MGMT20135: Critical Thinking & Managerial Decision-Making Essay

This essay reflects on the learnings from the course MGMT20135: Critical Thinking and Managerial Decision-Making. It identifies two significant concepts from each week of the course, explaining their importance and relevance. The essay also discusses the insights gained from using a self-reflect ...Read More

Running head: CRITICAL THINKING AND MANAGERIAL DECISION-MAKING
Critical Thinking and Managerial Decision-Making
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author Note:

1CRITICAL THINKING AND MANAGERIAL DECISION-MAKING
Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Week 1.............................................................................................................................................2
Week 2.............................................................................................................................................3
Week 3.............................................................................................................................................3
Week 4.............................................................................................................................................4
Week 5.............................................................................................................................................5
Week 6.............................................................................................................................................5
Self-reflect tool................................................................................................................................6
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................7
Reference.........................................................................................................................................8

2CRITICAL THINKING AND MANAGERIAL DECISION-MAKING
Introduction
In the corporate environment, the decisions are sometimes taken in haste due to the
sudden market changes, corporate performances and corporate profits. With respect to the today's
work environment, the decision making has been good for the purpose of good management.
Critical thinking is the ability of a manager to construct the rational bases, examine the
arguments and accept the general beliefs. A manager with good skills and knowledge will never
distinguish between the decision making and critical thinking (Daellenbach, McNickle and Dye
2012). This study is based on the identification of the 2 significant concepts that are vital for me,
and also includes the usage of the reflect tool and comment on what I have learnt.
Week 1
The week 1 deals with the basic definition of critical thinking and the 2 important
concepts that are taught in this week are the syllogism and thinking deeper.
A syllogism can be described as a reasoning and it involves drawing a conclusion from
assumed or given proposition. Syllogism emphasizes more on the deductive reasoning than the
inductive reasoning. Deductive reasoning is a form of reason which involves a logical process
and the conclusion is drawn is based on the different types of the premises which are generally
considered to be true. Deductive is also called a top-down logic approach. Where another
reasoning type is called inductive reasoning and is also called a bottom-up logic. The main
difference that lies between the two is that the deductive reasoning starts from general premises
and ends to a specific conclusion, whereas the inductive reasoning starts from a specific premise
and ends to a general conclusion (Lunn 2013).

3CRITICAL THINKING AND MANAGERIAL DECISION-MAKING
Deep thinking is a vital ingredient for every single learning experience and it leads to
new ways to unravel the complexities that are associated with an issue. Deep thinking is a
process through which a manager can increase the number of the useful thoughts and the
valuable thoughts. The quantity of the valuable thoughts has a direct impact on the valuable
actions taken (Fiorini 2016).
Week 2
The two vital concepts that will be emphasized are the prospect theory and anticipatory
thinking.
Prospect theory can be defined as an important theory in decision making which involves
the risks. Prospect theory includes the 3 different types of biases when a decision is made. The
decision-making process involves the loss of aversion, isolation effect and certainty. Certainty
involves the stage when people try to overweigh the options which are certain and averse the risk
for the purpose of gains. Isolation effect denotes the tendency of the people to act on the
information that differs and stands out form the rest. Loss of aversion is a situation where the
people prefer to avoid the losses in order to acquire the equivalent gains (Kahneman and Tversky
2013).
Anticipatory thinking can be defined as a macro-cognitive function which involves the
teams and the individuals. It also involves recognition and preparation of the difficult challenges
and situations. Such situations may not be understood presently but it is understood when
encountered later. It is a form of a retrospective process and it involves the diagnosing problems
and explaining events (Rieckmann 2012).
Week 3

4CRITICAL THINKING AND MANAGERIAL DECISION-MAKING
The two significant concepts from the week 3 are the persuasion and triangular thinking
or triangulating.
Persuasion is a term which falls under the broad term of influence. Persuasion can be said
an attempt which is used to influence behaviour, motivations, intentions, attitudes and beliefs.
From the managerial perspective, the process of persuasion is aimed at changing the behaviour
or attitude of a person with respect to a particular event, object or idea (Mai and Hoffmann
2014).
Triangulation or triangular thinking is a way through which a solution is found through
the help of indirect predictions and indirect measurements. It is a manipulative technique that
employs one person to use another person to communicate with another person. The triangular
thinking incorporates thinking from the different perspectives and also taking into account the
different directions so that remarkable actions are made. The triangular thinking also
incorporates the creative thinking, positive thinking and big thinking (Livingstone 2014).
Week 4
The two main concepts from week 4 study that will be emphasized are the self-awareness
and self-analysis.
Self-awareness is the core of the leadership and it includes the knowing himself or
herself. Self-awareness is knowing one’s attitudes (opinions), feelings (emotions), motives
(purposes), desires (needs), strengths (weaknesses). Knowing oneself also involves gaining
knowledge of one’s own personality traits, personal values, habits, emotions, psychological
needs. To gain self-awareness it is important to seek feedback from others, admitting the
mistakes, being introspective, taking the self-scored profiling tests (Vago and David 2012).

