Formerly known as Outsmarting Implicit Bias, Make Better Decisions: The Psychology of Blind Spots for Leaders and Teams starts from a simple premise: every human mind carries blind spots created by hidden bias. Fifty years of research in experimental psychology shows we don't understand our own minds as well as we think — but we can reveal the hidden thoughts that shape our decisions and learn to work around them.
This is an official Harvard Online course, developed and taught by Harvard Professor Mahzarin Banaji with faculty from the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences, and delivered on Harvard Online's learning platform. IPMC International handles your registration, payment and local support, then enrols you on the course. The format is self-guided within a scheduled cohort, and the certificate of completion is issued by Harvard Online.
This interactive course helps you experience how your own mind works and how to outsmart it:
The programme is pitched at an introductory level and is highly interactive, using exercises that let you experience your own mind at work. Learners also hear from industry leaders about how unintended bias seeps into organisations and how they built practices to detect and challenge it. To earn the certificate, participants complete all modules by the stated deadlines.
Explore how the mind forms fast, automatic associations, and why irrelevant information interferes with accurate judgement — the "thumbprints of culture" we all carry.
See why biased behaviour emerges in areas like hiring and healthcare even among people who hold no conscious prejudice, often through helping the familiar rather than harming the different.
Use the Implicit Association Test (IAT) as a scientific reality check on your own automatic associations, and work through what the results mean.
Practise proven debiasing techniques — from shifting from "telling" to listening to changing the situation itself — and apply them across individual, team and organisational decisions.
Examine how bias can quietly show up not only in human judgement but in the AI models organisations increasingly depend on, and how to prepare teams to challenge it.
Mahzarin Banaji — Your instructor. The Richard Clarke Cabot Professor of Social Ethics in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University, an experimental psychologist who co-developed the concept of "implicit bias" nearly 30 years ago and co-authored the New York Times best-seller Blindspot: Hidden Biases of Good People. Affiliations are listed for identification purposes only.
The course is built for leaders and teams who want to make fairer, sharper decisions and build a values-aligned culture. It's ideal for professionals, graduates and organisations who want a globally recognised Harvard Online credential to advance their careers or capabilities.
On successful completion you receive a digital Certificate of Completion from Harvard Online. Once you've earned it you can add it to your CV and LinkedIn to evidence your decision-making skills.
The course fee is confirmed on enquiry and put in writing before payment.
Pay IPMC securely by debit/credit card in UAE Dirhams (UAE) or by UPI, card or net banking in Indian Rupees (India).
Yes. The course is delivered by Harvard Online and the certificate of completion is issued by Harvard Online.
Yes. Harvard Online renamed the course to Make Better Decisions: The Psychology of Blind Spots for Leaders and Teams — the content and instructor are the same.
The course runs over about 3 weeks and is self-guided, with roughly 1–2 hours of study per week, so it fits easily around a full workload.
This course runs as a scheduled Harvard Online cohort. The next cohort starts 23 Sep 2026. Enquire and we'll reserve your place.
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