Cheryl Strauss Einhorn is the founder and CEO of Decisive, a decision sciences company using her AREA Method decision-making system for individuals, companies, and nonprofits to solve complex problems. Decisive offers digital tools and in-person training, workshops, coaching, and consulting. Ms. Strauss Einhorn also teaches as an adjunct professor at Columbia Business School and Cornell Tech. She has won several journalism awards for her investigative stories about international political, business, and economic topics. She’s authored two books on complex problem solving: “Problem Solved,” for personal and professional decisions; and “Investing In Financial Research” about business, financial, and investment decisions. Ms. Strauss Einhorn is writing a new book about different decision-making approaches entitled “How You Decide.”
Leveraging Problem‑ Solver ProfilesCornell Course
Course Overview
Without a doubt, you've already made major life decisions. Some may have turned out well, while others may have left you feeling disappointment, frustration, or other negative emotions. Chances are that complex decision-making is not over for you yet; your personal and professional lives will likely continue to be full of complex decisions. This course will help you gain more confidence in yourself as a problem-solver as you build your decision-making skills.
We'll start by focusing on you: What kind of a decision-maker are you? And what kind do you want to be? You'll explore your decision-making archetype, what that means for how you tend to approach complex problem-solving, and what inherent pitfalls may lie within your default approach. You'll spend time in this course examining your own cognitive biases – don't worry; we all have them, and they actually serve some very important purposes to help us navigate through our busy lives. Being aware of these biases is the first step towards changing them, and in this course you'll discover how to apply some remedies when you notice those biases surfacing. Finally, because no decision is made in isolation, you'll have the opportunity to consider yourself as a decision-maker within the context of the people around you. You'll gain strategies that you can use to strengthen your ability to work with others.
This course will provide you with many examples of decisions, both big and small, that are impacted by Problem-Solver Profiles. It will also give you a framework by which to distinguish between complex and simple problems and decisions, providing you with a better sense of when not to “sweat the small stuff." This course is designed to build your self-awareness and tools for working with others, ultimately resulting in more confidence the next time you are faced with a complex decision.
Key Course Takeaways
- Examine how your Problem-Solver Profile impacts your decision-making practices
- Evaluate your cognitive biases and apply remedies
- Strengthen your ability to work effectively with others
How It Works
Course Author
Who Should Enroll
- Current and aspiring managers
- Senior executives
- Department heads (marketing, strategy, operations)
- Consumers
- Business consultants
- Life coaches
- Analysts and systems thinkers
- Entrepreneurs
- Engineers
- Wealth managers
- Investors
- Research directors
- Recent college graduates looking for best practices in decision-making
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