This course contains the use of artificial intelligence.

Bad decisions under pressure are rarely made by people who were not clever enough. They are made by the wrong person, at the wrong moment, on whatever information happened to be nearest.

What actually goes wrong

Four failures, and they compound. The reasoning is distorted before it starts, because anchoring and framing are not character flaws — they are how the equipment works, including yours. The call is taken by whoever is available rather than whoever should own it, and nobody defined an escalation threshold in advance, so it is defined afterwards by the outcome. Attention has already been spent on things that were urgent and unimportant, so the decision that mattered gets the last twenty minutes of a Thursday. And a large share of what looks like bad judgement is not judgement at all — it is postponement, which feels like prudence right up until the options run out.

What this course covers

Thirty-eight lessons across those four failures. The reasoning first: deduction, induction and abduction, strong and weak arguments, the standard errors, confirmation bias, anchoring and framing, telling fact from opinion under time pressure, and decision models — OODA, Cynefin, cost against benefit — matched to the kind of situation you are in. Then how different people decide: MBTI, DISC, PAEI, Belbin's roles, the Hogan assessment which is specifically informative under stress, and the Big Five, including how to read a type in conversation. Then the risk frame: the heat map, the fraud triangle, conflict of interest, the 4I model, ISO 31000, the risk hierarchy, escalation and which calls are not yours to make, warning signs inside a leadership team, culture as a control, the three lines of defence, and a decision-making checklist. Then ownership: why capable people do not delegate, SMART, RACI, what not delegating costs, and buying back the hours you need to think. Then priority: the Eisenhower matrix, do-defer-delegate-delete, time blocking, and the psychology of procrastination. Finally the hardest version — deciding with no resources: hiring in uncertainty, reducing pay and benefits in the least damaging order, choosing who leaves and on what defensible basis, delivering the news, and rebuilding stability.

A note on two blocks

The risk block was recorded for a people-function audience, but the content is general: ISO 31000, the three lines of defence, the fraud triangle and the high-reliability organisation do not change by department, and that function appears in two lessons out of ten as an example of a risk owner. The final block is about crisis decisions and its examples are reductions, pay and benefits — it is the most honest material I have on choosing without resources, and also the most sector-specific. Both are worth knowing about before you start.

Who is teaching this

I am Mike. I built the people system at Preply as it became a unicorn, and I have worked at Wargaming, iDeals and Alfa-Bank. More than 1.6 million students have enrolled in my courses across 185 countries, and over 150,000 specialists have gone through my programmes. I hold PHRi and SHRM-CP certifications and represent HRCI in more than ten countries.

What is included

• Lifetime access to all 38 lessons

• Active instructor support in the Q&A section

• A Udemy Certificate of Completion

• Working models: OODA, Cynefin, the bias set, five personality frameworks, the heat map, the fraud triangle, ISO 31000, the three lines of defence, the decision checklist, RACI, the Eisenhower matrix, four-D

• Direct treatment of the decisions people avoid describing in courses

Where to start

Take one decision you would make differently now. Then ask which of the four it was: distorted reasoning, wrong owner, wrong moment, or a decision you never actually made. Enrol now and start today.