Strategic and Creative Thinking Skills

Overview

Higher performance, especially during times of uncertainty requires original thinking in order to innovate and take the strategic lead. This course is ideal for marketers aiming for success by significantly enhancing their ability to think strategically, create innovative ideas and get them implemented. Over 3,500 people have already gained original thinking skills from this accomplished author and practitioner.

Benefits to you and your organisation

This hands-on masterclass is designed to transfer executive level thinking and decision making skills to help you thrive under increasingly demanding and uncertain conditions. You will take back to your organisation the ability to develop a wider range of creative and strategic actionable options.

Organisations thrive or fail based on the quality, depth and breadth of their decision making especially during times of uncertainty and change. Get strategy, imagination and implementation right and success will follow. This workshop ensures your managers and executives are ready to deliver on these vital business success factors.

Who this course is for

People who want to improve their original thinking skills and their strategic level decision making abilities. It will be particularly useful for any manager making a transition from a tactical to a strategic role. Prior strategic planning experience is not required.

What you will learn

• Confidently generate pragmatic creative ideas and strategic choices on demand.
• Employ alternative thinking tools when faced with complex issues.
• Access to a variety of strategic templates.
• Turn your ideas into reality in the workplace.
• Understand strategic contexts and limitations of certainty.
• Understand how levels of certainty can motivate or hinder decision making
• Appreciate the value of ambiguity, uncertainty and error.
• Demonstrate your strategic awareness and your ideas longer term viability.
• Understand alternative perceptions and how people think.
• Gain insights into how understanding others can help you get things done.
• Deal with selected implementation issues.

Course content

• Strategic planning constructs, working models and templates.
• Appreciating different perceptions and beliefs.
• Breakthrough thinking - developing creative options exercises.
• Converting ideas into workable business or organisation wide strategies.
• How to strengthen a new idea.
• Limitations of logic and of creativity
• Assumptions creative development exercises.
• Certainty, uncertainty and timely decision making.
• Tapping into the power of concepts exercise.
• Dealing with complexity and ambiguity.
• Context tools and strategic planning.
• Personal and organisational success strategy.
• How do you get things done?
• Peer group clinic.

Learning approach

This workshop is highly interactive. All learning is activity-led, and is underpinned by tried and tested models and theory. Exercises and concepts are based on real commercial situations. Delegates can try out smart new original and strategic thinking tools in a safe, experimental environment and can begin to address their real-life business issues within a knowledgable peer group.

Your course director

Stephen Reid delivers bespoke innovation, leadership and strategy work with large international organisations. Stephen has lived and worked in several countries and ran successful operations to Managing Director level.