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Strategic Decision Making & Critical Thinking Skills
Highest Rated
Rating: 5.0 out of 5(70 ratings)
428 students

Strategic Decision Making & Critical Thinking Skills

Improve Critical Thinking and Cognitive Bias Awareness for Better Decision Making
Highest Rated
Created byDrew Bird
Last updated 7/2026
English
English [Auto],

What you'll learn

  • Understand the psychology of decision making and how everyday choices are influenced by habits, emotions, logic, and unconscious mental processes.
  • Identify the most common mistakes people make while making decisions and learn practical ways to avoid poor judgment.
  • Distinguish between reactive thinking and deliberate decision making using System 1 and System 2 thinking frameworks.
  • Recognize personal decision making styles and understand how past experiences, beliefs, and environment shape individual choices.
  • Explore the difference between maximizers and satisfiers and how these dispositions influence satisfaction with decisions.
  • Understand the role of cognitive biases in shaping perceptions, judgments, and everyday decision outcomes.
  • Learn effective techniques to reduce the impact of cognitive bias and improve the quality of personal and professional decisions.
  • Apply practical decision making strategies that help leaders and professionals make confident, thoughtful, and effective decisions consistently.

Course content

3 sections • 8 lectures • 59m total length

  • Introduction to Decision Making: Why Every Choice Matters5:40

    This lecture introduces the concept of decision making and explains why it is one of the most important skills in both professional and personal life. You’ll explore how frequently we make decisions every day and why improving this skill can significantly impact productivity, leadership, and overall success.

  • Decision Making Mistakes: What Goes Wrong and Why7:40

    In this lecture, we examine the common problems that occur during decision making. You will learn the difference between reacting and consciously deciding, explore System 1 and System 2 thinking, and understand how mental models shape the way we interpret situations and make judgments.

  • Discovering Your Personal Decision Making Style7:44

    Everyone approaches decisions differently. In this lecture, you will explore the internal and external factors that influence your personal decision making style. By reflecting on past decisions, you will begin identifying patterns in how you evaluate options and reach conclusions.

  • Decision Making Foundations: Thinking Systems and Personal Decision Styles

Requirements

  • No prior knowledge of psychology or decision science is required. This course is designed for beginners who want to understand how decisions work and how to improve them.
  • A willingness to reflect on your own past decisions and think critically about how you make choices in daily life.
  • Basic understanding of everyday workplace or personal decision making situations will help learners connect the course concepts to real-life scenarios.
  • An open mindset toward learning about psychological biases and behavioral patterns that influence decision making.
  • Ability to engage with short lectures and participate in quizzes and exercises designed to strengthen decision making awareness.
  • Interest in improving leadership, problem solving, or critical thinking skills in both professional and personal environments.
  • Access to a computer, tablet, or smartphone with internet connection to watch the lectures and complete quizzes.
  • Motivation to apply the strategies learned in the course to improve personal productivity, leadership effectiveness, and everyday decision outcomes.

Description

A study published by researchers at Cornell University suggests that the average adult makes over 35,000 decisions every single day. From simple choices like what to eat for lunch to complex professional decisions that impact careers, organizations, and teams — decision making shapes almost every part of our lives.

Yet surprisingly, most people have never been formally taught how to make better decisions.

Psychologists and behavioral economists have discovered that human thinking is far from perfectly rational. Nobel Prize–winning research by Daniel Kahneman revealed that our brains rely on two different systems of thinking: a fast, automatic system and a slower, analytical one. While these mental shortcuts help us function quickly, they also make us vulnerable to cognitive biases, poor judgment, and flawed decisions.

This course — Fundamentals of Decision Making — is designed to help you understand how decisions actually work and how you can improve them.

Instead of relying on guesswork or intuition alone, you will learn the psychology of decision making, understand the hidden factors that influence your thinking, and develop practical strategies to make smarter choices.

Throughout this course, we will explore the most common decision making mistakes and learn how to avoid them. You will discover how reactive thinking differs from intentional decision making and how concepts like System 1 and System 2 thinking affect everyday judgments.

We will also dive deeper into understanding your own decision making style. Everyone approaches decisions differently based on personality, experience, and mindset. By understanding these patterns, you can begin to improve the way you evaluate choices.

One of the most powerful sections of this course focuses on cognitive biases — the mental shortcuts that distort our thinking. These biases influence hiring decisions, business strategies, financial choices, and even everyday conversations. Learning to recognize these biases is one of the most valuable skills for modern professionals.

But awareness alone is not enough.

This course will also provide practical techniques to reduce cognitive bias, strengthen critical thinking, and improve your ability to evaluate options objectively.

Finally, we will explore simple but powerful decision making strategies that can help leaders, professionals, entrepreneurs, and students make better choices with greater clarity and confidence.

By the end of this course, you will not only understand how decisions work — you will have practical tools to make better decisions in both your professional and personal life.

If decision making is a skill that shapes success, this course will help you build that skill intentionally.

Who this course is for:

  • Professionals who regularly make decisions at work and want to improve the quality and consistency of their choices.
  • Managers and team leaders looking to strengthen their leadership by developing structured and thoughtful decision making approaches.
  • Entrepreneurs and business owners who must make strategic decisions quickly and want frameworks to avoid costly mistakes.
  • Students and graduates interested in understanding human behavior, psychology, and critical thinking in real-world situations.
  • Individuals who often feel overwhelmed by choices and want practical methods to simplify and improve decision making.
  • HR professionals, trainers, and educators who want to teach better decision making practices within organizations.
  • Anyone curious about cognitive biases and how hidden mental shortcuts influence everyday thinking and behavior.
  • People seeking practical tools to improve both personal life decisions and professional problem solving skills.

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