The Black Belt in Thinking Podcast

In this episode of the Black Belt in Thinking podcast, Peter Cronin sits down with Mieta Fagundes, Team Lead for AI at a major Australian tech company, to unpack the increasingly popular (and misunderstood) idea of “AI brain rot.” They explore the two very different meanings behind the term: the slow erosion of thinking skills when people rely too heavily on AI tools, and the social-media-fuelled...

Link to DST discussed in the episode.   In Part 2 of this conversation, Peter Cronin and Alfredo Mycue take the discussion from theory to practice. After their first episode explored the concept of Decision Support Templates (DSTs), Peter returns with one he’s tried using in the real world—and Alfredo puts it under the microscope.   This episode features a live review of a DST, showing what works,...

In this episode of the Black Belt in Thinking podcast, Peter Cronin is joined by Alfredo Mycue for a thought-provoking conversation on how organisations—especially complex ones—can empower frontline staff to make effective decisions without constantly escalating to leadership. Inspired by military decision-making strategies like Auftragstaktik (mission-style orders), Alfredo introduces the concept...

In this episode, I chat with Austin Turpin, founder of Fliptech Australia, about how he’s been using the Black Belt in Thinking tools while building his business.   We cover how assumptions show up in everything from sales and staffing to warehouse decisions, and how questioning cause and effect helped Austin avoid some expensive mistakes. He shares how he’s tested assumptions around things like I...

Listen in to this episode as Peter Cronin talks with Scott Daggett, who works at a fortune 100 financial institution, about his experience doing the Black Belt in Thinking course and the wins he has been able to achieve by implementing what he has learnt into his workplace! Scott has completed all three of the BBIT courses, so throughout the podcast Scott talks about how each course has given him...

Listen in to this episode as Peter Cronin talks with Rodney Daut, a course creator himself, about his experience doing the Black Belt in Thinking course and what he got out of it! Building courses and workshops as his job and side business, Rodney was able to apply the BBIT tools to conflicts or issues he was having throughout the 6 weeks the course ran. The exercises throughout the course enable...

We are starting a new series! The Application Series!   Throughout this series we will be talking to people who have taken the BBIT tools or skills and applied them to their own businesses or lives. We will explore the challenges they faced, the solutions they implemented and the outcomes they achieved. We really want to share these stories so that you can see the different ways that people are so...

What a year for the BBIT!! Two new courses were created and now the full compliment of courses is available to all staring early 2023! In this podcast the team take a look back on 2022 and discuss the biggest wins and learnings that they have got out of being apart of the BBIT team this year.  It has been a great year and we want to congratulate all those who have completed a BBIT course this year...

This week Peter and Mirta discuss Part 2 of the Fishbone Method or Diagram. As promised in the last episode Peter and Mirta apply the method to a real life problem that they are currently facing. Taking some instruction sets that they found online, Peter and Mirta talk about the process they went through using the Fishbone Method, as well as the insights and learnings they had as a result. Listen...

This week Peter and Mirta discuss the Fishbone Method or Diagram. Fishbone Method is the 5 Whys on steroids! The method represents the problem as the head of the fish, with the many different possible causes of the problem as the spine of the fish. Much like the 5 Whys, the Fishbone Method is very user-friendly: when a problem occurs, you identify the major categories of causes of the problem, lis...

This week Peter and Mirta discuss the 5 Why’s thinking process!   Sakichi Toyoda, the Japanese industrialist, inventor, and founder of Toyota Industries, developed the 5 Whys technique in the 1930s and Toyota still uses it to solve problems today!   The Five Why’s is most effective when the answers come from people who have hands-on experience of the process or problem in question.   The method is...

The Power of One-Liners This week Peter and Mirta discuss one-liners; simple phrases that encapsulate a more complex concept. A lot of the time we may agree on a solution or a course of action, but the day-to-day grind gets in the way, and old habits kick in. Before soon, we end up doing things that end up compromising that agreement. This is where one-liners come in. They are short and punchy phr...

