Becoming a Critic Of Your Thinking Learning the Art of Critical Thinking There is nothing more practical than sound thinking. No matter what your circumstance or goals, no matter where you are, or what problems you face, you are better off if your thinking is skilled. As a manager, leader, employee, citizen, lover, friend, parent — in every realm and situation of your life — good thinking pays off. Critical thinking is the disciplined art of ensuring that you use the best thinking you are capable of in any set of circumstances. What is really going on in this or that situation? Successfully responding to such questions is the daily work of thinking. Ask yourself these — rather unusual — questions: What have you learned about how you think? If you are like most, the only honest answers to these questions run along the lines of, “Well, I suppose I really don’t know much about my thinking or about thinking in general. It is important to realize that serious study of thinking, serious thinking about thinking, is rare. 2. 3.
Before You Make That Big Decision... (HBR Bestseller) This pricing is for PDFs that are purchased and downloaded from our website and printed copies that ship from our warehouse to your requested shipping location. 1-4 = $8.95 each 5-10 = $8.75 each 11-49 = $8.50 each 50-499 = $8.25 each 500+ = $8.00 each Note: Quantity pricing discounts will be reflected at Checkout, prior to submitting your order. 1-4 = $6.00 each 5-10 = $5.85 each 11-49 = $5.70 each 50-499 = $5.50 each 500+ = $5.00 each 1-4 = $5.00 each 5-10 = $4.85 each 11-49 = $4.70 each 50-499 = $4.50 each 500+ = $4.00 each 1-9 = $4.50 each 10-49 = $4.00 each 50-499 = $3.50 each 500+ Contact Customer Service customerservice@harvardbusiness.org 1-9 = $9.50 each 10-49 = $8.50 each 50-499 = $7.50 each 500+ Contact Customer Service customerservice@harvardbusiness.org This pricing is for Books & Ebooks that are purchased and downloaded from our website and printed copies that ship from our warehouse to your requested shipping location. Visa and Mastercard Click here
Free typing lessons, lots of typing games and typing test Avoiding Psychological Bias in Decision Making - From MindTools.com How to Make Objective Decisions © iStockphotokemie Are you making a balanced judgement, or do you have confirmation bias? Imagine that you're researching a potential product. As a result, you decide that the product will do well, and you launch it, backed by a major marketing campaign. However, the product fails. In this scenario, your decision was affected by confirmation bias. Confirmation bias is one of many psychological biases to which we're all susceptible when we make decisions. What is Psychological Bias? Psychologists Daniel Kahneman, Paul Slovic, and Amos Tversky introduced the concept of psychological bias in the early 1970s. They explained that psychological bias – also known as cognitive bias – is the tendency to make decisions or take action in an illogical way. Psychological bias is the opposite of common sense and clear, measured judgment. Common Psychological Biases Below, we outline five psychological biases that are common in business decision making. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Note:
Want to Learn Web Design? 7 YouTube Channels to Get You Started YouTube has channels that cover every conceivable topic. Whether you want to watch the latest movie releases or learn a new trade or skill, you can be sure to find what you need on the web’s biggest video library. As blogs continue in their popularity, one skill that a lot of people are interested in is web design. Unsurprisingly, YouTube has thousands of videos and channels for web design beginners, and what’s great is that it’s a skill you can learn at any age. 1st Web Designer The 1st Web Designer channel was launched back in 2008 and has since gone on to amass more than two million subscribers. They normally post one new video every week and cover the more creative side of web design. They also host a regular question and answer session, and have an engaging podcast which you can download via their accompanying website. Adam Khoury Unlike 1st Web Designer, Adam focuses on the more practical aspects of web design. LearnCode.academy Mike Locke The New Boston Derek Banas PHP Academy
