Thinking Patterns: Think Clearly, Solve Problems, Decide Well
How your mind works and fails, logic and fallacies, the mental models of great thinkers, systems thinking, problem solving and better decisions — the thinking skills that leaders are made of.
What you'll learn
- Explain fast and slow thinking and catch your mind's shortcuts before they mislead you
- Spot the most common cognitive biases and logical fallacies — in others and in yourself
- Use mental models: first principles, inversion, second-order thinking and more
- See problems as systems with feedback loops and find leverage points
- Find root causes with the 5 Whys and design solutions with design thinking
- Make better decisions under uncertainty using probabilities, expected value and pre-mortems
- Learn anything faster with a growth mindset and proven learning techniques
Course content
Part 1. Start here: what good thinking is3 lessons
Part 2. Two systems: how your mind really works4 lessons
Part 3. Cognitive biases: the bugs in our thinking5 lessons
- 12 cognitive biases explainedby Practical Psychology10 min
- The most common cognitive bias (Veritasium)by Veritasium5 min
- Charlie Munger's 24 causes of human misjudgment, summarisedby The Wisdom Wire17 min
- The Psychology of Human Misjudgment — full speech (Charlie Munger)by BuffettMungerWisdom1h 16m
- Quiz: biases
Part 4. Logic and fallacies: argue well, spot bad arguments5 lessons
Part 5. Mental models: the toolbox of great thinkers8 lessons
- 9 mental models you can use (Farnam Street)by Farnam Street12 min
- First-principles thinkingby Freedom in Thought8 min
- Elon Musk explains first principlesby Innomind3 min
- Invert, always invert (Charlie Munger)by Seeking Wisdom: Value Investing & Worldly Wisdom11 min
- Second-order thinking in 2 minutesby Productivity Guy2 min
- Mental models: the best way to make intelligent decisions (Farnam Street)
- Five models applied to African problems
- Quiz: mental models
Part 6. Systems thinking: see the whole picture6 lessons
- Systems thinking (Systems Innovation)by Systems Innovation Network6 min
- Systems thinking in 5 minutesby james swanson5 min
- Systems thinking 101 (Anna Justice, TEDx)by TEDx Talks14 min
- System dynamics: thinking and modelling for a complex world (MIT)by MIT OpenCourseWare56 min
- Feedback loops and leverage points
- Practice: map a system you live in
Part 7. Problem solving: root causes and design thinking6 lessons
- Clarifying the 5 Whys (Lean Enterprise Institute)by Lean Enterprise Institute3 min
- Using the 5 Whys for root-cause analysisby Velaction Continuous Improvement6 min
- The design thinking processby Sprouts4 min
- Design thinking step by step (IDEO U)by IDEO U14 min
- From symptom to solution
- Quiz: problem solving
Part 8. Deciding under uncertainty6 lessons
- How to make smart decisions more easily (TED-Ed)by TED-Ed5 min
- Five strategies to sharpen your critical thinking (BBC Ideas)by BBC Ideas5 min
- Risk, luck and decisions (Annie Duke, TEDx)by TEDx Talks17 min
- Thinking in Bets — full talk (Annie Duke, Talks at Google)by Talks at Google1h 24m
- Think in bets, not certainties
- Quiz: decisions
Part 9. Learning how to learn and the growth mindset5 lessons
Part 10. Final project1 lesson
Capstone project: Capstone: solve a real problem in your community. You finish by building something real; a mentor reviews it before your certificate is issued.
About this course
The people who will lead Africa's next revolution won't just know more — they will think better. This course teaches the patterns of clear thinking used by the world's best decision-makers: Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman on the two systems of the mind; Charlie Munger on the psychology of misjudgment and inversion; first-principles thinking; systems thinking from MIT; design thinking from IDEO; Annie Duke on deciding under uncertainty; Carol Dweck on the growth mindset and Barbara Oakley on learning how to learn. Every idea is applied to real African situations — from traffic and power cuts to business, school and community problems — and you finish by solving a real problem in your own community with the full toolkit. About 4 hours of core video, plus 4 hours of optional full-length talks for those who want to go deeper.