Five Steps to Becoming a Better Critical Thinker

Our world values quick answers and certainty. This is in contrast to critical thinking, which is the ability to carefully examine ideas. Critical thinking takes time and willingness to admit you do not know everything and you do not have all the answers. Critical thinking requires the ability to conceptualize, analyze, synthesize and evaluate information based on observation and experience. Employers desperately want to hire those rare people who can develop creative ideas and make them a reality. Critical thinkers are not born; they are molded and shaped through education and cultivation. You can become a better critical thinker in five steps.

Ask Questions

The world’s greatest thinkers are curious truth-seekers at heart. Critical thinking hinges on asking questions to get to the truth. If you want to develop this skill, get in the habit of asking meaningful questions. When you read an article ask yourself, “What is the overall theme of the text?” After you listen to an interview ask yourself, “What was the speaker’s main point?” Just as importantly, prod and challenge the author to explain themselves.

Equally, don’t be afraid to ask, “Does this make sense?”, even if the content is written by a highly authoritative source (for example, I was astonished by the number of logical fallacies and blatant assumptions in the Dalai Lama’s How to See Yourself As You Really Are – even more so when it became apparent that these assumptions and fallacies later turned out to be the cornerstones of the book, such as the argument that the world is becoming less, not more, compassionate).

Open Your Mind

Often times, people enter situations with pre-conceived notions. They are so tied to their beliefs that it hinders the exchange of ideas. Any understanding that could be cleaned through discussion comes to a standstill. You can avoid these pitfalls if you enter discussions with an open mind. When you engage someone in conversation be willing to change your mind and leave with a new perspective. In fact, one of the most common pieces of advice I hear is never to enter a meeting with a pre-conceived solution in mind: not only do you risk steering the discussion towards your own pet solution (and away from potentially more effective ones), but you are unlikely to even entertain alternative solutions.

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Brainstorming vs. Structured Thought

Have you ever sought order in a storm? Imagine, for a moment, a storming sea. Waves crash violently upon the shore; ships are smashed upon the rocks; heavy, pregnant sky is torn by flashes of lightning and the rocking of thunder. A storm – whether upon a sea or inside your head – is chaos personified.

On the other hand, the central premise of this entire blog is that structured thought processes optimize problem solving and decision making. We hold critical thought and ongoing analysis of our own thought processes to be crucial in producing effective outputs. It would seem, then, that brainstorming is inconsistent with the concept of structured thought that we hold so dear. Or is it?

Combining brainstorming and structured thought requires one to recognize that these two concepts are complementary, rather than mutually exclusive. The problem with this proposition is that most people treat brainstorming as a holistic problem solving process, rather than one of its integrated steps. In other words, many believe that simply because brainstorming generates solutions to problems, no further problem solving efforts are needed.

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Video Explains Critical Thinking

I just dug up this video on YouTube and simply had to share it with you. In five short minutes, it summarizes what critical thinking is, what it consists of, and what it can do for you today. Although a bit on the dry side, this is an extremely structured presentation of the concept.

By the way, the video was produced by a fellow known as Qualia Soup – an author of many fantastic videos that tackle highly complex problems and issues through logic and critical thinking, rather than emotion and faith. You can find his YouTube channel here, and his videos are a great example of applied logic.

Three Reasons Why Autocratic Leaders Fail

Which type of leader are you? Leaders typically fall into one of three different leadership styles. The authoritarian leader, also frequently known as the autocratic leader, often provides clear expectations for what he/she expects to be done as well as when it should be completed and how it should be completed. There is typically a clear line of division between the leader and his/her followers in the authoritarian style of leadership. In the participative or democratic style of leadership, the leader provides guidance to members of the group, but at the same time members of the group participate and provide input. In the delegative or laissez-faire style of leadership, the leader usually provides little to no guidance to followers. Instead, decision making is to left to members of the group.

Of these three styles of leaders, the least effective is typically the authoritarian or autocratic style of leadership. This is due to the effects commonly resulting from this restricted style of leadership.

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Develop Critical Thinking with a Simple Exercise

Like muscle or any other skill, critical thinking requires development and regular exercise. A sharp mind is a trained mind – a rigorous intelligence that critically analyzes both the external inputs and its own thought processes to the best of its ability. The more you practice critical thinking, the better you will become at spotting faulty logic, identifying false premises, and generally holding your ground in any argument.

