Critical thinking relates to how we make decisions and use our judgement. As a leader it is also about how we take action. Critical thinking involves many components. In this training we will address a few of them.
The CMO Survey - Highlights and Insights Report - Spring 2024
Critical Thinking Skills for Effective Leadership
1. Critical Thinking
Critical thinking relates to how we make decisions and use our judgement. As
a leader it is also about how we take action. Critical thinking involves many
components. In this training we will address a few of them.
2. Intro – Why
are we
here?
WIIFM?
Why are we here?
• Different Approaches to Problem
Solving
• Maintaining Effective Leadership
• Improved Communication
• Advanced Decision Making
WIIFM (What’s In It For Me?)
5. How do you put a giraffe into
your refrigerator?
How do you put an elephant
into your refrigerator?
The Lion King is hosting an
animal conference. All the
animals attend except one.
Which animal does not
attend?
There is a river you must cross
but it is used by crocodiles,
and you do not have a boat.
How do you manage it??
6. noun: critical thinking
the objective analysis and
evaluation of an issue in
order to form a judgment.
What Is Critical
Thinking?
Write down
your
definition.
10. CORRECTION ACTION PROCESS
(PREMISES)
(CONCLUSION)
EDITH SHOULD BE GIVEN
COACHING AND PLACED ON A
VERBAL WARNING
GUARANTEES
EDITH NEVER SHOWED FOR
FIELD VISIT BUT SAID SHE DID
EDITH REQUESTED MULTIPLE
PAYCOM CORRECTIONS BUT
WAS ACTUALLY LATE
EDITH CONTINUES TO SUBMIT
LATE NOTES THAT NEEDS
CORRECTIONS
13. Activity
Just for fun, try out the
following thought
experiment and check
your score at the end!
14. 1. Imagine your local online newspaper
is offering you the chance to lunch
with and interview a famous dictator,
known for his mistreatment of women.
15. 2. You've decided it would be good to
spend time volunteering—but where?
16. 3. You're asked to play the part of a
porpoise in a school play.
17. 4. You're on your way to an interview
for a part-time job at the far end of
your city.
18. 5. Good pals are dropping over on
Friday night, and you've promised to
feed them.
19. 6. You visit a new art museum where
some of the paintings are offbeat and
even off-putting.
20. 7. A foreign-looking woman shows up
at your library’s book club. Her bright
red, curvy fingernails are at least two
inches long.
21. 8. Your brother presents you with an
oak shelf he made himself.
23. 10. You watched a film with an
uncertain ending: maybe the heroine
marries the guy or else she might go off
on her own.
24. (22-30) Mental Adventurer. You're quite
open to experience.
(16-21) Half-mindful. You're got the
potential to be more open-minded, but
you hesitate to let go of your old ideas
and break new ground.
(10-15) Rut-Sticker. You tend to be a
follower.
How
did you
score?
25. It’s good to be wrong. The
ideas we hold aren’t us. We
don’t need to defend them to
the death. - Anonymous
26. It’s good to be wrong. The ideas we
hold aren’t us. We don’t need to
defend them to the death. -
Anonymous
27. Best Practices to Keep an Open Mind
• Fight the urge to react in anger when you hear differing opinions
• Avoid closing yourself off
• Place yourself out of your comfort zone
• Stay social and make new friends
• Don’t be afraid to ask questions
• Avoid speculation
28. Analysis
What is a critical
thinking analysis?
Show me an example!
How does this apply to
my job?
30. 40% of
employees
reported
having a
positive work
culture at
their job
Current State: 40%
Ideal State: 65%
Driving Forces (+) Restraining Forces (-)
1. Express
gratitude
2. Safe
environment
3. Encourage
positive thinking
1. High turnover
2. Lack of
recognition
3. Poor
management and
leadership
31. Activity
In your teams create a
Force Field Analysis
that will help solve for
opportunities in the
workplace.
32. Low Employee
Morale
• Changes in
attitude
• An active
grapevine
• Lack of initiative
Attendance
• Illness
• Personal Issues
• Lack of
commitment
Productivity
• Poor
communication
• Inconsistency
• Inappropriate
behavior
Paycom (Clocking
In/Out)
• Requesting a
punch correction
• Multiple punch
corrections
• Missed punches
Create a Force Field Analysis to
solve for the below opportunities
Intro Slide (Why are we here? What’s In It For Me?)
