A500.5.1.RB_HescottJ

A500.5.1.RB – Critical Thinking About Critical Thinking

 

September 9, 2016

 

I believe my critical thinking has gotten better since enrolling in the Critical Thinking Course offered by Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.  I found myself looking at the various tools and traits that embodied critical thinking and began comparing myself against the checklists.  I was happy to see that I already utilized most of the tools.  However, in a challenge to be intellectually honest, I had to accept that there were various tools that I did not utilize.

 

As an example of this, I was always taught that effective writing was:

1. Telling the audience what you were going to tell them
2. Tell the audience what you are telling them
3. Tell the audience what you just told them.

This is too easy!  Right?  Well, maybe.  I found the SEE-I program for effective writing to be a much better and fully developed tool for effective written communication.  The SEE-I program is as follows:

1. S = State it
2. E = Elaborate (explain it better in your own words)
3. E = Exemplify (give a good example)
4. I = Illustrate (give an illustration: maybe a metaphor, a simile, and analogy, a diagram, a concept map, and so forth)

SEE-I is a powerful tool and I have been actively integrating that too into my arsenal.  That is one example of improvement from learning about critical thinking. 

 

Another tool that has helped sharpen my critical thinking is the process of analysis known as going around the circle.  Going around the circle requires analyzing an issue by incorporating the following 10 steps:

1. What is the main purpose?
2. What is the key question?
3. What is the most important piece of information the person is using to reason through this issue?
4. What are the person’s major conclusions?
5. What are the main concepts the reasoning depends on?
6. What are the main assumptions the person is making in this piece of reasoning?
7. What are the main implications and consequences of the persons reasoning?
8. From what point of view is the person addressing this question?
9. What is the context of the issue the person is addressing?
10. What alternatives are there?

I have to admit that I did not utilize at least half of these insightful questions when conducting analysis.  I hate to admit that because I have been part of military planning teams that extensively used the military decision making process (MDMP).  MDMP is a very thorough, analytical, logical, decision-making system.  It involves a lot of the elements of critical thought.

 

I knew many of the elements of critical thought instinctively.  I had never been formally trained in the discipline.  The standards of critical thinking and the personal traits exhibited by higher level critical thinking were also useful to me.  I began to ask questions of myself.  Do I do that?  Why do I do that?  What possible things in my background could cause me to act or think like that?  Everyone has a subjective point of view, but higher level thinkers, and those that strive to attain that status, need to be able to separate themselves from that natural tendency and actively strive towards objectivity.

 

For the purposes of clarity and brevity, and I am not going to discuss all of the standards in depth.  I believe the list speaks for itself.  I also believe that the personal traits speak for themselves.  However, I think that I would be remiss if I didn’t at least list them out for someone to read and learn from.  From my perspective, it was helpful to see the list and refer back to it periodically as a reference guide as to how well the concepts have been internalized and utilized in the long run.

 

The critical thinking standards are: Clearness, Accuracy, Importance/Relevance, Sufficiency, Depth and Breadth.  The critical-thinking character traits are: Confidence in Reason, Intellectual Humility, Intellectually Courageous, Intellectually Empathetic, Intellectual Integrity, Fair-minded, Intellectually Engaged, Intellectual Perseverance, and Intellectually Autonomous.  As I stated previously, I already possessed or practiced these standards and character traits.  Some of them were presented to me a way that I had not thought of before.  Therefore, I have made an effort to assimilate them into my critical thinking arsenal.  For more information on this topic, refer to:

 

Nosich, Gerald M. (2012). Learning to Think Things Through 4^th ed. Boston, MA: Pearson Education Inc.

 

John D. Hescott

A500.4.3.RB_Hescott_John

This post is going to discuss video by Dr. Lyengar, found online (YouTube).  In the video, she was discussing choice and how that varies by culture.  The name of the video is Ballet Slippers or Adorable.  I will try to discuss her points without making it necessary to see the video, but it is worth the 20 minutes or so of your time to do so.  It discussed some very interesting concepts.

Dr. Lyengar starts her presentation about trying to order green tea with sugar in Japan.  She was unable to do so because Japanese culture frowns upon sugar in green tea.  Therefore, she was refused an order for green tea in a restaurant!  The point of the example was that Americans are used to having things our own way, but Japanese culture wants to “protect” someone from making a bad choice.  Those are very different approaches in how one perceives the world around us.  Can we have too many choices?  It depends.  Our American culture fine-tuned into making choices, but having too many choices and the authority to make them all may not always be optimal.

To illustrate that point, she talks about the difference between European families who had doctors make a decision to take a child off of life support versus the American families.  European families seemed to adjust to the tragedy better when the choice was made for them.  American families did NOT want anyone to make the choice for them, but suffered great guilt and emotional trauma as a result of making that hard choice.  Who is better off after the result?

Dr. Lyengar also discussed the East European Block mentality of choices versus the West.  In a culture that has far fewer choices, it appears that they grouped what all Westerners would view as separate choices, into a large set.  The video talks about how Westerners view choices in soda as many but the Eastern Block viewed it as a choice between having soda, and having none.  In this instance, is limiting that choice to soda or nothing better or worse? 

Her final example was to demonstrate choice and how it can be affected on one’s cultural view of motherhood.  Asians tend to revere their mothers more than their Western counterparts.  It transcends into how they perform based upon their mother’s expectations of them versus what they choose to do as an individual.  This is the exact opposite of how Americans view things and set their goals and standards. 

She even delved into the fanatical devotion to “choice” by Americans by giving the pink nail polish example.  She was trying to decide her “choice” of two different brand names of pink nail polish, which were essentially the same but had different names.  In other words, no matter which choice she made, she would still get essentially the same product.  However, she would be able to choose and that was the highest order of priority for her and basically all Americans.

Dr. Lyengar makes the following assumptions for Americans:

1. Make your own choices,
2. More options leads to better choices
3. Never say no to choice.

I agree with Dr. Lyengar’s assumptions about Americans.  I also happen to agree with her that having choice be the highest priority in every decision may not always be for the best.  The implications on leadership is that a good leader may limit the choices he presents to his subordinates by framing the issue.  A good description of the issue and what the end-state needs to be may limit the number of options available to accomplish that mission.  However, giving the flexibility to subordinates plays into the American desire for choice and the freedom to choose.  This framework would be important for Americans due to our cultural affinity for choice.  I am not saying that one should not give subordinates the ability to free-style into solutions.  If proper parameters and metrics are given as part of the problem set, and then looked upon as necessary, then creative solutions are possible to attain the desired end result.  Everybody wins.

The same style of leadership may not work if one were a supervisor overseas in an Asian market, or an Easter European country.  Knowing what cultural expectations are will help a supervisor in determining what sort of style that he needs to have as a leader.  That was the most important concept that I received from Dr. Lyengar.