In this day and age, finding opportunities to develop and practice your critical thinking skills is easy if you know where to look (knowing where to look is, after all, one of the implicit elements of analyzing our own thought processes). Every day, you are bombarded with messages that casually make sweeping generalizations and implicit assumptions. Much like a house of cards, most of these messages would crumble into pieces when subjected to rigorous critical analysis. Therefore, if you want to practice critical thinking, your objective should be to figure out where such messages are most likely to be communicated. Just like building up resistance to bacteria through exposure, you will deliberately expose yourself to such messages and subject them to rigorous critical analysis.

Where do you look for such messages? There are many places and opportunities, but the following rule generally holds: the more emotionally charged a subject matter is, the more fuzzy logic you can expect.

For example, let’s take the controversial case of Casey Anthony – the woman acquitted of charges related to child murder amidst a storm of media frenzy. As many have remarked, the public and the media judged her guilty long before the jury did; and when the jury acquitted her, all hell broke loose. Social networks exploded with allegations of fraud, attacks on President Obama, accusations of pro-abortion bias – in short, a fertile ground for messages that a critical thinker can use to develop their budding skills.

For a good sampling of such non-critical messages, you have to go no further than Facebook. In fact, here’s a screenshot of comments left on the Facebook page of Fox News in response to a Casey Anthony story:

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Four Secrets of Group Decision Making

Running a successful meeting can be difficult, especially when the stakes are high. Bringing together many different people with different ideas and motivations can create real problems if not managed effectively. More often than not, participants consider meetings a complete waste of time – how often have you heard people complaining about there being too many meetings where “nothing ever gets done”? And yet, ironically, when a decision has to be made (in other words, when a meeting can actually deliver something useful), suddenly no one is willing to step up to the plate. John will look awkwardly at Jill; Jill will suggest forming a sub-group to better investigate this issue; James will utter something about shareholder interests – and before you know it, everyone expects you, the leader, to make a decision for them (presumably so no one but you has to take responsibility for it later).

While the above is a typical example of corporate meetings gone wrong, the good news is that effective leaders have mastered a few essential methods to help groups come to decisions. Here are four secrets of group decision making that will help build consensus at the very next meeting. And, as we will discuss quite extensively on this blog later on, group decision making is the way of the future; the “heroic leader” model is dead and buried, and is more of a myth than an efficient business reality.

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3 Simple Steps to Spotting Hidden Assumptions

There is an old saying in corporate world – assumption is the mother of all screw-ups (well, actually, the saying is a lot harsher than that – but you get the idea). And, as almost every business executive will attest, no truer statement has ever been uttered. It’s not for nothing, after all, that the word “assume” implies that you’re making an ASS out of U and ME. Pretty clever, huh?

Assumptions are useful – but they are also inherently dangerous. Some are inevitable and make our lives easier – we cannot, for instance, rationally document assumptions such as the world not coming to an end tomorrow or the organization still being there in a week’s time). Nor can we meaningfully document and validate every possible and impossible assumption about the work that we do – before too long, we’ll start getting into assumptions about assumptions about assumptions, and that’s not what we’re paid to do (at least, I’m not). Love it or hate it, but there’s no getting away from uncertainty completely – the best we can do is reduce it, or, failing that, manage it.

Assumptions Gone Wild

Left unchecked, however, assumptions can downright devastating. Like a parasite, they will subtly and nefariously infect the host project, until the only way to get rid of them is to let the whole thing collapse flat on its face. Of course, IT will give you the resources you need to get this project done on time. Surely the person whose inputs your project plan hinges on is going to be available for provide them on a short notice. And there’s definitely enough spare capacity in the department to get this particular job done pronto.

The real danger of assumptions lies not in the fact that we make them – but that, very often, we’re unaware of making them. If, while examining the soundness of a proposed idea, you ask where the money is going to come from and get a reply along the lines of “I’m assuming that Budget will give us all the money we need without asking questions”, you will think that person mad. Yet this is precisely the kind of assumptions you make every day – except that you remain blissfully unaware on them until the moment when they creep around and hit you over the head with a baseball bat.

Spotting Own Assumptions

Analyzing own thinking processes is no small task – and trying to find assumptions that you yourself are unaware of making is even trickier. Luckily, there are a few tricks you can use to make the whole thing a lot easier.