Is Fluency better than knowledge? We learn a lot of things at school, but we often forget a lot of this information/learnings because we don't use them. How often have you had to use long division in your adult life? When people have to deliver or provide and answer and they don't have the muscle memory/fluency, they they start guessing. Then often the person on the receiving end takes the result...

On this episode Peter and Mirta discuss Behavior Forcing or Poka-yoke (Mistake Proofing), which is the use of any automatic device or method that either makes it impossible for an error to occur or makes the error immediately obvious once it has occurred.   So in a system where a mistake is happening time and time again, we introduce a forcing function which prevents people making that mistake. Fo...

Peter and Mirta's series on cognitive biases continues!   There are a few different cognitive biases that have a powerful influence on how you think, how you feel, and how you behave. Each episode will touch on a different bias. So make sure you tune in to them all!   This week Peter and Mirta talk about the Hindsight Bias. Hindsight bias is our tendency to look back at an event that we could not...

Peter and Mirta's series on cognitive biases continues!   There are a few different cognitive biases that have a powerful influence on how you think, how you feel, and how you behave. Each episode will touch on a different bias. So make sure you tune in to them all!   This week Peter and Mirta talk about the Cognitive Dissonance. Cognitive Dissonance is the mental state (and discomfort) we experie...

Peter and Mirta's series on cognitive biases continues!   There are a few different cognitive biases that have a powerful influence on how you think, how you feel, and how you behave. Each episode will touch on a different bias. So make sure you tune in to them all!   This week Peter and Mirta talk about the Recency bias. Recency bias favours recent events over historic ones. Recency bias gives gr...

In this episode Peter talks with Sydney buyers agent Rhiannan Jenkins about the biases in house buying and how learning about these bias could help you in the future.   Many of us are convinced we're logical. But our property buying and selling decisions are rooted in psychological biases, many of which we're not even aware of. Rhiannan points out our price perceptions can be framed by messages fr...

Peter and Mirta's series on cognitive biases continues!  There are a few different cognitive biases that have a powerful influence on how you think, how you feel, and how you behave. Each episode will touch on a different bias. So make sure you tune in to them all! This week Peter and Mirta talk about the Fallacy of division, which is the cognitive bias that occurs when a person reasons that somet...

Peter and Mirta's series on cognitive biases continues!  There are a few different cognitive biases that have a powerful influence on how you think, how you feel, and how you behave. Each episode will touch on a different bias. So make sure you tune in to them all! This week Peter and Mirta talk about the Framing Effect, which is the cognitive bias where an individual’s choice from a set of option...

Peter and Mirta's series on cognitive biases continues!  There are a few different cognitive biases that have a powerful influence on how you think, how you feel, and how you behave. Each episode will touch on a different bias. So make sure you tune in to them all! This week Peter and Mirta talk about the Optimism bias (or the optimistic bias) which is a bias that causes someone to believe that th...

Peter and Mirta start a new series on cognitive biases!  There are a few different cognitive biases that have a powerful influence on how you think, how you feel, and how you behave. Each episode will touch on a different bias. So make sure you tune in to them all! This week Peter and Luke talk about the Survivorship Bias, which is a bias that can lead to overly optimistic beliefs because multiple...

Peter and Mirta start a new series on cognitive biases!  There are a few different cognitive biases that have a powerful influence on how you think, how you feel, and how you behave. Each episode will touch on a different bias. So make sure you tune in to them all! This week Peter and Mirta talk about the Anchoring Bias, which is the tendency to over-rely on existing information or the first avail...

Episode 3 of the series on cognitive bias!  There are a few of the different cognitive biases that have a powerful influence on how you think, how you feel, and how you behave. Each episode will touch on a different bias. So make sure you tune in to them all! This week Peter and Mirta talk about the Availability Bias, which is the human tendency to think that examples of things that come readily t...

Episode 2 of the series on cognitive bias!  There are a few of the different cognitive biases that have a powerful influence on how you think, how you feel, and how you behave. Each episode will touch on a different bias. So make sure you tune in to them all! This week Peter and Mirta talk about the Halo Bias and how it is a type of cognitive bias in which our overall impression of a person, influ...