Masterclass decision making under pressure: New skills for the new normal

About the masterclass

To assist participants build individual and team capability in making decisions under conditions of high pressure, stress, and uncertainty.

This is a highly interactive, evidence-based, and practical two-day online masterclass. Participants will be introduced to a range of tools to improve their own decisions and those of their teams so they can best meet their obligations and accountabilities as a leader.

The online masterclass focuses on building and maintaining psychological safety for contractive dissent in high pressure environments and the resulting impact on thinking and decision-making. As well as group dynamics considering multiple perspectives, organisational culture, meaning making and recognising and managing drift to unsafe conditions.

This event is run across two days in three-hour sessions and is presented through an online delivery method.

Program and learnings

This masterclass explores six topic areas and participants will learn about:

Topic one: The impact of deep uncertainty – implications for disaster decision making

• Examining the features of contemporary events: volatility, uncertainty, ambiguity, and complexity
• The impacts of shifting values; societal norms, individual and group cohesion – turbulence and flux

Topic two: Decision making under pressure

• The neuroscience of decision-making
• The impacts of stress, time compression, and uncertainty on individual and group decision-making
• Individual and team error traps
• The fallibility of judging decisions on outcomes

Topic three: Uncertainty and decision making: new skills and tools

• Tools to assess volatility of an event, monitoring drift and coping ugly
• Features contributing to good leaders making bad decisions Identifying red flag conditions

Topic four: Making sense of decision making under pressure

• Recognising sources of pressure
• Identifying cognitive bias and developing meta-cognitive thinking
• Tools to support individual decision-making
• Group dynamics and organisational culture

Topic five: Building and maintaining psychological safety

• Assessing communication climate and team culture
• Building and maintaining psychological safety for constructive dissent
• Meaning-making and multiple perspectives

Topic six: Enhancing team decision making

• Elements that undermine and enhance team effectiveness
• Embracing diversity
• Facilitating authorising environments to enhance team capability