Arena: Applied Critical Thinking
Contents
1 Nourishing a Culture of Thinking
Thinking is invisible and delicate. Healthy thinking needs a nourishing culture to grow. Toxic attitudes and behaviors inhibit its full development. This is about more than just being “nice.”
Effective thinking practices require a nourishing culture.
2 Facts, Opinions, and Reasoned Judgments
Words can confuse us. The word “opinion” is such a word.
“I have the right to my opinion!” It can mean a highly emotionally charged assertion of a superficially understood position. It can also mean a substantial, fully researched, explored and argued judgment on an issue of national import. When all we have is “fact” and “opinion” we make decisions based on the 4Ps: power, position, personality, and politics. We need objective standards for well-reasoned conclusions.
Distinguishing mere opinions from reasoned judgments is key.
3 A System of Living Thinking
Every day we have to figure things out. Thinking long and hard will not cut it if we want to be comprehensive and confident. We can learn a living system that can be called up every time we look at our hand.
A reliable living system can be learned.
4 Developing Well-Reasoned Conclusions
To build confidence in our judgment is possible when we learn to use reliable frameworks and block out toxic elements.
To be a confident person means to be confident in our judgment as well as our skills.
5 Modes of Thinking
We think in many modes. Some are more convergent, where we try to find the one right answer to a given task. Some are more divergent, where we imagine what does not exist yet. We can recognize each mode and strengthen it with unique techniques.
Different modes of thinking have different strengths.
6 Intellectual Humility
We invite others to share their knowledge when we do not pretend to know more than we do know. We seek diverse perspectives and are willing to explain why we think what we think. In a complex world, this is a rational posture.
Recognizing how little we actually know opens possibilities.
7 What Has Value in a Knowledge Economy?
In a highly complex world, with global acceleration on every front, we need people who can think effectively, generate productive options, and guide our public discourse. We have an abundance of ‘Big Data’ but we’re rather short on understanding and wisdom. What are we investing in?
Weighing data against wisdom: where do we need to invest?
8 Rewards and Punishments
The extrinsic motivators in our culture have a huge impact on our thinking. We are signaled to think this, to not think that or even to look away and not think at all. Until we awaken to how we are being manipulated, we will not develop true self-determination and freedom. Intrinsic motivation, living from the inside out based on our values and purposes, fuels a life of meaning.
We can rise above external rewards and punishments.
9 Punished by Rewards
Carrots and sticks, as Alfie Kohn shared with us in Punished by Rewards, make us into domesticated “humans.” How do we learn to build an internal locus of evaluation? How do we develop confidence in our own judgment if our thinking is still undisciplined and confused? What steps can we take to become more fully human?
We can shift to self-control when we recognize how controlled we’ve been.
10 Accountability Does Not Equal Assessment
One of the ways we are controlled in schools and organizations is by the experience of being assessed by others. As a free individual, strive to be accountable to yourself and to what you think is true and good. In society, what we want is mutual accountability, yet what we buy is assessment. Assessment generally undermines accountability and individual initiative.
We want accountability; what we focus on is assessment. They are not the same.
11 Accountability and Assessment ~ Organizations
In organizations, we have infrastructure and departments that focus on assessment and performance reviews. We assume that assessment will yield accountability of individuals and project teams or departments. The illusion is that if we measure, we can control or influence someone for our benefit. Performance review is a big and powerful industry with very little evidence of productivity.
We want accountability; we buy assessment. They are not the same.
12 Fundamental Human Needs
Recognizing patterns of the needs of humanity, globally over time, was part of the work of Manfred Max-Neef (Chile). His work focuses on “What we need” and “What we want,” and the differences between them. Unless we know the relationship in daily life, we chase our wants and ignore what we authentically need.
Human needs and wants follow patterns that are illuminating.
13 Fundamental Human Needs in Our Organizations
Humans organize themselves to accomplish something. Within that organization, and as that group of people connect with wider circles, people have needs and wants. Clearing up the relationships helps the group make decisions for health and the common good. Ignoring these relationships leads us to erode our potential.
Groups also have needs and wants and we can clarify them.
