Reader

The last issue of MindPrep had the initial announcement for my 2024 experiment, MindPrep Navigator, and a short list of the topics and dates for a new offering, Directed Dialogues.

Here’s a bit more information regarding Directed Dialogues.

Premises

• Covid-19 forced many of us to work from home, alone.
• Webinars are often too long and often a boring broadcast.
• The world of work is changing faster than we want.
• We are responsible for our professional development, but we are busy.
• Thinking is an essential skill and skills only improve with guided practice.
• I’m smart. You’re smart. But together we are smarter than either of us.

Conclusion

We can and should help each other improve our (business) thinking skills.

The experiment

I want to see if we can build a small community of people who’d like to meet monthly for learning and improvement of thinking skills focused on mutually interesting topics. I’ve proposed topics for the first three months and will ask for subsequent ideas.

Maybe this is valuable and appealing to you or maybe not. I’ll find out each month. If I’m alone in the Zoom-room, I’ll know for sure.

• Fee – nothing
• Registration – not needed. I’ll send a Zoom link and you can put it in your calendar.
• Expectation of you – show up if interested in the topic, ask questions, engage in some “give & take,” and suggest topics for future discussion.

The first three months

Third Thursday of every month. 12:00 – 12:40 CT. A forty-minute mix of presentation and discussion.

The Zoom link is https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84381397493. No password, just a “waiting room.”

The topics for the first three months are:

January 18 – Crossing the River of Time.

We often think and write about “the” past, or “the” future as a set fixture. But time is not static; it flows minute-by-minute, day-by-day, and week-by-week. Time is a river. Today is yesterday’s tomorrow and the past is always influencing today.

Time flows and you change.

Think of this in the context of a person is who trying to cross the river of time from the “as-is” shore of today to the “to-be” shore of tomorrow. The two banks are separated by time. And, like the river you are trying to cross, conditions vary and can change rapidly. The river of time could be:

• Calm or swift
• Shallow or deep
• Clear or muddy
• Cold or temperate
• Sandy or rocky
• Safe or toxic
• Wide or narrow

All of us must cross this river. Let’s discuss crossing the river.

February 15– Five Required Thinking Disciplines.

All of us think, but some of us are much more effective than others. Also, over the past fifty years or so, specific thinking disciplines have been developed to deal with the challenges and vagaries of technology, globalization, and world events. Use the right tools for the jobs facing you and your organization.

We will discuss the essentials of:

• Systems thinking
• Critical thinking
• Design thinking
• Future thinking
• Skepticism

Where do you see the need to be skeptical?

March 21– Sometimes You Just Need to Think Like Someone Else.

False news! Fake news! Opinion! Celebrity as expert! Forget science! Here’s the latest conspiracy news! Journalists lie! Politicians lie! “I read it on the internet!” “That’s just spin!” China (or Russia) (or Iran) is hacking our news and …….

Yowzah! Finding the truth used to be easy. No longer.

So, for the sake of public welfare I’d like to offer some suggestions to make your work easier. Or, if not easier, maybe a bit more organized.

We’ll discuss how real people doing practical things find “the truth.”

You might want to think like …..

• A research librarian
• A criminal detective
• An historian
• A medical diagnostician
• An art detective
• And other real people.

Third Thursday of every month. 12:00 – 12:40 CT. A forty-minute mix of presentation and discussion.

The Zoom link is https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84381397493. No password, just a “waiting room.”

Come join me and let’s talk.

Bill