Edward de Bono's Lateral Thinking - Business Creativity and Innovation Workshop

Empower your people to challenge current thinking, solve problems and generate new ideas with Edward de Bono’s business creativity and innovation workshop.

This is Edward de Bono's internationally acclaimed business creativity and innovation workshop. Creative and innovative thinking is a skill that can be learned; resulting in increased productivity, competitive advantage and profit. Creativity is not just about creating something new, it's a very important tool that helps to define and improve processes and products. This workshop provides tools and techniques that ensure you can:

• Challenge current thinking.
• Problem solve effectively and efficiently.
• Generate innovative ideas with a creative thinking toolkit.

Indigo is an authorised distributor and training provider for Edward de Bono Ltd.

• Lateral Thinking workshop brochure - > download

What's it all about?

The challenge - With the ever increasing pressure to provide added value in everything we do, it has become a necessity for managers and staff to be consistently innovative if modern organisations are to survive.

In an increasingly competitive world, traditional methods of problem solving can only take us so far. We need to go beyond problem-solving to generate new concepts and new ways of doing things. Indeed, we must learn to do so ‘on-demand', instead of just hoping we will somehow stumble on an innovative idea.

How this workshop will help - Lateral Thinking is a systematic approach to the creative thinking process. Delegates learn to use deliberate techniques to stimulate creativity and, as a result, gain competitive advantage.

What will you get out of it?

Lateral Thinking will equip you with solid, practical methods for challenging current thinking:

• You’ll find out how to harness your own creativity so that it can work for you, when you need it.
• You’ll learn to solve problems and generate new ideas to meet the challenges of the modern business environment.
• You’ll leave with skills that you have practised and can apply immediately on return to your workplace.

What will your organisation get out of it?

Dr de Bono’s Lateral Thinking methods provide a deliberate, systematic process that will result in innovative thinking by anyone who takes the time to learn and practise the skills. You will learn how to:

• Attack problems with more/better ideas for immediate results.
• Increase your number of new and practical ideas dramatically.
• Challenge your organisation’s current thinking (constructively).
• Find alternative solutions.
• Turn problems into opportunities.

Indigo is an authorised distributor and training provider for Edward de Bono Ltd. – every workshop is delivered by an accredited trainer, so you are guaranteed maximum return on your training investment.

Typical workshop content

The Need for Creative Thinking

• The limits of logical thinking.
• Why creative thinking is a learnable set of skills.

The Lateral Thinking Techniques

• Alternatives - How to use ‘concepts’ as a breeding ground for new ideas.
• Focus - The discipline of defining your focus from the outset, and sticking to it. How to generate and use a 'creative hit list'.
• Challenge - Breaking free from the limits of the accepted ways of operating.
• Random entry - Using unconnected input to open up new lines of thinking.
• Provocation and movement - Explore the nature of perception and how it limits our creativity. Provocation techniques are designed to challenge these limitations. Movement is a new mental operation that we can use as an alternative to judgement. It allows us to develop a provocative idea into one that is workable and realistic.

Implementation of Ideas

• Harvesting - At the end of a creative thinking session, we normally only take note of the specific ideas that seem practical and have obvious value. We need to make a deliberate harvesting effort to collect ideas and concepts that are less well developed.
• Treatment of ideas - How to develop ideas and shape them towards their practical application in your business.

Creativity is something that everyone, no matter what role or level, can be a part of and contribute too. Successful organisations ensure that creative teams are made up of a diverse range of people. This workshop is designed for all executives, managers, professionals and advisors who are concerned with making their organisation more innovative in the face of growing competition, and the emergence of new business models.

Lateral Thinking for individuals – Empowers and maximises your ability to generate ideas and problem solve, invaluable to any organisation. The tools and techniques you’ll develop can be deployed across a wide range of business and personal challenges, so you can make a real difference.

Lateral Thinking for managers - Creativity and problem solving are 21st-century managements skills, so is the ability to support the capability of people through empowerment. We often develop groups of managers from one company through our in-house training option. This develops a network that is focused on changing the processes and mindset of the organisation, and the implementation of the techniques when they return to the workplace. Innovation is not necessarily about making new stuff – it’s about innovating to improve processes that already exist.

Lateral Thinking for senior managers and leaders – Creativity is at the top of the leadership agenda, according to a study by IBM. Be seen to take ownership of leading innovation, walking the talk and understanding how your organisation works. Leaders use creativity to intellectually challenge and generate ideas from across the business and multiple disciplines, encouraging and enabling collaboration and a more engaged workforce.

There are no pre-requisites.

Continuous Professional Development (CPD)

Lateral Thinking can count towards your CPD recognition with leading professional bodies and trade organisations. You can normally record your attendance in the 'organised learning' or 'self-learning' sections. Please check with your membership organisation for more information.

Certificate of completion

Digital certificate - Included