14 Near and True Gifts
It is impossible not to recognize that the state of our society, economy, and political arena is unstable. As individuals and organizations, we want to contribute, to make a difference. What gifts do we bring to this work? Duane Elgin, author of Voluntary Simplicity, asks us to audit our near gifts and our true gifts. Then we can have more clarity about how to create value and where to put our shoulders to the wheel.
Identifying our near and true gifts gives us a place to begin.
15 Clarifying Our Worldview
We need to set a solid foundation for our thinking so we can build well-reasoned conclusions, consistent with our purposes and values. In this Lab, we begin to identify what we believe to be real and true about the world and about us, as humans. We review our near and true gifts and our interests. We begin to form an aligned structure that helps us decide which methods make sense to pursue.
Without a coherent worldview or paradigm, we wobble and flounder.
16 Our Organization’s Worldview
We’ve all seen vision and mission statements, and they are mostly met with a “Ho, hum” response. What we learned from Egon Guba’s paradigm work in Clarifying Our Worldview Lab can readily help us re-energize our organization. We’re asking different questions and engaging all staff to bring alignment with purposes that we can stand behind.
Organizations benefit from clarity using Egon Guba’s Paradigm framework.
17 Beyond Control
Our habit life and residuals from paradigms in place over the past 60 years need to be addressed. “Command and control” was justified and accepted as a form of organization. What assumptions lie under our worldview, and how can we raise these deep feelings, or hidden expectations to the surface? How do old habits of “command and control” impact organizations?
Control issues and muddy expectations continue to haunt organizations.
18 Ideals and Values
We are seeking coherence and alignment from the macro level of our ideals to the micro level of various opportunities that are before us. We use a funnel imagination, identifying ideals that move us, values that inspire us, and purposes that we are working toward. To gain clarity, we create examples at each level, and begin to identify personal, professional, and community Higher Purposes. Opportunities gain energy from being directly tied to specific purposes.
Confidence comes from a sturdy, consciously-designed structure of beliefs and purposes.
19 Higher Purposes
Building on our clarifying work with our ideals and values, we begin to list out possible Higher Purposes in three areas: Personal, Professional, and Community. We create a chart and review it, adding, amending and deleting ideas that don’t feel right over time. With this, we witness patterns. We can confidently take up some opportunities, and decline others.
Ordering and de-cluttering the foundation for our decisions is liberating.
20 Higher Purposes and Beyond
In organizations, there are often multiple Higher Purposes. That can be healthy if there is clarity among the staff and leadership about the relative significance of each Higher Purpose. In addition, clarity about the urgency of each Higher Purpose, relative to the others, can enable coherence of action.
It can be toxic if we think we agree, yet we don’t, and it is masked.
21 Purpose and Motivation Spectrum
As humans, there are predictable attitudes and behaviors when we have to do something but we do not know the purpose. We are a purpose-driven species. Our motivation is directly tied to our understanding of and alignment with our purposes. Disengaged staff reflect confusion or moral inconsistency with purpose.
When we choose a purpose our motivation is high.
22 Crafting Effective Opportunity Statements
Clarifying our thinking enables us to state simply and clearly what we see: 1) as an opportunity, 2) as a problem, or 3) as a question in focus. This does not happen magically: it is a disciplined process of drafting and being guided by criteria and strategies that help us minimize ambiguity and remain aligned with our Higher Purpose(s).
Stating something important both clearly and simply takes work.
23 Assumptions and Indispensable Information
We are always making assumptions. As we try to decide if our opportunity is one we want to pursue, we benefit by identifying the significant assumptions. Then we need to determine how certain we are that each is true. The gaps reveal our research path and we can identify the indispensable information we’ll need. This is a disciplined practice that is best done in teams.
Resisting the work to identify and test assumptions is foolish.
24 Organizational Opportunity Statements and Assumptions
Organizations have both current operations and new opportunities. Working with diverse groups enables the identification of significant assumptions, and taps the collective experience of the group relative to levels of certainty. Where there are gaps, indispensable information is identified and researched. If and when conditions change, the group can quickly adapt because they know what they are counting on to be true.
Diverse groups are extremely effective in identifying assumptions and risks.
25 A Spectrum of Validity and Truth
We live in a tsunami of available information. Some of what is available will be relevant to the thinking we’re doing about our opportunity or problem. How do we assess the validity of information today? The 6Cs guide us, yet we must remain open to the possibility that we have been misled.
