Over the past 30 years, research in cognitive science and social psychology has shown how cognitive biases (psychological tendencies that cause people to draw incorrect conclusions) can lead us astray in a wide variety of ways. Simply put, most people are not good at reasoning. For this reason, one of the core Critical Thinking skills is thinking about how we think. However, merely being aware of cognitive biases is not enough. To ensure that your reasoning and decision-making will not be affected by cognitive biases, you need to uncover your hidden assumptions and consider your evidence. For this purpose, we have developed a clear step-by-step method for generating the questions you need to ask yourself when engaged in reasoning: The Grove Method of Argument Analysis. 
 

 The Overcome Your Cognitive Biases! workshop is designed to encourage the development and practice of this highly important skill. In this workshop, you will learn about the various heuristics (shortcuts in reasoning) used in decision-making, and the cognitive biases that result. You will learn techniques to overcome the cognitive biases that are likely to affect your reasoning in the workplace. The result will be improved decision making and problem solving with fewer costly mistakes.

Workshop overview
 

What is Critical thinking?

The benefits of Critical Thinking are widely promoted in schools, government and in industry. But rarely is it made clear precisely what Critical Thinking is. We begin by examining exactly what it means to think critically. In doing so, we look at some the various skills involved in Critical Thinking and also why these skills are so important to succeed in today’s competitive business environment.
 

why we need critical thinking: cognitive biases and heuristics

Thinking critically is tantamount to reasoning how one ought to reason, but numerous studies have shown that how human beings actually reason is different from how they ought to reason. Human beings tend to follow certain heuristics (shorts cuts in reasoning) and this leads us to be affected by certain cognitive biases that negatively impact our reasoning and decision-making. We teach you what cognitive biases and heuristics are and we examine examples that are likely to affect your reasoning and the decisions you make in business. Simply being made aware of these cognitive biases and heuristics is helpful, but we take you a step further introducing you to an effective initial strategy to mitigate the negative outcomes of these cognitive biases on your reasoning and decision-making ability.
 

Overcome Cognitive Biases: The Grove Method of Argument Analysis™ 

This initial strategy is very effective in dealing with the specific cognitive biases we examine. However, there are other tools that we can use to better deal with cognitive biases. The remainder of the workshop introduces you to the Grove Method of Argument Analysis.™ Using this method you will overcome cognitive biases and improve your reasoning and decision making. We teach you how to uncover hidden assumptions, force you to consider your evidence, consider whether you have sufficient evidence, to ensure that you draw the right conclusions based on your evidence.