215 - Thinking Tools: Unlocking Companies’ Potential with Stefan Fothe

Organisations will go to great lengths to create style guides, knowledge hubs, and team guides… so why aren’t they doing the same for problem-solving?

Stefan Fothe believes organisations should be prioritising ‘thinking tools’ — a set of codes, methods, and skills that are shared among groups to problem-solve and ideate with autonomy and ease.

Just as we develop shared technical languages and social hierarchies, we can surely add thinking tools to the mix! Learn how Stefan developed this important theory, why we need to lean into tension, and how you can prioritise thinking tools in your work with this episode.

Find out about:

• What thinking tools are - with practical examples - and how they help groups solve problems
• Why companies are held back by not having a shared problem-solving methodology
• Why solutions have to be engineered from within, rather than presented by consultants
• When to ask questions and when to provide suggestions — and how this can reduce overload
• What happens when we treat tension as a valuable commodity, rather than a problem
• Why consultants are storytellers and what everyone can learn from this approach
• How to take ownership of tension and use it, constructively, to the company’s advantage

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Links

Stefan’s website https://ownity.com.au/

Stefan’s short video on one Thinking Tool example

Connect to Stefan:

On LinkedIn

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👉 What happens when being “professional” gets in the way of being human? My new podcast Unprofessionalism explores the rules we’re taught to follow at work, and what happens when we break them. Listen here: https://unprofessionalism.buzzsprout.com/  👈