Professional Skills: Communication, Leadership,Teamwork, . . .

Critical Thinking is about becoming a better thinker in every aspect of your life: in your career, and as a consumer, citizen, friend, parent, and lover. Discover the core skills of effective thinking; then analyze your own thought processes, identify weaknesses, and overcome them. Learn how to translate more effective thinking into better decisions, less frustration, more wealth and above all, greater confidence to pursue and achieve your most important goals in life.

The Way of the Essentialist isn't about getting more done in less time. It's about getting only the right things done. It is not a time management strategy, or a productivity technique. It is a systematic discipline for discerning what is absolutely essential, then eliminating everything that is not, so we can make the highest possible contribution towards the things that really matter.
Recommended by Prof Micah Murphy

The author "will train you to combat your own biases, address your weaknesses, and help you become a better and more confident decision-maker."

Philosophers have described the decision-making process as either rational or emotional: we carefully deliberate, or we go with our gut. But as scientists break open the mind's black box with the latest tools of neuroscience, they're discovering that this is not how the mind works. Our best decisions are a finely tuned blend of both feeling and reason, and the precise mix depends on the situation.
EMU Library also has a print copy

Leaders must possess the ability to shape opinions, inspire followers, manage risk, and outmaneuver and outperform rivals. This entertaining, surprising, and immensely practical book proposes a new paradigm for decision making in sync with the way we have to operate in the real world.

Why do people dodge responsibility when things fall apart? Why can we see hypocrisy in others but not in ourselves? Backed by years of research and delivered in lively, energetic prose, Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me) offers a fascinating explanation of self-deception--how it works, the harm it can cause, and how we can overcome it.
EMU Library also has a print copy

The Remarkable Ways We Gain Insights
Both scientifically sophisticated and fun to read, Seeing What Others Don’t shows that insight is not just a eureka! moment but a whole new way of understanding.

In this counter-intuitive and insightful work, author Frank Partnoy weaves together findings from hundreds of scientific studies and interviews with wide-ranging experts to craft a picture of effective decision-making that runs counter to our brutally fast-paced world. Even as technology exerts new pressures to speed up our lives, it turns out that the choices we make - unconsciously and consciously, in time frames varying from milliseconds to years - benefit profoundly from delay.
EMU Library also has a print copy*

You can learn how to think far better by adopting specific strategies. The book offers real-life stories, explicit action items, and concrete methods that allow you to attain a deeper understanding of any issue, exploit the power of failure as a step toward success, develop a habit of creating probing questions, see the world of ideas as an ever-flowing stream of thought, and embrace the uplifting reality that we are all capable of change.

Sheena Iyengar asks the difficult questions about how and why we choose: Is the desire for choice innate or bound by culture? Why do we sometimes choose against our best interests? How much control do we really have over what we choose? Sheena Iyengar's award-winning research reveals that the answers are surprising and profound.

Blink reveals that great decision makers aren't those who process the most information or spend the most time deliberating, but those who have perfected the art of "thin-slicing"-filtering the very few factors that matter from an overwhelming number of variables.

Reveals the surprising power of the ordinary checklist now being used in medicine, aviation, the armed services, homeland security, investment banking, skyscraper construction, and businesses of all kinds.

Chip Heath and Dan Heath tackle the thorny problem of how to overcome natural biases and irrational thinking to make better decisions about work, lives, companies, and careers.

A collection of articles from the Harvard Business Review on making bold decisions; supporting decisions with diverse data; evaluating risks and benefits with equal rigor; checking for faulty cause-and-effect reasoning; testing decisions with experiments; fostering and addressing constructive criticism; and defeating indecisiveness.

We've combed through hundreds of articles in the Harvard Business Review archive and selected the most important ones to help you innovate effectively. Leading experts such as Clayton Christensen, Peter Drucker, and Rosabeth Moss Kanter provide the insights and advice you need to: decide which ideas are worth pursuing; innovate through the front lines--not just from the top; tweak new ventures along the way using discovery-driven planning; tailor your efforts to meet customers' most pressing needs; avoid classic pitfalls such as stifling innovation with rigid processes.

The information age is drowning us with an unprecedented deluge of data. At the same time, we're expected to make more - and faster - decisions about our lives than ever before. No wonder, then, that the average American reports frequently losing car keys or reading glasses, missing appointments, and feeling worn out by the effort required just to keep up. But somehow some people become quite accomplished at managing information flow. In The Organized Mind, Daniel J. Levitin, PhD, uses the latest brain science to demonstrate how those people excel - and how readers can use their methods to regain a sense of mastery over the way they organize their homes, workplaces, and time. With lively, entertaining chapters on everything from the kitchen junk drawer to health care to executive office workflow, Levitin reveals how new research into the cognitive neuroscience of attention and memory can be applied to the challenges of our daily lives.

"And understanding how regret works can help us make smarter decisions, perform better at work and school, and bring greater meaning to our lives."

Blending common experiences and clever experiments with groundbreaking analysis, Ariely demonstrates how expectations, emotions, social norms, and other invisible, seemingly illogical forces skew our reasoning abilities.

"As experts silo themselves further while computers master more of the skills once reserved for highly focused humans, people who think broadly and embrace diverse experiences and perspectives will increasingly thrive."

In the international bestseller, "Thinking, Fast and Slow," Daniel Kahneman, the renowned psychologist and winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics, takes us on a groundbreaking tour of the mind and explains the two systems that drive the way we think. System 1 is fast, intuitive, and emotional; System 2 is slower, more deliberative, and more logical.