Get fresh perspectives and insights into the actionable approaches needed to build back smarter after inflation. Be inspired to transform your organisation while delivering profits.
Get fresh perspectives and insights into the actionable approaches needed to build back smarter after inflation. Be inspired to transform your organisation while delivering profits.
Get fresh perspectives and insights into the actionable approaches needed to build back smarter after inflation. Be inspired to transform your organisation while delivering profits.
Critical thinking
Problem-solving and decision-making in a complex world
In the age of algorithms and information overload, critical-thinking skills are essential to stay relevant in business. As processes, jobs and entire industries become digitised, it will be vital to capitalise on human advantage by practising strategic self-reflection and asking the right questions. Our two-week online course provides the tools and skills to avoid cognitive bias, reason with rigour and harness artificial intelligence (AI) effectively.
About the programme
This online course is practical, business-oriented and draws on the rigorous processes of The Economist’s newsroom. Our expert contributors, including Tom Chatfield, the late Daniel Kahneman (1934-2024; filmed in 2023) and Kate Raworth, will equip you with critical-thinking techniques fundamental to staying competitive in the AI age. Understand how to resist oversimplification, reframe complex problems and avoid “groupthink” in business scenarios.
To find out how our courses can empower your organisation with a customisable course structure tailored to your business challenges and goals, click here.
To think critically is to make the most of your own mind: to reflect upon the limitations of what you know rather than leaping to conclusions, then set about building a more rigorous understanding alongside others.
Author, broadcaster, tech philosopher and course founder
Programme modules
Understand the pitfalls of “fast thinking” and how this can lead to ineffective decision-making. Learn to recognise and overcome cognitive bias and practise strategic self-reflection.
Explore how to use data discerningly, reframe complex problems and ask intelligent questions. This module will feature examples of critical thinking and stress-testing from The Economist’s newsroom, and examine how these practices can be applied more widely.
Programme benefits
This course will benefit professionals who want to remain competitive in an increasingly automated world. It will prepare you to:
Recognise and overcome cognitive biases
Challenge assumptions and consider multiple perspectives
Use data discerningly to aid decision-making
Make strong arguments based on evidence
Course leaders and contributors
The Economist’s team of journalists will contribute specialist insights on business through case studies, videos and podcasts.
The course will be enriched by group discussions with peers from many types of global organisations. Assignments and case studies will challenge participants, providing opportunities to apply new strategies and skills to real-world business scenarios and think critically as a team. Invited experts will explore not only the theory behind critical thinking, but tangible methods and strategies to put this theory into practice.
Author, broadcaster, tech philosopher and course founder
Course advisor and deputy editor
The Economist
(1934-2024; filmed in 2023) Professor Emeritus, Nobel laureate and author of "Thinking, Fast and Slow"
Photo credit: Audra Melton
Economist and author of “Doughnut Economics”
Photo credit: Johannes Frandsen
Author and broadcaster
Photo credit: Paul Clarke
Deputy executive editor
The Economist
Columnist
The Economist
Business affairs editor
The Economist
Deputy editor
The Economist
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