There are trustworthy sources, but the work is on us.
26 Core Concept Expansion
Each of us has a unique history and experience with core concepts, with the words that we use daily. For example, words like excellence, or health, or service, or listen – all are words we use and expect others to share identical meanings. To think that we understand each other without exploring the diversity of interpretations of core words is to bring weeds into the garden that later flower as interpersonal conflict.
Expanding core concepts is a hidden treasure trove in relationship-building.
27 Conversation Mapping to Develop Core Concepts
In organizations or communities, there are words that are regularly used. We assume that these core concepts are mutually understood. For example, we face systemic racism and those two words, along with inequity, inequality, justice, and power are all words loaded with meaning. Conversation Mapping is a beginning activity to enable groups to appreciate how many meanings people have for each word, and how to enrich our understanding by sharing and then discovering patterns.
Expanding core concepts strengthens communities and organizations.
28 Diversity of Perspectives
In today’s complex world, the biggest category of things includes what we don’t know that we don’t know. Each of us has a unique perspective, and to expand and create a richer picture of what is real and important, we need to invest in bringing diverse perspectives to support us. As we try to decide if our idea is a good idea, we are often resistant to perspectives that challenge our imagination of success. Our apprehension is crafting vulnerabilities for us and for the resources we’re using to pursue our idea. Identifying the relevant points of view and engaging in inquiry is a key to good reasoning.
Each of us is limited to our unique perspective that is but a thin slice of reality.
29 Telling Stories to Share Diverse Perspectives
With the volatility in today’s world, in community life and in organizations, many events are transpiring and individuals have unique perspectives of what happened and what it means. Storytelling is as old as our human experience and appeals to young and old alike. Coming together to share stories, using a disciplined systemic approach, enables any group to capture patterns and themes. The technique in this lab is called Narrative Gathering and was developed by Bruce McKenzie (Australia). We build the capacity of our system, organization or community by learning to trust each other because we now know each other better through our shared stories. We find warm commonalities and realize that our differences may be justified or simply misunderstandings.
Stories embody rich detail and sharing strengthens relationships.
30 Inferences
Inference is the leaping horse of critical thinking. We start at a given point, and we leap: “If this is true, then ______ is possible.” The variations are infinite. Inferences are rarely supported in schooling but they are possibility generators. As we strive to figure out if our idea is a good idea, developing inferences shifts us into the future and alerts us of possible errors.
Inferences are crucial thinking challenges as individuals and as groups.
31 Serial Inferences
Some thinkers are satisfied with their first order inferences – an inference that is a direct offshoot from an idea or condition or statistic. Deeper thinkers see that taking the next steps will enrich our imagination and possibilities. This can help us avoid trouble by designing around it, or capitalizing on unseen resources.
Inferences help us live into futures with unexpected advantages.
32 Organizational Futures
Research shows that most of the brain power in organizations remains dormant. Enabling staff to join
in building out inferences about future conditions and opportunities enables diverse perspectives to share and ping off each other, often revealing opportunities or risks that no one person could see.
Inferences help organizations live into futures.
33 Speed Stating
This technique was developed by Bruce McKenzie (Australia). It enables a group of people to share their unique perspectives quickly and safely. Each person receives the reflections of every other person about the idea or concern he or she stated. We read and respond quickly, and gather multiple ideas that otherwise would remain mute.
Speed stating enables us to share unique perspectives quickly and painlessly.
34 Tentative Conclusions
A Tentative Conclusion is a kind of inference that focuses on the consequences of an idea. Tentative means we stay awake to unintended consequences and we are willing to make ongoing corrections. How can we take a systemic view of consequences? Who owns the risk of an opportunity? Risk needs to be held openly and transparently. By anticipating consequences, we can proactively address them.
Conclusions are tentative: we need to be ready to adapt.
35 My Idea is __________ because _________
As with any idea we want to develop, we need to be ready to respond to questions from others. The disciplined thinking practices in Applied Critical Thinking Arena give us tools
to skillfully respond to questions about our ideas. We have courage of our convictions because we know what we believe in and we have done the work to think comprehensively about our ideas.
Guiding thinking with the elements of Applied Critical Thinking builds confidence and clarity.