Who is this for?
Business professionals at all levels, including department managers and organizational leaders, project managers who lead complex projects, and sales and marketing team members who must respond to new competitive threats.
Benefits for you
- Learn professional problem-solving methods to creatively manage strategic dilemmas and crack everyday business problems
- Clearly define and frame organizational problems
- Apply critical thinking approaches to analyze issues and identify the best possible avenues for action
- Explore a design process for generating and implementing solutions
- Involve stakeholders and team members in becoming part of the solution
- Embed critical thinking as an integral aspect of collaborative culture
Program content
Individual Applications
- Re-framing issues into solutions-oriented problems
- Analyzing the problem space from a systems perspective
- Overcoming self-limiting thinking habits and adopting a critically constructive mindset
- Mental models that invite innovative approaches to problem solving
Organizational and Collaborative Applications
- Building generative critique and problem-solving skills in teams
- Using group critical thinking techniques to map a problem
- Avoiding “groupthink” and other barriers to effective team decision making
- Tools to use for time-bound problems
Critically Reflective Leadership
- Cultivating a critically reflective culture
- Engaging key stakeholders and team members
- Moving from stuck to unstuck, and bringing a team with you
Facilitated Problem-Solving Practice
- Tackling a problem collaboratively in a group
- Advancing from problem to solution using the tools you are learning
- Debrief: making meaning of the experience
Special features
This program features a practical, hands-on approach for solving problems in business contexts. Working in groups, you will learn how to re-frame issues as generative challenges, and move through a process for creating and implementing innovative solutions.
Program leader
Dr. Kari Marken
Faculty
Kari is a faculty member at the UBC Sauder School of Business, where she teaches courses in public speaking and communication. She also leads the creativity curriculum for Sauder’s graduate programs, highlighting critical thinking, innovating in teams and problem-solving processes. Her specific expertise is in the application of leadership presence and critical thinking to bring out the creative capacity in groups facing complex challenges. In addition to her academic work, she runs an educational design consultancy that helps organizations improve their learning and team-building strategies.