Development of a Thought-filled Workplace

Globalization and the growing telecommunications revolution are changing the nature of how we work. The rapidity of this change is creating a gap between what workers know now and what they will need to know to be productive in the near future. No longer is it sufficient for a worker to possess a fixed set of skills; workers need to be able to adapt their skills to new and different situations. They need to be lifelong learners; not just by acquiring new factual knowledge but by incorporating their know-how with an ability to modify skills to meet new challenges. This requires new attitudes and new ways of thinking. This type of transformation of workers from “routine expertise” to “adaptive expertise” is difficult. Organizations and employers who provide for these changes can enhance the efficiency of their workforce.

The modern view of Human Intelligence emphasizes that it is not a static capacity, limited by a single number, the IQ, but that it is dynamic and capable of change. Individuals can learn think more effectively, to solve problems creatively and to interact in groups with increased productivity. Employees trained to actively think about their own thinking can transform a job site into a thought filled workplace.

Our program will lead employees to:

1) Understand their brain and how it functions

Understand the growth model of the brain vs. fixed mind model

Understanding “How People Learn” involves three important skills

a) Understanding and dealing with prior knowledge

b) Understanding how knowledge is organized in the brain

c) Thinking about your own thinking

2) Develop Their Individual Thinking Skills

Techniques to liberate workers from dominant thought patterns

Learn procedures and strategies for creative problem solving

Learn to use non-linguistic representations and graphic organizers

Distinguish routine expertise and adaptive expertise

3) Understand How to Deal with Other Employees Productively

Listening with empathy and understanding

Thinking and communication with clarity and precision

Questioning and posing problems

4) Work Productively in Teams

Working interdependently

Understanding the roles of team members

Appreciating diversity and its contribution to problem solving

Our work is based on recent research on the brain and how it functions and adaptations of this knowledge by educators and cognitive scientists.