creative thinking approaches
(what could we do?)
Checklists, Force-Fit, Metaphors and Analogies - Critical thinking approaches
(how can we improve these options?)
Logic trees, PPMI, Evaluation Matrices - Normative thinking approaches
(what should we do?)
Inside thinking: mission, vision, strategic alignment
Outside thinking: common good, social responsibility, sustainability, ethics
Developing Personal Wisdom
- Developing Yourself as a Professional Generalist
Facilitating the Wisdom of the Team and the Organization
The Role of the Chief Philosophical Officer
Personal Action Plan
How You Will Learn
- This course may be delivered in face-to-face, live online, hybrid and on-demand video formats with customized content and schedules to fit organizational needs.
- Specific areas or skills can be prioritized or added by the customer for more in-depth focus.
- Throughout the course the instructor provides easy-to-understand examples for each tool and ample tips on how to facilitate teams using these tools.
- The course includes extensive group practice on live problems and mini case studies using the tools introduced, with extensive instructor and peer feedback.
- The course can be delivered in English, Japanese or Portuguese.
- For live online and hybrid courses, the Miro online whiteboarding platform is used with custom templates in conjunction with Zoom (or other client-designated video conferencing platform).
- The course may be enhanced by including additional tools or further modules, for example:
- Creative problem-solving tools
- Multicultural teamwork
- Customer insight
About the Instructor
Henry Andersen is a former Professor of Global Management for the MBA program at Meiji University, one of the top universities in Japan. He now teaches, though his own company TDA Associates based in the US, courses in creative problem solving, multicultural teamwork, customer insight, wise thinking skills and global wisdom leadership.
As a consultant he has helped build the innovation capabilities of organizations like Coca-Cola, Unilever, Nestle, Philips, Pfizer, the US Navy, Mazda, Mitsubishi, Toshiba, Kirin and Sumitomo on four continents.
Prior to academia and consulting, he was an international marketing, strategy and innovation executive working for companies like Sony Pictures, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Scott Paper (now part of Kimberly-Clark) while based in the US, Japan, Brazil, the UK and Holland.
He has a BA in Japanese from Harvard, an MS in Journalism from Columbia University and an MBA in marketing from INSEAD in France.
Andersen developed his own creative thinking methodology called transdisciplinary analogy (TDA) while working at Mitsubishi to help them solve both technical and marketing challenges they faced. Later he applied TDA to develop wiser thinking skills for his students and workshop participants. His methodologies have been featured in the international business press, academic publications, and in a number of books on creativity and innovation published in over six languages.