About Us
THINKING SKILL OPTIMIZATION METHOD
| Step | Common Term | Constructing Competence | What's the Point? |
|---|---|---|---|
|
1 |
Being Human |
Cultivate Curiosity! |
Cultivating Open-mindedness |
|
2 |
Critical Thinking |
Question the Context! |
Solve the Right Problem |
|
3 |
Rational Thinking |
Compare – Contrast! |
Make Effective Use of How Our Brains are Wired |
|
4 |
Creative Thinking |
Connect – Create! |
A Recipe for Intuition
|
|
5 |
Systems Thinking |
Contemplate Complexity! |
Appreciate Multi-Level Interactivity |
|
6 |
Decision Science |
Calibrate your Confidence! |
Build Your Own Theory of Knowledge |
|
7 |
Clear Communications |
Converse & Compose Capably! |
Be able to Explain How You Know What You Say You Know |
The Cultivating Clarity methodology allows you to:
NEVER WASTE A MISTAKE
Walk away with techniques to improve your analytical and creative thinking skills.
Enhance the function of the natural structure of your brain.
Begin to be able to learn new things more easily.
Develop and balance your intuition.
Optimize your thinking skills through enjoyable workshops.
Recognize and weed out the negative aspects of what some people believe is critical thinking.
Meet the Team
Debbie Aliya
In 1994, Debbie Aliya founded Aliya Analytical, a Grand Rapids, MI, engineering consulting company, where she specializes in helping people figure out why their products failed. Debbie has a BS in Metallurgy and Materials Science from Carnegie-Mellon University (Pittsburgh, PA) and an MS in Materials Science and Engineering from Northwestern University (Evanston, IL). In 2001 she became a Certified Interfaith Educator (Lakeshore Interfaith Institute, Ganges, MI). In 2012 and 2013 she participated in National Novel Writing Month, which resulted in a science fiction / fantasy novel which is an exploration of what society might look like if we humans learned to think more clearly. The book is The Convolution of Knomo Choicius, by Shona Moonbeam. For twenty-five years, she has been working on how to customize training material for cultivating clarity and creativity for regular people, including those who work in manufacturing, as opposed to English and psychology students, and marketing specialists, who are the normal targets of the literature on these topics. Over the course of her professional career, she has served on the boards of multiple non-profits, primarily engineering societies, but also was part of the Interfaith Dialogue Association for a few years. In all of those groups, her primary interest is programming for conferences and educational events. In October of 2019, she became a Fellow of ASM International, The Materials Information Society, in part because of her outreach to the India Chapters, and also for her work on Thinking Skill Optimization, Cultivating Clarity, or Empowerment Thinking, or whatever else we decide to call it.
Mary Nalbach
Mary Nalbach is the President of Cultivating Clarity, Inc. located in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Although born in Port Huron, Michigan, Mary was raised in Germany where she received her primary and secondary education. Returning to the United States after 19 years, she had tremendous opportunities to work in challenging and diverse entrepreneurial and career endeavors. Mary’s post-secondary education, early childhood development, was formative in her desire to understand how people think, what aspects of an individual’s life, culture, society and education, or lack thereof, play in other’s ability to obtain the skills necessary to think for themselves and communicate effectively and with confidence.
Her interest in individual development, including methodology for enhancing thinking skills, builds upon her background in helping clients navigate the German pension system to operating an electrical contracting business, working in a Prosecutor’s office as the Administrative Assistant, as well as Food Service Director and Food Service Supervisor 9 for the Michigan Department of Corrections and for the private corrections system as the Compliance Coordinator.
After volunteering as the Operations Manager for a non-profit organization for five years, she realized that it is difficult to understand what forms the basis of someone else’s way of thinking or reality. It became clear that everyone develops skills, whether rational or not, to cope with their circumstances. Throughout the range of experiences, individual backgrounds and circumstances, understanding how we think can improve our prospects of life.
Her concept of life, to become the best that you can be, comes from a life-long passion for learning and helping others. Her friend and business partner, Debbie Aliya, started developing “Thinking Skill Optimization (TSO)” many years ago. After applying these techniques in her own life, Mary is confident that practicing Thinking Skill Optimization can help every individual to move forward in their path of life.