Critical thinking

Strengthen your critical thinking skills

Do you make a lot of assumptions and lack clarity in your thought process? Do you sometimes get stuck in a thinking loop? Do you find it difficult to build an argument? Do you sometimes freeze when you have to challenge a certain line of thought? How do you know when you are reflecting and evaluating correctly?

Learning objectives

After this training, participants will be able to:

• Evaluate ideas and problems in an objective way.
• Easily identify 'critical points' for failure or success.
• Catch thinking errors.
• Engage in dialogue with teammates in a more constructive way.
• Make better decisions.

This training programme consists of 4 half-day modules. In each module, we first present the general framework. Next, we put the principles and techniques into practice and the participants work out examples and cases that tie in with their own work situation.

Day 1: Becoming aware of your own critical thinking skills

1. The critical thinking process:

• Definition of critical thinking.
• Epistemology and meta-cognition (reflection on your own thinking).
• Insight into the brain: characteristics of effective critical thinking.
• The role of critical thinking in a professional context.
• Data - information - knowledge.
• Ladder of inference: recognising, interpreting, drawing conclusions.

1. Increasing the quality of your perception and way of thinking:

• Workable distinctions.
• How does perception work?
• Recognising and tackling thinking errors such as: confirmation bias, attribution bias, authority bias, anchoring effect, ...
• Recognising and tackling pitfalls such as: egocentric thinking, groupthink, assumptions, reductionist thinking, circular thinking, mechanistic thinking, generalising, ...
• Using the logical levels of information (5W1H questions)

Day 2: Critical thinking as a tool for more effective communication and collaboration

1. Constructive communication:

• Critical thinking in the professional context.
• Application and link with Agile principles and techniques.
• Feedback as a tool for enriching your own and collective thinking skills.
• Dealing with (negative) criticism.
• Constructively challenging thinking errors.

1. Critical thinking in conversations, discussions, dialogue, debate, brainstorming and decision-making:

• Conversation as a space.
• Process vs. content.
• Meta-communication.
• Conversation and probing techniques that lead to constructive outcomes.

Aftercare

Afterwards, participants are given the assignment to apply their sharpened critical thinking skills to their own case, which they discuss (online) with each other and the trainer.

Experience-oriented learning at The House of Coaching

The House of Coaching stands for experience-oriented learning. As a participant, you constantly work with the theory through practical, experience-oriented exercises that teach you to apply your skills in real situations. We facilitate the learning process through maximum interaction and sharing experiences. That is learning that really sticks!

Would you like to develop these 21st Century Skills in your people, team or organisation?

Then get in touch and we will work out a programme together!