Different Approaches to Problem Solving – This will help us come to better solutions faster as leaders.
Maintaining Effective Leadership – You’re a finely tuned leadership machine! But sometimes we require up keep and maintenance in how we lead.
Improved Communication – Not just how we give information but how we receive and process the information we receive. What should I consider, what should I ignore?
Advanced Decision Making – Leave intuition and “guestimating” behind. Begin to work on a more analytical process to make more sound decisions.
Agenda Slide
ICEBREAKER –
How do you put a giraffe into your refrigerator?
Correct answer: Open the refrigerator, put in the giraffe, and close the door.
This question tests whether you tend to do simple things in an overly complicated way.
How do you put an elephant into your refrigerator?
Did you say, Open the refrigerator, put in the elephant, and close the refrigerator?
Wrong answer.
Correct answer: Open the refrigerator, take out the giraffe, put in the elephant and
close the door.
This tests your ability to think through the repercussions of your previous actions.
The Lion King is hosting an animal conference. All the animals attend -
except one. Which animal does not attend?
Correct Answer: The elephant. The elephant is in the refrigerator. You just
put him in there. This tests your memory. Okay, even if you did not answer
the first three questions correctly, you still have one more chance to show
your true abilities.
There is a river you must cross but it is used by crocodiles, and you do not
have a boat. How do you manage it?
Correct Answer: You jump into the river and swim across. Have you not
been listening? All the crocodiles are attending the animal conference.
This tests whether you learn quickly from your mistakes.
State before showing definition/writing activity : We’ve all heard of educators, executives, and sometimes politicians speaking about critical thinking. You’ve might of asked yourself “Why is critical thinking so important or useful?” “How does this apply to me professionally or personally?” “Does critical thinking mean I have to think longer about things?” All of these are good questions, but before we get into this subject I want you to write down your definition of CT. At the end of the day we will compare what we thought about CT to what we learned.
2 minutes – attendees with write their belief of what CT is but will hold them till the end of the day. Once completed reveal the Webster definition of CT.
There are different types of reasoning (deductive, inductive, abductive, backward induction) but today we will focus on what method of reasoning will most likely be helpful as a leader….deductive reasoning.
Deductive reasoning looks for observations to prove a theory. It uses formal logic and produces logically certain results. Often called top-down logic, this type of reasoning focuses on problem solving. (Inductive reasoning is used to form an educated guess).
A deductive arguments are a set of statements called premises that are meant to give you reason to believe a further statement called it’s conclusion. The premises are meant to guarantee that the conclusion is true if it’s a good argument. Therefore it’s impossible for the premises be true while the conclusion is false.
Resource ; Geoff Pynn (NIU Professor)
Here is an example using a scenario using someone we all know….Beyonce!
Here is an example using a scenario that is familiar with us. Let’s call this employee “Edith”. Hopefully you don’t have to many ‘Ediths” but if so this how reasoning skills can help you make a decision as a leader.
You can also apply deductive reasoning to a dispute or argument between employees. To do this, you will need to isolate the premise of the dispute and form a deductive argument based on the premise.
Lets say that you have two (2) employees who share a bullpen (double cubicles) and their having a dispute over one of them not turning off their computer at the end of the day. The other employee then argues back that their co-worker doesn’t turn off their computer either. As the leader you need to form a premise (fact or rule) that would solve the dispute. You might start by asking the employees questions like: What tactics could you both use to remember to turn off the computers? How can you both support each other and make sure the computers are always off? What tactics are used by other employees to make sure the computers are turned off?
Based on their responses you can form a premise, for example whoever is the last one to leave for the day is responsible to turn off the computers, therefore the computers will always be turned off based on this strong premise.
Being open-minded means taking in account relevant evidence or arguments to revise a current understanding. It means being critically open to alternatives and willing to think about other possibilities even after forming an opinion. When it comes to solving problems, making decisions, or creating strategic plans the processes you use require one important ingredient – an open mind. Without maintaining an open mind any formal process that you use will give you “garbage in, garbage out.”
Trainer Debrief: After everyone reviews their score ask the room are they surprised about their score?
What questions were difficult to have an open mind towards?
Why is it hard to consider a different opinion than your own?
Is it important to understand the opposite opinion before making a decision…tell me why?
