Critical Thinking Summary and Suggestions

Critical Thinking Summary

Critical thinking is the process of getting clear on a headscratcher, concluding what to do about it, and deciding to take action. I've presented numerous tools and techniques to use within each of those steps throughout the book.

Everyone can use critical thinking. Although it may come more naturally to some than to others, everyone's problem-solving and decision-making results will improve by using the tools and following the steps detailed in the previous chapters. The most important step in critical thinking is to begin.

Like any newly learned skill, critical thinking takes practice. You can practice 5 to 10 minutes daily with something you do every day—send e-mails, check your to-do list, or figure out where you might go out or what to make for dinner. Start with one tool, and then add one at a time. There is no expectation that you—or anyone, for that matter—will use all these tools constantly. It's simply not necessary. You might expand and use many more tools on a huge and complicated headscratcher, but most of the time, just a few tools will go a long way.

A note to executives: You have the ability to lead and see to it that members of your organization use critical thinking. There's only one thing you must do to make that happen: you'll have to make it necessary. Insist that presentations include the thinking that went into the conclusion. Use critical thinking in your staff meetings. See to it that critical thinking steps are part of people's goals. Integrate critical thinking into your key processes. (Note: If people must follow a process, and critical thinking is a part of it, then it is necessary for them to use critical thinking.) Become a critical thinking organization. Your people's enhanced performance will be a game changer for you and your company.

A note to supervisors, managers, and directors: You can affect your organization the most by using critical thinking. Be a thinking coach for your reports, and ask so what once a day to get people to think. Use critical thinking for your own problem solving and decision making. Present your ideas to upper management, using critical thinking tools. Influence senior management with well-thought-out premises. Create innovative solutions with your team using critical thinking. Your leadership will grow and shine.

A note to individual contributors: Improving your own problem-solving and decision-making skills will result in improved performance. You'll be able to make better recommendations; you'll be more productive; and your quality of work will go up. Use critical thinking with your peers. Be clear with your manager, and ask why. Remember that you may need to educate your manager as to why you are asking why. Critical thinking will aid your career goal, whether it's to become a manager and leader, take on more responsibilities, or simply perform your job better.

Critical Thinking—Let's Begin

Start by emptying your bucket to get your head in the right place. Consider the following suggestions:

• Suggestion 1: Start critical thinking practice with inspection and writing e-mails. Not only is this easy and good practice, but there's also an important side advantage. Write your e-mail; then before you hit Send, ask, “Is what I'm about to send clear? Could the recipient misinterpret what I've written?” You'll reap three benefits from this. First, you'll find your e-mails are shorter, because clarity often takes fewer words. Second, your thoughts will be clearer and better organized. Third, and most important, your e-mails will be more easily understood, resulting in potentially huge productivity gains. What happens if you send an unclear e-mail to someone? The recipient will respond with a question, which you'll then have to answer. The result is three e-mails generated instead of one. Consider how many e-mails would be sent around if you copied five people on an unclear e-mail. Even worse, what happens if you send an unclear e-mail out, and instead of asking questions, people just start to do their own interpretations of your e-mail? Imagine the productivity gains from inspecting just three important e-mails a day.
• Suggestion 2: Continue using critical thinking on small tasks and headscratchers:
  • E-mails: Use inspection; perhaps ask why.
  • Meeting invites: Ask about need and why regarding meeting invitations.
  • Requirements: Inspect requirements and ask why they are required. Why are they necessary?
  • Priorities: When setting priorities, ask for need and so what.
• Suggestion 3: Record your responses. When you ask yourself why, so what, or about need, or while you inspect, write down your responses. Have you ever had an idea you thought was clear but was difficult to write down? You are forced to organize your thoughts clearly when you write things down.
• Suggestion 4: When you're looking for solutions, and you think you have a good idea, ask, “What assumptions am I making?” and “Why am I making those assumptions?”
• Suggestion 5: Avoid spending more than 2 hours in a critical thinking session, no matter how complex the headscratcher—simply because it's tiring to think this way. Also, let your brain do some work for you in the background. Do a little critical thinking, then go work out or go to sleep and resume the next morning. Things will be clearer, or at least you'll have more ideas about how to tackle the problem.
• Suggestion 6: If you have only 10 minutes to think critically, ask the following:
  • Am I clear on the situation?
  • What assumptions can I make, and what facts, observations, and experiences am I using for those assumptions?
  • When concluding, ask, “How did I get to that conclusion?”
  • What criteria will be used to decide go or no-go?
• Suggestion 7: If you can, think critically with someone else. Asking each other questions and listening to responses will stimulate new questions and ideas. You can think critically by yourself, so long as you are disciplined enough to answer the hard questions.
• Suggestion 8: One of the best ways to practice critical thinking is to be a thinking coach. As a thinking coach, you'll ask questions, listen to responses, and ask more questions. Remember those questions, and use them when you're the one who needs critical thinking.
• Suggestion 9: Before implementing critical thinking in your work, talk it over with your manager so that he or she knows why you are asking so many questions.
• Suggestion 10: Understand your need to think critically. As you learned in Chapter 8, “Need,” if you want a problem solved, it is really beneficial to understand why a solution is necessary. It's the same for implementing critical thinking. It requires work, so if you don't have a need to think critically, why would you?

Why did you read this book? What motivated you to do so? Why do you want to improve your problem-solving and decision-making skills? Are you looking for more responsibility or to be a more effective leader? Understand why; then understand why it's necessary. It might be a personal goal, a company goal, or your manager's goal. Make a personal commitment to try some of these strategies. You'll like the result and want more.