1.5 - About University

6.3 Sorting out complex situations 176➥Deals with the multicausal nature of complex situations; their need to be brokeninto their constituent parts and then prioritized; and subsequently, how to planaction for highest-priority areas.6.4 Dealing verbally with complexity 179➥Provides an on-the-spot, effective questioning strategy for verbally sorting out complexsituations with others.6.5 Force-field analysis: Organizing and understanding complexity 183➥Helps leaders to analyze and act on problems that are difficult to measure, by comparingthe driving and restraining forces of leadership problems.6.6 Optimizing your thinking—A hat 6-pack 186➥Unscrambles thinking, surfaces hidden assumptions, keeps discussion from drifting,generates a wide range of innovative possibilities, and leads to better decisions andplans.6.7 Creativity and innovation: The leader’s role 189➥Provides overviews of some typical creativity tools, including their use and implementation6.8 Mind mapping: A breakthrough tool 193➥Promotes creative problem solving by helping participants to visualize data, seeinterrelationships among data elements, and look at new solutions.6.9 Brainstorming: Generating ideas quickly 196➥Describes a commonly used group process and innovation tool, usually used to generatea lot of ideas quickly.S ECTION 7—TOOLS FOR P ROBLEM S OLVING, DECISION M AKING, AND Q UALITY7.1 Reframing: Working the real problem 200➥Helps leaders put problems into a new frame to ensure that the time people spendsolving problems is well invested, and that their efforts are highly leveraged.7.2 A general problem-solving model for leaders 204➥Outlines a general problem-solving process that provides leaders with a way to dealwith problems, decisions, or concerns.7.3 Problem solving: A systematic approach to finding cause 207➥Describes a systematic process for getting at the most probable cause of a problembefore taking expensive and often misdirected action.7.4 Polarities: Dealing with intractable problems 212➥Provides a model for handling any situation in which two people or groups defendtwo ends of a spectrum in a mutually exclusive way.7.5 Decision making: Making decisions logical and defensible 215➥Describes a general-purpose decision-making tool that helps meets two criteria: (i)it’s logically defensible and (ii) it’s supported by key stakeholders.7.6 Potential problem analysis: Dealing with risk to a plan 219➥Shows how to protect any plan in a systemic way.7.7 Total quality leadership overview 223➥Provides an overview of some key quality tools and principles.A NNOTATED C ONTENTSxv