The story about “Java vs Café”. For years I believed the Spanish word for coffee was java and wouldn’t let anyone tell me otherwise until a friend looked up the meaning for ‘java”. Sometimes holding on to tight to our ideas, processes, methods, or leadership styles can be dangerous to us, our team, or the organization. Think about what decisions we’re made that cause the non-profit Youth Policy Institute to close it’s doors October of this year (2019). (1000 employees, 400 are being picked up by “Think Together” the other 600 are out of work).
“Java” Comes from the Island of Java
During the 1600s, the Dutch introduced coffee to Southeast Asia. They brought coffee trees to places like Bali and Sumatra, where it's still grown today. ... Today, “java” has become a generic term for coffee and no longer refers only to coffee from the Island of Java.
Watch this short video that reminds us of being open minded to being wrong. We learn more from being wrong and then opening up to new alternatives.
Lesson learned? LIVE LONG ENOUGH TO CHANGE YOUR MIND
Fight the urge to react in anger when you hear differing opinions. Instead, take a moment to yourself to find the wisdom to understand that everyone will not hold the same opinions as you. Try to put yourself in the other person’s shoes and see things their way.
Avoid closing yourself off. Welcome new situations that are different from those you’re familiar with. When you’re exposed to differing opinions, look at them as learning experiences.
Place yourself out of your comfort zone. Make the effort to journey out of your comfort zone often. If you have certain anxieties about new situations, you should still take this step, but make these changes slowly. Go to new places and try new things.
Stay social and make new friends. You’ll find that you’re more likely to discover new opportunities to try new things when you stay social. Your friends might be trying new things that they can introduce you to as well. Also, when you make a new friend, they’ll likely have a unique set of interests for you to learn about to broaden your horizons.
Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Sometimes the only way to learn more about a certain situation and keep an open mind is to ask a lot of questions to gain a better understanding. While you don’t want to intrude on someone’s personal life, if they’re willing to share information, you should be willing and eager to listen.
Avoid speculation. Go out and live the experience before you form opinions about something. Rather than blindly believing what someone else says, or assuming that you won’t like it, find out for yourself if you like something or not. This could be as simple as trying new food, activity, or hobby.
Source : https://medium.com/live-your-life-on-purpose/keeping-an-open-mind-how-to-embrace-new-ideas-4b7e565fdaaa
Analysis involves the process of discriminating or separating. It gives us the ability to break down the complexity of an idea or process and allows us to gain a better understanding so we can make an informed decision. This way we can formulate new creative ideas and generate solutions. I want to give you two tools you can use as a leader to breaking down information analytically.
Which letter doesn’t belong here?
After a few answers reveal that the “t” is the one out of place. “Sometimes the easiest answer is the right one….remember the giraffe in the fridge?”
Resource for stats : https://blog.accessperks.com/2019-employee-engagement-loyalty-statistics#2
ACTIVITY – Separate the class into 4 teams with an easel chart for each team. Each team will be assigned a current issue from the next slide. In their groups they will create a Force Field Analysis to solve for the issue. Each team will have 5 minutes to list driving forces and restraining forces that effect the issue. After 5 minutes each team will rotate to the next issue until each team has worked on all 4 issues. Team will then go back to their original easel chart and have 5 minutes to decide which forces have the strongest effect for success and failure then create a solution for the issue.
Force Field Analysis activity examples.
ACTIVITY – Separate the class into 4 teams with an easel chart for each team.
Each team will be assigned a current issue from the next slide.
In their groups they will create a Force Field Analysis to solve for the issue.
Each team will have 5 minutes to list driving forces and restraining forces that effect the issue.
After 5 minutes each team will rotate to the next issue until each team has worked on all 4 issues.
Team will then go back to their original easel chart and have 5 minutes to decide which forces have the strongest effect for success and failure then create a solution for the issue.
https://forms.gle/7Fq8J1zWFMbYvvL5A (7 questions about critical thinking)
What is the difference between deductive and inductive reasoning? *
Inductive reasoning is used to form a hypothesis
What does it mean to be open-minded?
Willingness to accept new information even when an opinion has been formed
Which scholar/philosopher encouraged open-mindedness and questioned traditional rhetoric 2400 years ago?
Socrates
In what learning domain does analysis fall in?
Cognitive
Which of the following is not one of the three factors to consider when analyzing new information?
Environment
What is a premise?
A statement of fact or value
In your own words, how can you use a Force Field Analysis to solve for an issue?
At the beginning of the day I asked you to write down your definition of critical thinking. Has your understanding changed….tell me how? How can you use what we learned in your leadership role?