#20: Thinking Is an Art

Introduction to Concept:

Thinking is an art and creative thinkers must surely be considered artists. How artistic is your thought process? In just a few moments, you will receive a ten-item “test” that will ask for your preference after you view three similar images in each test item. There are no right or wrong answers as such. Instead, you will simply indicate your preference. First, though, we’ll do another preference test.

Procedure:

1. Show Transparency #20-1. Allow a few moments for participants to make selections and then offer this amateur-psychologist interpretation:

• The Ferrari indicates that you prize the speed aspect of critical thinking; the traveling circus equals the creative side; and the little engine reveals the logical end of critical thinking.

• The bullet train suggests you favor the “quick” part of The Critical Thinking Tool Kit; the Orient Express implies a tendency toward creativity; and the rocket trip hints at your analytical nature.

• The final selection is a bit different. It reveals participants’ “lust for life”—or the physical side, with special emphasis on the first noun in the phrase. (Leave further speculation up to the participants themselves.)

Point out that while this test was a just-for-fun warm-up, the next test will be more serious.

2. Distribute Worksheet #20-1. When everyone has completed it, pass out Handout #20-1 and ask participants to share and discuss their answers with one another.

3. Select a recorder to list key points on the flipchart as you lead a discussion of ways we can increase our artistic abilities: taking courses, reading books, speaking to artists, watching select television programs. If there is any question at all about the value of having business people develop artistic skills, mention that esteemed management authority Peter Drucker advises those who would be outstanding managers to study the violin.

Extending the Activity:

1. On the flipchart, draw these sketches and ask participants to figure out what they are. Solutions will depend on one’s creative, fanciful ability to look at things askance.

The answers are: a) an elm tree, b) two olives looking in a mirror, c) a centipede out of step with itself, d) “running behind schedule,” and e) “three degrees below zero.” Participants can add to the collection, of course. Invite them up to the flipchart or whiteboard to draw their own favorites.

2. Select a problem or issue that has arisen during the course of the training program and subject it to this analysis with the class as a whole:

• What circumstances may have contributed to this situation we are facing?

• Which of these problems would you say is most critical?

• What are others doing about the same problem?

• What are some possible causes of this priority problem?

• Which, of all these causes, is probably the most serious? The most likely?

• What can we do about the probable cause of the problem?

Workplace Connections:

1. Encourage participants to select one of the recommendations listed on the flipchart and to pledge to follow through with it upon their return to work. In fact, you could bring closure to the training session by having each participant stand, one at a time, and tell what he or she will follow through with.

2. Explain to participants that perspectives other than our own help us see things we do not typically see. Suggest that the next time they disagree with or are upset by a decision made by their managers they try to “see,” from the manager’s eyes, the events leading to the decision.

Questions for Further Consideration:

1. Why do we have such trouble seeing things from angles that are different from our usual ways of seeing things?

2. What do you do to dispense with the foolish consistency Emerson described as “the hobgoblin of little minds”?

3. What are some viewpoints you’ve heard children express that reveal a refreshingly different slant on life and living?

4. Do you know or have you heard of someone who “got lucky”? If so, would you ascribe their luck to what Robert Crawford describes as a “sensing of an opportunity—an opportunity that is there for all of us to see”?

Directions: You need only encircle your preference for one of the three illustrations in each of the following five items. Don’t spend too much time analyzing them, as there are no right or wrong answers. Simply select the one that you seem drawn to, for whatever reason.

Directions: Read the following rationale for the most-artistic answers. How many of these answers had you selected?

1. a) This is the most artistically appealing choice because it has more balance than the other two and because it bears a resemblance to something most of us find visually attractive—the sight of an apple. Further interest is added through the union of the two shapes, giving the eye a focus instead of having the eye jump between the two images.

2. c) This has the most graceful lines. Straight ones are juxtaposed with curved ones in a visually pleasing way. Further, it has contrasts that draw us to the combination of lines—curved and straight, of course, but also black and white, vertical and horizontal, thick and thin.

3. b) This offers the most interesting contrast, not only in the shapes but also in the patterns of the shapes. There is also more balance in selection b) than there is in selection c).

4. c) This image is a unified one. It leaves the viewer feeling peaceful, whereas the other two create fractured, fragmented impressions.

5. a) This is the most interesting because of the use of space between the circles. The other choices are too predictable, too perfectly spaced to offer much reason for the viewer to want to dwell on them.