Get More Mileage from your Thinking Time
Jean Moroney, President of Thinking Directions, teaches managers and other professionals how to use targeted thinking to grapple with the pace and complexity of business.
Starting in 1998, she developed a unique, individualized method for teaching logical and psychological skills using individualized exercises. In 2004, she transformed the core concepts into a system of Thinking Tactics.
She has given all-day workshops on Thinking Tactics to dozens of corporate audiences at Microsoft, Amazon.com, BB&T, Canadian Bank Note, and Rogers Communications and to public audiences in New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Baltimore, Denver, and Seattle. She continues to develop individual exercises and advanced thinking techniques in the Thinking Tactics Mastery Program. And she does management consulting to help managers spread a culture of active thinking throughout their organizations.
Ms. Moroney has an MS in Psychology (Carnegie Mellon, 1994), a BS and an MS in Electrical Engineering (MIT, 1985 & 1986), and has completed a graduate training program in philosophy at the Ayn Rand Institute (1996).
She lives in New York City with her husband, Harry Binswanger.
A 6 1/2 hour course, taught in seminar and individual formats (2004-present). The objective of the course is to teach methods for monitoring one's cognitive progress and strategies for re-directing one's thought when something blocks that progress. It includes tactics for sustaining thinking despite four common problems: blankness, vagueness, overload, and floundering.
A 45-90 minute workshop, introducing one basic skill from "Tackling Hard Thinking."
A 6-unit course with homework, given by teleconference, 1998-2004. A condensation is a list of the main points and the theme of an article. Condensing helps one understand and retain the material and provides practice in formulating thoughts precisely.
An 8-unit course with homework given by teleconference, 1998-2004. A definition identifies the units of a concept by naming what is essential. Defining terms helps one master many basic thinking skills: concretizing, differentiating, identifying fundamentals, and condensing the essential into a succinct statement.
A 4-unit workshop given at the Second Renaissance Conferences, 2000. An example is a concrete, specific instance of an abstraction. Examples are crucial for eliminating vagueness. The method of concretizing helps one learn to use creative, compelling examples in explanations.
An individually-designed tutorial program given by telephone, 2001-2003, for anyone who was dissatisfied with some aspect of his thinking.
A 2-day seminar for executives, 2003. The goal of the seminar was to present the fundamental facts and methods of cognition, and show how to apply them to business thinking. Dr. Binswanger presented the theory. Ms. Moroney conducted workshops on specific skills, including concretizing, naming fundamentals, thinking on paper, and analyzing emotions.