Introduction to Critical Thinking - Think Straight to Decide Right

Every day we deal with issues and hope to resolve them correctly, quickly, and cheaply.  To do so means we need to be able to sort the immediate and important issues from the less urgent and less critical problems.  That means we ought to identify the problem, gather the information and data, explore solutions, select the most likely answer and implement it.  But our analysis, evaluation, and decision process can be distorted by various cognitive biases. In this session, you will learn how to prioritize issues and problems, resolve an issue or solve a problem logically and mitigate possible biases that sometimes make it hard to think straight.

Topics covered in this session

Define critical thinking

• Logical deduction
• Scientific method
• Prioritization of important and urgent items over unimportant and less urgent items
• Pareto’s Law

Explain goals and benefits of critical thinking

• Ability to identify, evaluate, implement, and monitor quickest, most accurate, cheapest solution

Describe critical thinking skills

• Analysis
• Communication
• Creativity
• Objectivity
• Problem-solving

Show how to avoid cognitive biases that impede critical thinking

• Halo effect
• Framing effect
• Availability bias
• Hindsight bias
• Planning fallacy
• Sunk cost fallacy

Who Should Attend

• Human Resource Managers / Administration
• Risk Managers
• Benefit Specialists
• Supervisors
• Business Owners
• General Managers
• Controllers/ CFOs / Financial Managers
• Company owners
• Presidents and CEOs