Description: With the traditional argument or adversarial thinking each side takes a different position and then seeks to attack the other side. Each side seeks to prove that the other side is wrong. This is the type of thinking established by the Greek Gang of Three (Socrates, Plato and Aristotle) two thousand four hundred years ago.

Adversarial thinking completely lacks any constructive, creative or design element. It was intended only to discover the 'truth' not to build anything while artificially presenting the users interpretation of logical fact.

With “parallel thinking” all parties can think in parallel in the same direction. There is the ability to produce co-operative and coordinated thinking. The direction itself can be changed in order to give a full scan of the situation. But at every moment each thinker is thinking in parallel with all the other thinkers. There does not have to be agreement. Statements or thoughts which are indeed contradictory are not argued out but laid down in parallel.

In the final stage the thinking way forward is "designed" from the parallel thought which was created. The Edward de Bono Six Thinking Hats thinking tools are based upon 6 different metaphoric colored categories that explore a series of tools for new thinking. By mentally wearing and switching hats you can easily focus and redirect thoughts and conversation.

• The White Hat thinking focuses on data, facts, information that is known or the information that is needed to think completely about a subject.
• The Red Hat thinking focuses on feelings, hunches, your gut instinct and intuition.
• The Yellow Hat thinking focuses on values and benefits to understand why something may work.
• The Black Hat thinking focuses on difficulties including potential problems to understand why something may not work.
• The Green Hat thinking focuses on creativity including possibilities, alternatives, solutions and new ideas.
• The Blue Hat thinking focuses on the management of the thinking process to establish the thinking focus, next steps and action plans to continue thinking.
  

Target Audience: Members of management, individual contributors, suppliers and customers who want to benefit from approaching thinking as a skill. 

Organization Issues: What is needed today is a thinking tool that is current, collaborative and that can provide collective thought. The Six Hats method of thinking is a completely new and different way to provide your employees with thinking skills and tools that they can apply immediately! See results in days, or weeks, not months. By mentally wearing and switching “hats,” you can easily focus or redirect thoughts, the conversation, or the meeting. The difference between brilliant and mediocre teams isn’t so much in their collective mental capacity, but in how well they can tap into their collective wisdom and how well they function together.

Objectives: This interactive workshop will give you the chance to understand how to separate thinking into six distinct categories. Each category is identified with its own colored metaphorical “thinking hat” which will contrast traditional argument or adversarial thinking into parallel thinking.  

Cost: None

Handouts: Available for download at after the Forum

Website Material: www.rockypeaklc.com/hats.html

Biography: Dale S. Deardorff, DM, is a dynamic, energized leader known for his ability to change the way organizations think and act. A self-proclaimed leadership futurist and acknowledged authority on process and systemic innovation methods; he is a mentor and a catalyst of renewal to many forward thinking profit and non-profit organizations. Dale has a passion for imparting the values of goals of sustainability while balancing the social contradictions of ethics and personal choice.

Dr. Deardorff continues as an instructor for the Business and Management bachelor's program at DeVry and Keller Management schools. For over 10 years he has facilitated classes on Project Management and Human Resources & Communication in Project Management classes.

For over 14 years, he has run a consulting company that focuses on training and teaching "Thinking" tools for Innovation and Organizational performance. He is a prolific extroverted speaker, prominent facilitator, and pioneer in the development & integration between individual thinking preferences and team based performance outcomes. With over 30 years of previous professional experience as a project/program manager, a training consultant, a research and development director, an innovation and a change agent, Dale has often been called a renaissance man.

Dale has master's degrees in 2-dimensional design and engineering and a doctoral degree in organizational leadership. Dr. Deardorff completed 2 years in an Executive Jurist Doctorate program specializing in Intellectual Property, Trademark and Patent law. Dale is currently writing a manuscript on Think-tion® describing the process of integrating specific thinking steps into prescribed action statements.

His current efforts as the Executive Leadership & Innovation Consultant for the Rocky Peak Leadership Center will be to establish an integrated Innovation International research program using the © Innovation Cube and HBDI™ toolsets. Additionally he is focused on creating "Thinking" development programs for young adults. Dale is also responsible for promoting and overseeing strategic relationships with external entities including business, government and partner organizations. He develops and implements regional strategic and operation plans for the leadership team addressing: the mission, development issues, access, quality improvement, financial performance, market assessment/analysis, human resources and information management. He is currently working to bring industry thought leaders together with experts to seed innovation thinking and enable collaboration in design, technology, products, services and business models.

Website: www.rockypeaklc.com

Blog: www.rockypeaklc.com/blog/

Contact: Dale can be reached by e-mail at dale@rockypeaklc.com for additional information about this Pre-Conference session.

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/dalesdeardorff