Pandemic Resiliency:
Innovating a Successful Future
What: 8-week online course (approximately 16 hours of guidance and planning)
Who: 8-12 participants (Leaders, Key Contributors, Intact Teams)
Cost: $3,500 + materials* (Normal cost is $12,000/class. Pandemic discount applied at purchase.)
When: Purchase and register before July 1st, 2020 (class start dates TBD)
Note: This price offering is only available to the first 8 teams or organizations to sign up. Start date to be determined by your organizational need. We’ll make it work, together.
* Cost of materials: $65/person
Why now?
Some will thrive in these times. Some will succumb – to illness, bankruptcy, despair, misinformation, and business pressures. Time and again, those who “beat the odds” do so with creativity, tenacity, and a belief in the possible.
This course will strengthen every skill you and those around you need as you move through the pandemic-related disruptions that have occurred, and will continue to occur.
You’ll learn and strengthen your use of creative thinking and the creative process. You’ll be guided to a mature understanding of the challenges ahead – for you, your organization and your family – and then build a resiliency plan that you will actually use.
A plan that moves beyond just hope & cope (or complain and blame) to prepare and thrive. No matter what comes at us next in this challenge.
At times, the barriers to wise action in the COVID-19 pandemic can feel almost insurmountable. Who to believe? How bad will it get? How long will it last? How much economic disruption should we plan for? Recession? Recovery that is V shaped? A depression?
There is no better process for taking all of this variability into account than Creative Problem Solving (CPS). There is no better leader to guide you through that process than Bob Eckert.
“In this current crisis, those who have followed his guidance are glad for having done so. His hard won experience in these three competencies – public health, human psychology, and creative problem solving facilitation – have paid off for us all. Wear your mask!” Mim Millar, RN, Infection Preventionist
Overview
The course is a blended 8-week online program. A mix of engaging, highly produced video lessons, virtual instructor-based meetings with Bob Eckert, and focused partner work. The accelerated learning design provides participants with a range of creative problem solving tools, techniques and a framework in which to apply them. Participants accomplish real work by applying their newly enhanced innovation skills to actual organizational or personal challenges. This program delivers direct and immediate impact by introducing a new and improved way to work together, solve problems, manage constraints, develop opportunities and produce concrete results for real-world organizational challenge(s). Training departments can readily demonstrate Level IV ROI by tracking output projects from this program.
Your instructor

Bob Eckert is the Healthcare Practice Lead at New & Improved. He has been teaching and facilitating creative problem solving for over 30 years, and has been utilizing CPS to facilitate disaster planning, strategic planning and pandemic mitigation for his entire career.
“I have worked with Bob and New & Improved for over 15 years and I am always impressed with their processes, tools and versatility. I would not even consider taking on a new team or major initiative without first consulting with Bob and his team. I highly recommend him for team building, innovation workshops, challenging new product development initiatives and leadership coaching.” ~Dave Bowser, Executive VP, Worldwide Clinical Trials
Objectives
Prepare for a resilient and productive response to whatever the pandemic throws your way
Develop a true, lasting competency in the tools and thinking skills of Creative Problem Solving and Human Centered Design
Apply these skills to current work and/or family challenges to rapidly develop viable solutions and wise strategies
Develop action plans to support your resiliency, economic vitality and organizational innovation strategies
Learn a shared vocabulary that fosters creativity and collaboration for extended impact in all areas of life
Results
Tools
Deep Empathy
POINt (Pluses, Opportunities, Issues, New thinking)
Prototyping
Power Perspectives
Forced Connections
Question Starters
Why? What's Stopping You?
Mind Mapping
Focused Concentration
SCAMPER
Assisters & Resisters
Read-it Write-it Stick-it
Evaluation Matrix
Card Sort
Highlighting
Key Benefits
For the individual
- Decrease your overall stress level with a clear awareness that you are taking the wisest course of action possible, and will be more able to adapt, as circumstances change
- Set your own pace as you learn creative thinking, innovation tools and techniques for generating and evaluating ideas
- Regularly overcome personal barriers to creative thinking
- Describe and use methods and tools that enhance creative thinking
For the company’s performance
- Drastically reduces the time required for implementing innovative solutions
- Provides the root cause analysis skills to fully understand challenges to yield creative solutions to complex issues
- Provides effective ways to solve organizational innovation problems efficiently
For the company's culture
- Enables individuals, groups and teams to share a common language and process for creative problem solving
- Identify & leverage personal preferences in the creative process for improved team collaboration
- Fosters a culture of innovation throughout the organization
- Gives employees a set of tools and skills that they can use for adapting to the unfolding health-care and economic crisis – even at the household level
Process Guide for Leadership & Governance Meetings
Use this tool to effectively run your meetings. This chart gives step-by-step instructions for how and when to use both divergent and convergent tools.
Ready to Make a Change?
Whether you want to start with a small training workshop or discuss more widespread systematic culture change, give us a call. We will tailor a solution to fit your exact needs.