Critical Thinking for Managers : Structured Decision-making and Persuasion in Business

This book discusses critical thinking as a tool for more compassionate leadership, presenting tried and tested methods for managing disagreement, for anticipating and solving problems, and for enhancing empathy. Employing a lighter tone of voice than most management books, it also shows how and when less-than-rational mechanisms such as intuition and heuristics may be efficient decision-making tools in any manager’s toolbox.  

Critical thinking is useful for analyzing incoming information in the context of decision-making and is crucial for structuring outgoing information in the context of persuasion. When trying to convince a client to buy a service, an executive board to fund a project, or a colleague to change a procedure, managers can use the simple step-by-step guides provided here to prepare for successful meetings and effective pitches.

Managerial thinking can be steadily improved, using a structured process, especially if we learn to think about our thinking. This book guides current and would-be managers through this process of improving and metathinking, in connection with decision-making and persuasion. Using examples from business, together with research insights from Behavioral Economics and from Management and Organizational Cognition, the author illustrates common pitfalls like hidden assumptions and cognitive biases, and provides easy-to-use solutions for testing hypotheses and resolving dilemmas. 

Radu Atanasiu teaches critical thinking for business, decision-making in managerial contexts, and corporate strategy at the Bucharest International School of Management / Maastricht School of Management Romania, at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, and at the Entrepreneurship Academy in Bucharest. He also teaches several courses online (MOOCs), especially the popular iversity course "Critical Thinking for Business." Aside from teaching, Radu researches managerial heuristics, conducts executive workshops for businesses, and is actively involved as an angel investor in several technological start-ups. He also runs marathons, often dressed as Mickey Mouse.