“Six Strategic Thinking Skills” Training for Medical HEI Teams

In October, we held a two-day training “Six Strategic Thinking Skills” for the teams of Zhytomyr Medical Institute and Ivano-Frankivsk National Medical University. The event was aimed at improving management skills and developing strategic vision among representatives of medical education institutions.

Trainer Matviy Khrenov, co-founder of the Ukrainian Healthcare Centre (UHC), doctor and project consultant, is convinced that thinking strategically means seeing wider, acting more systematically, and thinking several steps ahead. This is extremely important for people working in medical education institutions.

Over the course of two days, the participants dismantled for parts the six key strategic thinking skills:

1. How to learn to notice important signals amid the information noise?
2. How to see the whole picture and understand where the problem lies in the system?
3. How to think big without losing control over the details?
4. How to correctly formulate a problem and find its true cause?
5. How to create a clear, realistic and inspiring vision of the future?
6. How to work with people who have different interests and gather allies?

In the good tradition of Mr. Khrenov’s trainings, in addition to knowledge and questions for reflection, the audience also took away a list of recommended books for professional development.

Sharing their impressions and future plans after the event, participants noted:

“After the training, I plan to consciously practice a systems thinking approach — to analyse the causes of problems, not just their consequences. I’ll work on improving communication within the team. I will apply the tools from the topic ‘How to Work with People Who Have Different Interests and Gather Allies’ for more effective team interaction and reducing resistance to change.”

“Thank you so much for the training! The atmosphere was pleasant, and the content helped me look at many things in a new way — in particular, systems thinking and the importance of reading books as a foundation for development. I really liked the idea that ‘people you don’t like aren’t always people you don’t need’ — it offers a different perspective on team interaction. Thank you for the meaningful work of the trainer and the team!”

We sincerely thank our colleagues for their joint work and engagement! We hope the knowledge and tools gained will prove useful in practice as soon as possible and help in the transformation of the institutions.