1. Look at your project plan and ask yourself – what could go wrong? For example, let’s say you’re looking at a major project milestone (e.g., launch the new IT system). What could go wrong with that? At the most abstract level, we can safely say that the system wouldn’t launch. The next order of business is to ask why. IT department being staffed by a bunch of monkeys? Servers blowing up at the last minute? External developer dropping the ball? Simply by asking prodding yourself for all the possible reasons why something you want to happen, might not happen, will often reveal a number of critical assumptions (our IT guys know what they’re doing, our servers have been stress-tested for the event, the external developer has been told to be on stand-by during the launch week.
2. Examine the task you need to complete and ask yourself – what inputs are you going to need? This is a question you should be asking yourselfover and over again, especially if you’re a project manager working on a more abstract level and relying on specialists to supply the technical detail. Once you’ve identified the inputs (a feasibility study from IT, budget estimate from Finance, a draft contract from Legal), you can again ask yourself the same question – what could prevent me from getting any single one of these inputs?
3. Visualize the process to identify gaps – this comes in particularly handy in managing projects. Very often, the tendency is to skip over all that boring, unglamorous, technical detail and focus on the broader strategic picture. That’s great – except that if you do that, you’re also making an implicit assumption that everyone responsible for executing the task knows what to do. For me to send this e-mail to the entire organization, does John needs to give his input? And then does John’s boss need to sign off on everything? Wait a moment, aren’t we assuming here that John is available and that John’s boss isn’t a power freak who wants to push her own agenda? See how easy assumptions can be to spot if you know who’s doing what and when?

Identifying assumptions and critically analyzing our own conclusions is an indispensable characteristic of every manager. Examination of our own thinking processes and their outcomes is an essential step towards ensuring clear, structured, and objective thinking – one that takes into account not only the immediate needs, but also the long-term, systemic implications of any proposed solution. To be sure, sometimes, this kind of thinking is frustrating – but, more often than not, the detail and the nitpicking are well worth the final output.

Five Steps to Thinking Critically

Have you ever come across people who seem to take special, almost perverse pleasure, in nitpicking? You throw an argument at them and get back at you with seemingly inane questions – such as “what do you mean by this“, or “can you define that“? Here are five simple steps to beat these people at their own game:

1. Question ambiguous, generic terms – such as “right”, “fair”, “proper” – because they mean different things to different people;
2. Ask for evidence – someone claiming that “most people are nice” or that “the majority of Americans are happy about the economy” should be able to back it up with more or less empirical evidence;
3. Resist emotional wording – adjectives such as “evil”, “nefarious”, “saintly” sound nice, but they are not a substitute for logical, critical argument;
4. Be open to opposing views – if you are getting into an argument based on logic and you’re expecting to convince others with your own logic, be prepared to be the one being persuaded in the end, if your opponent’s logic trumps yours
5. Question own assumptions – is democracy a good system of government? Our knee-jerk response is to say “yes” without evening thinking, but is democracy good? In fact, what is good in the context of political debate? You assume that democracy is good, but is this an assumption that you ever validated?

Welcome to Cognissimo!

It is with tremendous excitement – and not a tiny bit of trepidation – that we are pleased to welcome you to Cognissimo – the blog that will help you think better.

Here at Cognissimo, we believe that human begins these days are taught just about anything – except that is, how to think. Mind you, we’re taught what to think all too often. This political system is right, while this one is wrong; this economic model works, while this one does not; this religious is tolerant and modern, that one oppressive and backward.

But how to think – ah, now that’s something different entirely. Exactly what is a modern religion? What is a working economic model? How does one define the “rightness” of a political system, and why? Our purpose is not to answer these questions, but to give you the process for doing so.

I said process, because, to us, this is exactly the biggest problem with thinking today – lack of process, structure, or organization. When confronted with passing a value judgment on the rightness of a political system, we jump right into the thick of it. We go off on a wild tangent, equating rightness with democracy and lambasting any system that is blatantly not democratic as wrong. Never for a moment do we pause to ask ourselves to use a simple problem solving such as:

• define the term “rightness”;
• define “democracy”;
• demonstrate that “democracy” is equivalent to “rightness”;
• therefore, conclude that a democratic system is right, and a non-democratic system is wrong.

It is the – somewhat ambitious – purpose of this blog to investigate, explore, and share with you such thinking processes. Our goal is not to debate religion, politics, or economics; our goal is to give you the tools for doing so yourself – critically, empirically, logically.

Over the coming days, weeks, months, and years, we will be populating this blog with information on decision making, critical thinking, problem solving and many more. Welcome – and stay with us!