Without a good team, it's tough to solve business problems and take advantage of opportunties, so solid problem-solving skills really are key to any team's success, no matter what the landscape.
Our Problem Solving workshops identify teams' existing level of competence in terms of problem-solving, introduce new skills to take them to a higher level, and then give them an opportunity to apply and practice their new skills solving problems through sailing -- always a "parallel universe" to business!
Our approach to problem-solving is based on research conducted by Human Synergistics Center for Applied Research. We use their Synergistic Problem Solving Model, which emphasizes that effective solutions are made up of three key components: relevant skills and knowledge, rational skills, and processes.
First of all, teams must have the relevant skills and knowledge to apply to and solve a problem, but often this isn't the real issue for many high-level teams. Rather, the team's rational skills and processes tend to hobble their success, so we focus on those two areas. With a focus on rational skills and processes, we can help guide your team toward quality solution and sound interpersonal skills and processes, but also toward team acceptance of the solution; without acceptance, it's hard to optimize a team solution!
We have access to the complete range of individual and group assessment instruments to support your people’s growth and development, and depending upon your circumstances, we can focus on improving rational or interpersonal skills and processes to improve team problem solving. If you choose a longer workshop, we can help your team to improve both.
So what does sailing have to do with this? Well, it's the perfect environment to make a team work assess their relevant skills and develop a process. Usually we come up with a land-based simulation rooted in survival or another problem-solving situation, and then we debrief their results. Then the team hits the water in a more experiential model -- the best kind because it's so fun and engaging -- where team members apply and test their new skills in a set of sailing-related challenges, LIKE WHAT?
With a Problem Solving workshop, you can expect these results:
