Analytical Thinking and Problem Solving

Get powerful skills to more successfully reason through business problems For the most part, daily business involves a set of problems, many of which are highly complex. In today’s lean, flat organizations, the ability for everyone to know how to solve these problems effectively is more critical than ever—but these skills don’t come easily to many people. This seminar shows you how to apply a proven analytical process to successfully solve a wide variety of business problems.

Problem solving is a complex cognitive function that involves deductive reasoning and drawing conclusions from givens. It also involves analytical reasoning—applying judgments to reach conclusions from a combination of evidence and assumptions. This course introduces you to the basics of convergent thinking and analytical reasoning, as well as standard problem-solving strategies. You’ll take the “My Thinking Styles” personal assessment to understand your individual problem-solving style and acumen. You will also discover how to negotiate when there is lack of clarity within a situation, how to navigate multiple and competing goals and how to work within multiple constraints. Get these essential problem-solving skills to give yourself a powerful competitive and career advantage.

Also Available as:

• Onsite

How You Will Benefit

• Learn a process for breaking down complex problems into components and gain clarity around possible solutions
• Apply strategies and techniques to avoid emotional triggers that can impede your best thinking
• Explore how to generate solutions to atypical problems and then test the solutions
• Know how to accurately interpret probability and other methods for increasing certainty in your judgment
• Learn strategies for negotiating among variables and conditions
• Recognize the difference between rationality of purpose and rationality of process

What You Will Cover

• Understanding how we think and reason
• Identifying underlying factors for why intelligent people do irrational things
• Using a 4-part model for effective reasoning
• Balancing multiple conditions impacting a business situation
• Comprehending the foundations of conditional logic (if x, then y) and disjunctive logic (x or y) and when to use them
• Identifying the barriers and challenges to effectively using different kinds of logic
• Exploring the difference between logical analysis and facts
• Exploring the three aspects of probability and their application in business
• Moving from pieces to big picture and creating/testing solutions
• Identifying common patterns to look for in data
• Comprehending the hypothetical method and its two stages: formation and testing
• Problem solving first steps: seeing patterns, abstracting to models and developing hypotheses
• Using data to form and test a hypothesis
• Beyond fundamentals—moving from analytical thinking to critical thinking
• Applying the four components of analytical reasoning to a real-life work situation
• Tying it all together and forming your action plan

Who Should Attend

Any individual who wants to be better equipped to face and solve today’s complex business problems, using a foundational process for reasoning and problem solving.