Learn to apply frameworks and S.M.A.R.T. tools for understanding and making everyday financial decisions. Demonstrate your understanding to your direct reports.

Learn problem solving skills (e.g., ask more open ended questions, break down a problem into small components and analyze).

Invite input from stakeholders who will be directly impacted by a decision that needs to be made. Their diverse perspectives may lead to an innovative resolution.

In your next decision making session with colleagues, contribute a viewpoint that is very different from those of others as a means to foster innovative thinking.

Identify your assumptions and biases before offering suggestions in a problem solving session.

Identify something you do that is very inefficient (e.g., filing tax-related materials throughout the year). Ask people you know to be organized what they do and then try one of the processes.

Identify one particular inefficient system or waster at home and determine a way to mitigate it.

Identify a leader who will support your efforts implementing a change initiative and ask them to back you up.

Handle a crisis for an organization, requiring you to make a timely decision where all parties will not be satisfied.

Guide a group that you work with through the process of making a complex decision that it faces.