Critical Thinking and Decision Making (Virtual)

Focusing Your Attention

Examine the advantages and disadvantages across three different types of attention:

• Sustained attention
• Selective attention
• Divided attention

You will begin to identify ways to develop skills to focus your attention when required.

Responding To Mistakes

Even highly skilled decision makers are going to get it wrong occasionally. No matter how good you are at making decisions you are also human, and humans make mistakes.
Rather than defending bad decisions the important thing is to acknowledge when decisions are wrong, do what is necessary to rectify the situation and create strategies to ensure those mistakes aren’t repeated.

Conducing A Root Cause Analysis

Look at different ways to conduct a root cause analysis so that you can make more informed decisions that address the true cause of issues rather than just the symptoms.

Wilful Blindness And Cognitive Bias

Everyone is susceptible to what is referred to as willful blindness – when the brain creates what feels like legitimate reasons for us to ignore something we don’t want to deal with. But this generally doesn’t make for good decisions.
Examine ways to manage this and a range of other unconscious biases so you are better placed to make informed decisions.

Improving Critical Thinking

Look at the guidelines and techniques for improving critical thinking skills including identifying and focusing on important issues, understanding the consequences/implications of your decisions, applying the stop rule and creative brainstorming.

Acting Quickly Without Sacrificing Critical Thinking

Being too quick to respond can lead to bad decisions, but so can taking too long. Using techniques like reflective urgency can allow you to:

• Identify your urgency trap
• Focus on the right priorities
• Avoid extreme tilts