Helping organizations and employees enhance innovative thinking and develop critical thinking skills so they can work more productively and effectively, and stay ahead of the curve in the workplace.
Click on each title to view details.
Delivered by David D. Knapp, PhD
Creativity is not something a person either has or doesn’t have. Nor is it synonymous with artistic abilities. The fact is that EVERYONE is creative – but not in the same way. Just as there are different types of intelligence (traditional IQ, emotional intelligence or EQ, and social intelligence or SI) there are multiple types of creativity. To that end, this highly interactive course will help participants discover, develop, and apply their individual creativity style in a variety of workplace settings.
Course Objectives
Upon completion of this program, participants will be able to:
- Understand creativity and the impact of creative talent differences
Leverage their individual creativity style strengths, while compensating for its associated weaknesses, as identified by the Breakthrough Creativity Profile
Practice effective brainstorming techniques - Apply the Five-Step Creative Problem-Solving Process
- Engage in more creative problems solving and decision making
Delivery
In-person for your organization’s group is preferred; assessment is available only as a paper document.
Suitable for:
Groups of 5 – 25 participants. Larger groups can be accommodated.
Length
Two hours, half day, or full day.
Assessments
Requires an assessment at an additional cost per participant.
Location
The training will be held at your site or a venue rented by your organization.
Delivered by David D. Knapp, PhD
Although most leaders recognize the importance of critical thinking, decision making, and problem solving, few have been formally trained in these skills. To that end, this highly interactive course teaches leaders effective decision-making and problem-solving techniques from a systems perspective – as well as providing the skills, tools, and strategies for thinking critically in the workplace.
Course Objectives
Upon completion of this program, participants will be able to:
- Understand the subtle, but important, differences between critical thinking, decision making, and problem solving
- Distinguish between the three types of problems and then apply the three different approaches to solving each type
Leverage their decision-making style’s strengths, while compensating for its associated weakness, as identified by the Measuring Decision Style Survey - Apply effective numerical decision-making techniques
- Engage in creative, systems-based approaches to decision making, problem solving, and strategic planning
Delivery
In-person or live webinar for your organization’s group.
Suitable for:
Groups of 5 – 25 participants. Larger groups can be accommodated.
Length
Two hours, half day, or full day.
Location
If delivered in person, the training will be held at your site or a venue rented by your organization.
Delivered by Sheng Huang, MBA
Are you curious about how to begin integrating generative AI into your organization’s business systems? Sheng Huang, a seasoned AI Strategist, helps organizations understand how it can be used to simplify processes, how to integrate it into the work environment, what GenAI tools are available, and other valuable insights that will help educate your employees on this ever-changing technology.
Upon completion of this workshop, participants will be able to:
- Be familiar with the many uses for GenAI
- Understand the benefits and the operational and development risks of integrating GenAI into an organization’s processes
- Develop clear strategies and realistic goals
- Select the right GenAI tool for their needs
- Understand what it looks like to manage the data
Delivery
In-person or live webinar for your organization’s group. If in person, Sheng requires travel from the San Francisco Bay Area.
Suitable for:
Groups of 5 – 25 participants. Larger groups can be accommodated.
Length
Two hours, half day, or full day.
Location
If delivered in person, the training will be held at your site or a venue rented by your organization.
Delivered by Elaine Appleton Grant
The podcast industry wasn’t even an industry a few years ago – it was this quirky, independent thing that hobbyists were doing. Now it’s a full-blown media industry that will soon be worth more than a billion dollars. What does it look like? What roles do various kinds of people and organizations play? Many companies who have a need to more effectively reach their audience are trying to figure out how podcasting fits into their plans. They know it’s important but they don’t understand the medium.
This interactive workshop, created especially for organizations that are ready to move forward with their own podcast program, helps communications departments and marketing teams get their podcast from idea to launch. Elaine guides participants through the steps and techniques necessary to create and operate a successful podcast campaign.
Delivery
In-person for your organization’s group.
Suitable for:
Groups of 5 – 25 participants. Larger groups can be accommodated.
Length
Two hours or half day.
Location
If delivered in person, the training will be held at your site or a venue rented by your organization.
Delivered by Sheng Huang, MBA
In today’s rapidly changing world, there is no such thing as “business as usual.” New services and products are coming to market all the time as novel technologies and platforms enable consumers to do more than ever before. But how to take advantage of this unprecedented rate of innovation is the million-dollar question. In this workshop, you’ll learn how to discover and test new business opportunities using lessons from the competitive Silicon Valley world, identify and prioritize your target market segments, and hire the right people to take your new products and services to market.
Course Objectives
Upon completion of this program, participants will be able to:
- Clarify and draft your new business’ value hypothesis
- Differentiate between “Biz Dev Ninjas” and “Sales Samurai” hires
- Identify, segment, and prioritize your target markets
- Communicate the organizational value propositions effectively to internal stakeholders
- Discover the right revenue model and set KPI’s (key performance indicators) to determine the success of the new business
- Determine the Minimum Viable feature set of your launch product and test customers’ willingness to pay
- Quickly answer the “must knows” of your prospective customers
- Set up market feedback loops and know when to scale your sales operations
Delivery
In-person or live webinar for your organization’s group. If in person, Sheng requires travel from the San Francisco Bay Area.