5CRITICAL THINKING AND MANAGERIAL DECISION-MAKING
Self-analysis is an analysis of oneself and gaining knowledge oneself. The self-analysis includes
the analysis of oneself where one excels. There several areas where a person can face difficulty,
kinds of events and people that a person dislikes or likes the most. Nature or the extent a person
is open to the other person (Horney 2013).
Week 5
The concepts that are emphasized from the week 5 are the out of the box thinking and
impossible thinking.
Out of the box, thinking can be described as a type of thinking that is beyond the usual
boundaries but it leads to normal conclusions. Out of the box deals with the situations that are
extraordinary and thus demands an unusual type of thinking which will lead to usual results
(Rossi et al. 2016).
Impossible thinking is a type of thinking that aims to accomplish the impossible. This
type of thinking also emphasizes on putting aside the preconceived ideas and the inability to
think of what cannot be done (Schick and Vaughn 2014).
Week 6
The week 6 concepts are based on the understanding need and risk evaluation.
Risk evaluation is the evaluation and quantification of the risk. Evaluation of the risk is of
2 types: upside risk and downside risk. Upside risk is the risk of something good not happening
and downside risk is the risk of something bad happening (Liu, Liu and Liu 2013).

6CRITICAL THINKING AND MANAGERIAL DECISION-MAKING
Understanding the need is understanding the need for a decision and the same knowledge can
lead to better decision making. The need can be time dependent and can be based on the grounds
upon which the decision is made (Maarop and Win 2012).
Self-reflect tool
From the reflection tool, I came to know a lot about myself. The understanding regarding
myself are as follows:
 I have a strong persuasive and strong verbal skill. It is very likely that I can
provide an insight into a number of decisions and I can use my influence to make
a difference. The reflection tool revealed that on many occasions I have gotten
what I wanted to have.
 I also have a high sense of urgency when things are required to be done quickly.
This urgency can also be extended to the relationships, events and meetings and
venues. Sometimes I become restless when an urgency is not felt by others and
due to this, I need to be a bit flexible.
 In favourable conditions, I become charming while I am persuading others and
similarly become confronting when I am confronting a hostile situation.
 It has also come to know that I can modify and adjust to differing situations. I
have a high degree perceptiveness and this guides my responses.
 I also have the skill of making quick and firm decisions and I process information
decisively and rapidly. However, when a decision is made, I stick to it and
support it.

7CRITICAL THINKING AND MANAGERIAL DECISION-MAKING
 I also have the ability to influence others, and also deal with firm hands when I
am delegating responsibility and tasks. I also have the ability to play and work
hard.
The course has helped me a lot in gaining an insight into the decision making and critical
thinking. The lecture notes provided by the tutors over the 6 weeks helped me to gain knowledge
of the different concepts with respect to the thinking perspectives of managers. It is important to
note that the coursework is well structured and it incorporates the various critical thinking which
is related to the management and the managerial decision making. The decision-making process
also includes the different types of thinking that will help me and guide me in my work.
Especially the self-reflect tool acts as my reflection and this has helped me to gain an insight into
my own self. The reflection tool has helped me to gain knowledge of how will I behave when I
will be into a managerial position in future.
Conclusion
From the above study, it can be concluded that the critical thinking and managerial
decision making is a suitable course which can give an insight into the managerial decision
making. The perspectives of a manager and the critical thinking associated with a critical
situation are well understood during. the reflection tool can be considered as a highly informative
tool which is able to provide a picture of a person which is similar to self-analysis.

8CRITICAL THINKING AND MANAGERIAL DECISION-MAKING
Reference
Daellenbach, H., McNickle, D. and Dye, S., 2012. Management science: decision-making
through systems thinking. Palgrave Macmillan.
Fiorini, R.A., 2016. New CICT Framework for Deep Learning and Deep Thinking Application.
International Journal of Software Science and Computational Intelligence (IJSSCI), 8(2), pp.1-
20.
Horney, K., 2013. Self-analysis (Vol. 18). Routledge.
Kahneman, D. and Tversky, A., 2013. Prospect theory: An analysis of decision under risk. In
Handbook of the fundamentals of financial decision making: Part I (pp. 99-127).
Liu, H.C., Liu, L. and Liu, N., 2013. Risk evaluation approaches in failure mode and effects
analysis: A literature review. Expert systems with applications, 40(2), pp.828-838.
Livingstone, S., 2014. Kanonizing Katz| Elihu Katz’s Commitments, Disciplinary and Legacy:
Or,‘Triangular Thinking’. International Journal of Communication, 8, p.8.
Lunn, P.D., 2013. The role of decision-making biases in Ireland's banking crisis. Irish Political
Studies, 28(4), pp.563-590.
Maarop, N. and Win, K.T., 2012. Understanding the Need of health care providers for
teleconsultation and technological attributes in relation to the acceptance of teleconsultation in
Malaysia: A mixed methods study. Journal of medical systems, 36(5), pp.2881-2892.
Mai, R. and Hoffmann, S., 2014. Accents in business communication: An integrative model and
propositions for future research. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 24(1), pp.137-158.

9CRITICAL THINKING AND MANAGERIAL DECISION-MAKING
Rieckmann, M., 2012. Future-oriented higher education: Which key competencies should be
fostered through university teaching and learning?. Futures, 44(2), pp.127-135.
Rossi, F.M., Cohen, S., Caperchione, E. and Brusca, I., 2016. Harmonizing public sector
accounting in Europe: thinking out of the box. Public Money & Management, 36(3), pp.189-196.
Schick Jr, T. and Vaughn, L., 2014. How to think about weird things: Critical thinking for a new
age. McGraw-Hill.
Vago, D.R. and David, S.A., 2012. Self-awareness, self-regulation, and self-transcendence (S-
ART): a framework for understanding the neurobiological mechanisms of mindfulness.
Frontiers in human neuroscience, 6, p.296.