Critical Thinking:Thinking reflexively about a ‘Problem Situation’

Lorraine Dodd

L.dodd@cranfield.ac.uk

Ext.5274

© Cranfield University 2011

Critical Thinking: what is it and are we doing it?

John Chaffee (2004)Thinking Critically,Wadsworth Press

Thinking critically involves thinking for ourselves and carefully examining the way that we make sense of the world.

Creative Thinking involves developing ideas that are unique useful and worthy of further elaboration.

Systems Thinking is about seeing things from different viewpoints with multiple perspective lenses.

Cuban missile crisis (1962)

• 6th Sept: Soviet Union puts missiles secretly into Cuba.• 14th Oct: US U2 flight over Cuba makes discovery.• 16th Oct: Kennedy establishes Exec Committee.• 17th Oct: more IMINT 30+ long-range missiles.

– Intelligence assessment: many ready to fire in one week.

• 18th Oct: what courses of action would you advise?• 21st Oct: missiles are camouflaged.• 23rd Oct: US photo evidence presented at UN.• 24th Oct: Khrushchev orders full alert.

Six Questions for Effective Thinking[“IDEALS” Peter Facione: Critical Thinking]

• Identify the problem.– What’s the real question we’re facing here?

• Define the context– What are the facts and circumstances that frame this problem?

• Enumerate choices– What are our most plausible three or four options?

• Analyze options– What is our best course of action, all things considered?

• List reasons explicitly– Exactly why we are making this choice rather than another?

• Self-correct– Okay, let’s look at it again. What did we miss?

Cuban missile crisis Exec Committee estimates & options

• Courses of action:– Do nothing (more INT + going to UN);– Issue warnings;– Quarantine / blockade around Cuba;– Surprise air-strike now;– Surgical air-strike*;– Follow-up invasion.

• Two key teams advocating preferred option(s).

* Plans called for an initial attack (500 sorties) striking all military targets, including missile sites, airfields, ports and gun emplacements and all could be ready to go by 23 rd October.

Cuban missile crisis Exec CommitteeWays of working and thinking

• Kennedy does not attend Team sessions

• 19th Oct (at 21.15) Teams present options:

– Strikes versus blockade.

• Kennedy raises many probing questions.

• Sends all back to deliberate further.

• Teams agree a way of working:

– Recommendations, outline for President’s speech to the nation and develop whole course of action;

– Exchange papers and each team dissect and criticize the other, then return notes to original with need to develop further answers.

• 21st Oct (at 14.30): White House meeting

– Newcomer option: US offer to withdraw missiles in Europe.

– President’s speech postponed from 22nd to 23rd Oct.

– Decision made by Kennedy at 17.30

Ways of thinking

• Creatively

• Openly

• Appreciatively

• Reflexively

• Convergently

• Divergently

• Analytically

All combine to support you as you think through your estimates and as such then critical thinking allows you to assess which type of thinking best suits the overall situation.

foreseen unforeseen

non-creative

creative

small world

big worldtransitionalthrough education

If in doubtgo back to

usingSOPs

Critical quality

self-reflective vantage point

?

Recent work on “Cognitive Fitness”: thinking skills

What are your thoughts so far….?

If everybody is thinking alike,  then somebody isn't thinking.

General Jan Smuts

one-time terrorist

Open-eyes / open-mind matrix

closed eyes open eyes

closed mind

open mind

Closed-to-open sensing and sense-making

zerosurprise

maximumsurprise

maximumsurprise

BeliefFunction

Futureoutcome

Belief

Surprise

Belief and Surprise (cf GLS Shackle)

Region of Possibility

Imaginablefutures

Open mind

Simple starting steps

• Step One to acknowledge that the customary starting point is:– What do we want/have to do? How can/might we do it?

• Step Two sketches the open-eyes/open-mind matrix which immediately gives people pause and very quickly the comfort of a framework for their thinking.

• Step Three encourages reflections on decisions taken in each of the eyes/mind states and draws out stories about choices made or not made.

Approach to thinking is moving…

…away from ….towards

• objective and normative analyses

• single viewpoint• fixed templates• probability• trend prediction• solely advocacy• time

• subjectively sensed appreciations

• multiple viewpoints• adaptive framing• possibility • open imagination• balance with inquiry• timing

Options funnel: imagined deemed possible

potential imaginable options without prejudice

desirable options

possible options

available options

performable options

required options

obligated options

permitted optionsachievable options

do-able options

Choice-making

• Comfort of closed eyes and minds relates to a restrained safe set of options, which may be due to:

– institutional pressures to conform (e.g. blame culture);– lack of confidence in people to allow discretionary trust, etc.

• Understand where people are in terms of their ranges of options. – What might be the implications of painting others or yourself into a corner?

• Encourage use of narrative and imagination in order to create new options (e.g. creating ‘hedging’ options to deal with ambiguity).

• Opening options will then naturally extend sense-making.– Acknowledging and avoiding pacific shrimp syndrome.

Staged appreciation

• Where people are

• Sense-making: open-eyes/open-mind

• Belief / surprise

• Choice-making

• Focus function and preference

• Diverse viewpoints and multi-perspectives

Summary questions

•Adopting a self-critical standpoint, taking a broader systems view and creating novel options moves analysts closer to decision-makers. Do we need to have more adaptive HQ structures, functions and processes?

•A command team or organisation that adopts critical thinking is more likely to inspect its own preferences, beliefs and frameworks rather than simply focus on action options. How challenging do you think this is to current practice?

•Critical thinking provides us with practical approaches for considering our own/others’ perspectives and acknowledging unknowns before embarking on solutions. Does this present a paradox for assessment and military leadership?

What do you think

• Facione, P. (2010) THINK_Critically, Pearson Education.• Kitchener, K. and King, L, (1994). Developing Reflective Judgment:

Understanding and promoting intellectual growth and critical thinking in adolescents and adults. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.

• Mathieson, G.L. Complex Adaptive Reflective Systems. Unpublished.• Mitroff, I. and Linstone, H. (1993). The Unbounded Mind: breaking the

chains of traditional business thinking, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

• O’Connor, J. and McDermott, I. (1997). The Art of Systems Thinking. Harper Collins.

• Seddon, J. (2008). Systems Thinking in the Public Sector. Axminster, Triarchy Press.

• Senge, Peter. (1990). The Fifth Discipline: the Art and Practice of the Learning Organisation. New York, Doubleday.

References