Suitable for:
Groups of 5 – 25 participants. Larger groups can be accommodated.
Length
Two hours or half day.
Location
If delivered in person, the training will be held at your site or a venue rented by your organization.
Delivered by Sheng Huang, MBA
In today’s rapidly changing world, new services and products are coming to market all the time as novel technologies and platforms enable consumers to do more than ever before. Mind Mapping is a powerful ally in new product development especially in the chaotic beginning stages of design. In this workshop, you will learn how to leverage this tool to create a blueprint of your new product to flush out your ideas and gather feedback from stakeholders and customers before spending a single minute on designing or coding the interface.
Course Objectives
Upon completion of this program, participants will be able to:
- Understand what Mind Mapping is and why it’s powerful for product design
- Use any digital Mind Mapping tool to quickly create a blueprint for your new product
- Flush out your ideas and learn about your target users
- Share your Mind Map to gather feedback from stakeholders and customers before spending time designing and building the product
- Hand off your Mind Map to a designer or engineer to create the product
Delivery
In-person or live webinar for your organization’s group. If in person, Sheng requires travel from the San Francisco Bay Area.
Suitable for:
Groups of 5 – 25 participants. Larger groups can be accommodated.
Length
Two hours, half day, or full day.
Location
If delivered in person, the training will be held at your site or a venue rented by your organization.
Delivered by Elaine Appleton Grant
As a journalist, Elaine has covered entrepreneurship and business for three decades. Over the last few years, she’s deeply studied corporate rivalries and the ways in which competition and cultural transformation demands constant innovation. Elaine provides real-life examples of the fundamental changes she is seeing in the workplace. Based on those lessons, she shows participants how to navigate the messy but exhilarating process of reinventing themselves. And she shows leaders how to help their employees and teammates do so as well. She draws on her experience hosting One More Shot, her own podcast program, to give participants proven strategies for overcoming challenging but predictable obstacles to change – whether it’s change they are seeking or change that is thrust upon them.
Delivery
In-person for your organization’s group.
Suitable for:
Groups of 5 – 25 participants. Larger groups can be accommodated.
Length
Two hours or half day.
Location
If delivered in person, the training will be held at your site or a venue rented by your organization.
Delivered by Sheng Huang, MBA
Mind Mapping is a powerful tool for organizing the chaos we face every day, allowing us to fully expand and analyze complexities without getting caught up in a forest of noise. Imagine capturing every detail during team syncs and sending out concrete action items to every stakeholder, drawing insightful solutions during client calls, and aligning everyone on product feature designs before writing a line of code.
Course Objectives
Upon completion of this program, participants will be able to:
- Differentiate between chaos and order states of projects
- Understand what Mind Mapping is and why it’s effective in bringing chaos into order states
- Have the tools to get started mapping
Better organize meetings, presentations, and projects and reduce the stress of new information and incoming chaos - Turn Mind Maps into output, such as daily to-do’s, meeting follow ups, and product design blueprints
Please be prepared to:
- Bring a sheet of printing sized paper or notebook and pen (erasable preferred but regular pen is fine)
- Engage with your fellow attendees as there will be a breakout session
- We will leave ample time at the end for answering your specific use case questions based on what you’re working on.
Delivery
In-person for your organization’s group is preferred; webinar breakout sessions could substitute if necessary. If in person, Sheng requires travel from the San Francisco Bay Area.
Suitable for:
Groups of 5 – 25 participants. Larger groups can be accommodated.
Length
Two hours, half day, or full day.
Location
If delivered in person, the training will be held at your site or a venue rented by your organization.
Delivered by Kelli Oberndorf, MHA, CPP, CPF
The 6 types of Working Genius is a new model that helps people discover their natural gifts and thrive in their work and life. When people are able to better understand the types of work that bring them more energy and fulfillment and avoid work that leads to frustration and failure, they can be more self-aware, more productive and more successful.
Working Genius identifies the six fundamental activities that are required for any type of work and provides a simple framework for how work gets done. Too many people feel frustrated, underutilized or misunderstood at work. Far too many teams experience failure, feel stuck or are confused because they don’t know how to tap into the people around them. Working Genius is changing the way people are thinking about their work and teams, and is leading to more dignified, fulfilled and successful work.
During this interactive session, participants will learn the 6 Types of Working Genius – Wonder, Discernment, Enablement, Invention, Galvanizing, and Tenacity – and discover their top 2 geniuses, 2 working frustrations, and 2 working competencies.
- Wonder – The natural gift of pondering the possibility of greater potential and opportunity in a given situation.
- Discernment – The natural gift of intuitively and instinctively evaluating ideas and situations.
- Enablement – The natural gift of providing encouragement and assistance for an idea or project.
- Invention – The natural gift of creating original and novel ideas and solutions.
- Galvanizing – The natural gift of rallying, inspiring and organizing others to take action.
- Tenacity – The natural gift of pushing projects or tasks to completion to achieve results.
Delivery
In-person or live webinar for your organization’s group.
Suitable for:
Groups of 5 – 25 participants. Larger groups can be accommodated.
Length
Half day.
Assessments
Requires an assessment at an additional cost per participant.
Location
If delivered in person, the training will be held at your site or a venue rented by your organization.