The Critical Thinking Toolkit: Spark Your Team's Creativity with 35 Problem Solving Activities

Critical thinking--the ability to approach a problem both analytically and creatively--is the bedrock of success for companies and their people. Fortunately, it’s a skill that can be learned. The Critical Thinking Toolkit gets employees thinking better and faster with training exercises that offer an invigorating departure from the everyday and the potential for big payoffs in the form of enhanced “on-your-feet” thinking, innovative problem-solving, and profitable idea generation from everyone on the team. Using hands-on activities and ready-to-use assessments, team members will learn how to challenge assumptions, brainstorm divergent ideas, and then pinpoint the ones that best benefit your organization. And they’ll learn to do it in a way that not only increases their work quality, but also their productivity. Unimaginative. Risk-adverse. Prone to groupthink. These are not just empty complaints about today’s employees. American businesses are suffering from systemic burnout resulting in a widespread lack of creativity. But this unimaginative thinking doesn’t need to plague your workplace. With The Critical Thinking Toolkit, you and your team have everything you need to think quickly, analytically, and creatively.

Table of Contents:
Preface Introduction Quick Thinking #1Attending to Attention #2Rhymed Reductions #3The Endless Question #4The Questionable Question #5The K-W-I-C Technique #6Juxtaposed Pairs #7Presidential Pursuits #8The Umbrage Not Taken #9Brainteasing/Brainsqueezing #10Perceptual Shifts #11Organizational Oxymorons #12Stratification Creative Thinking #13Particular Virtues #14Perspicacious Perspectives #15Turnarounds #16Left Is Right. So Is Right. #17Ms. Matches and Mr. Matches #18Cre8-Get N2It #19Thinking Outside the Locks #20Thinking Is an Art #21A Kin to Kinesthesia #22Low and High Logos #23Blues on Parade #24Scrambled Pegs Analytical Thinking #25Crisis Critiques #26Trend Spotters #27The Triple-A Approach #28A Foolery of Fun #29Patterned Organization #30Pro Con'D. #31Direct Responses #32In Your Sights #33Giving Problems a Why'd Berth #34Resource-Full #35Living Problems, Lively Solutions Appendixes Appendix A Test of Creativity: A Self-Assessment Exercise Appendix B Analytical Thinking Test: A Self-Assessment Exercise Appendix C Test of Creativity: Answer Sheet and Feedback Appendix D Analytical Thinking Test: Answer Sheet Bibliography Index

About the Author :
Marlene Caroselli (Rochester, NY) is the author of Leadership Skills for Managers, The Big Book of Meeting Games, Great Session Openers, Closers, and Energizers, and dozens of other books. She has trained employees and executives at organizations including Lockheed-Martin, Mobil, Eastman Kodak, Allied-Signal, and the Departments of Labor and Energy. She may be reached at mccpd@aol.com.