Critical Thinking at Work | Workshop, Salah Abdeldayem
A practical workshop on evaluating claims, proposals, and reports at work, separating assumptions from facts and spotting weak reasoning.
Critical Thinking at Work
A practical companion to The Psychology of Better Decisions, applied to the reports, proposals, and claims professionals evaluate every week.
How this differs from The Psychology of Better Decisions: this is the team-facing, applied version, not how decision-making works in general, but evaluating a specific claim, report, or proposal in front of you right now.
Professional judgment is often treated as a personality trait, "she's sharp," "he's skeptical", rather than a teachable skill. This workshop treats it as a skill: a short set of habits for evaluating information before acting on it.
Who this is for
Employees, professionals, managers and teams who regularly have to assess information, proposals, or claims from others, reports, vendor pitches, colleague recommendations, and need a defensible way to say "I'm not convinced" or "this holds up."
The problem
Because critical thinking is rarely trained directly, people default to accepting confident-sounding information or agreeing with the most senior voice in the room, not because they lack judgment, but because no one taught them a structure for using it under time pressure.
What you'll explore
Assumptions vs. facts, how they get blurred in professional writing and speech
Asking better questions before evaluating an answer
Evaluating the strength of evidence, not just its confidence
Recognizing weak reasoning: correlation-as-causation, cherry-picked examples, false urgency
Alternative perspectives, deliberately generating one before settling on a conclusion
Premature conclusions, noticing when a group has decided before finishing the discussion
What you'll take away
A short set of questions to run any claim, proposal, or report through before acting on it, practiced enough to become a habit, not an extra step people skip when busy.
Learning outcomes
Separate a stated fact from an unstated assumption in a real document or pitch
Ask a clarifying question that exposes a weak claim without derailing a meeting
Identify at least three common reasoning errors in workplace communication
Generate one credible alternative explanation before accepting the first one offered
Recognize when a group has reached premature agreement
Apply a short evaluation checklist to a real proposal or report
2h – half-day
Corporate · Team
Teams & individual contributors
Best for
Practical exercises
Evaluating a real (anonymized) proposal or report as a group, flagging assumptions vs. facts
"Steelman it": building the strongest possible case for a position the group disagrees with
Spotting reasoning errors in real workplace writing participants bring in
A structured "second opinion" drill, generating one credible alternative before deciding
Methodology
Built around material participants bring from their own work wherever possible; short input, then group evaluation exercises, practiced on live documents rather than manufactured case studies.
Example agenda: half-day (3.5h)
0:00
Opening: judgment as a skill, not a trait
0:20
Facts vs. assumptions in real workplace documents
1:00
Evaluating evidence, not confidence
1:30
Spotting reasoning errors, group exercise
2:10
"Steelman it" exercise
2:50
The second-opinion drill
3:25
Building a personal evaluation checklist
FAQ
How is this different from The Psychology of Better Decisions?
That workshop explains decision-making generally. This one is applied and team-facing, evaluating a specific document, proposal, or claim in front of you.
Do we need to bring real documents or proposals?
It works best that way, and works just as well with provided cases if that's not available.
Is this a formal logic or "logical fallacies" course?
It touches common reasoning errors, but the focus stays on workplace application, not a formal logic curriculum.
Is this only for managers?
No, it's built for anyone who evaluates information at work, at any level.
Bring this to your team.
Enquire about this workshop
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