priortise carefully Effective executives do not make a great many decisions. They concentrate on what is important. They try to make the few important decisions on the highest level of conceptual understanding. They try to find the constants in a situation, to think through what is strategic and generic rather than to “solve problems.” They are, therefore, not overly impressed by speed in decision making; rather, they consider virtuosity in manipulating a great many variables a symptom of sloppy thinking. They want to know what the decision is all about and what the underlying realities are which it has to satisfy. Effective executives know when a decision has to be based on principle and when it should be made pragmatically, on the merits of the case. Sequential Steps The elements do not by themselves “make” the decisions. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Let us take a look at each of these individual elements. The Classification Next there is the truly exceptional event that the executive must distinguish. The Definition
The WWW Virtual Library Root Cause Analysis - Problem Solving From MindTools.com In medicine, it's easy to understand the difference between treating the symptoms and curing the condition. A broken wrist, for example, really hurts! But painkillers will only take away the symptoms; you'll need a different treatment to help your bones heal properly. But what do you do when you have a problem at work? Do you jump straight in and treat the symptoms, or do you stop to consider whether there's actually a deeper problem that needs your attention? If you only fix the symptoms – what you see on the surface – the problem will almost certainly return, and need fixing over, and over again. Click here to view a transcript of this video. However, if you look deeper to figure out what's causing the problem, you can fix the underlying systems and processes so that it goes away for good. Root Cause Analysis (RCA) is a popular and often-used technique that helps people answer the question of why the problem occurred in the first place. Determine what happened. Step Two: Collect Data
Mrs. Openshaw's Colorful Classroom - home How to Make Decisions - Decision Making Tools From MindTools.com Some decisions are so simple that you're barely aware you're making them, while others are time consuming, high risk, and can leave you feeling anxious. Decisions can make or break a project or an entire business. And they often involve complex and unpredictable interpersonal issues, too. In this article and video, we explore a seven-step approach for improving the quality of your decision making, and for boosting your chances of a successful outcome. Click here to access a transcript of this video. A 7-Step Decision-Making Strategy To avoid making a bad decision, you need to bring a range of decision-making skills together in a logical and ordered process. Investigate the situation in detail. Note: This process will ensure that you make a good decision in a complex situation, but it may be unnecessarily complicated for small or simple decisions. If you need to make a quick decision under pressure, see our articles, OODA Loops and The TDODAR Decision Model. Look beyond the obvious. Key Points
Learning How to Learn: Mastering the Science of Learning with Barbara Oakley Dr Barbara Oakley is a lifelong learning enthusiast with a colourful past. After struggling with mathematics and science at school, she joined the army, so she could get paid to learn another language. She studied Russian for years, even working on Soviet trawlers in the Bearing Sea for months at a time. Later, she shrugged off her struggles with the sciences at school, and retrained to become an engineer. She had such success in her new career, that she went on to become a professor of engineering, a position she now holds at Oakland University. Fascinated by the learning process itself, Barb went on to create the most successful massive open online course (MOOC) of all time – Learning How To Learn – which has 2 million registered students. In this conversation, we discuss Barb’s time learning Russian in the military, and how we can improve our learning as adults. Enjoy! Prefer to listen to this interview as a podcast? A Little About Barbara Oakley Barb’s Approach To Teaching Success!
The Problem-Definition Process - Problem-Solving Tools From MindTools.com Developing the Right Solution © iStockphotoklaravlas Understand your problem and its wider context. When we try to solve business problems, we can often pressurize ourselves to find solutions quickly. The problem with this is that we can end up only partially solving the problem, or we can solve the wrong problem altogether, with all of the delay, expense, and lost business opportunity that goes with this. The Problem-Definition Process helps you avoid this. Overview Dwayne Spradline published the Problem-Definition Process in September 2012's Harvard Business Review. Spradline is the President and CEO of Innocentive, an organization that connects organizations with freelance problem solvers. The process gives you four steps that help you better understand complex problems. Access the Full Article This article is only available in full within the Mind Tools Club. Learn More and Join Today Already a Club member?