What are some effective strategies to foster a culture of critical thinking among your team?

One way that leaders can do is to actively seek different points of view. Too often we surround ourselves with people who think like us. I ask leaders in the firm to go seek out 3 people who have very different views from them on a particular topic. Their only aim is to seek to understand. This is a powerful exercise.

Critical thinking can become institutionalized knowledge if there is a rigorous ideation process are in place company wide. Some firms have whiteboard sessions, where Freeform ideas are put on a common board, then debated. The drawback is that everyone must be in the same room to be effective. Very difficult to achieve these days. Other companies follow rigorous processes to source new ideas from old knowledge. I once saw an interview with the lead singer for The Talking Heads, and he spoke of their creative writing process to involve taking two completely unrelated things and mashing them together. Their all time hit Psycho Killer is the result of such an exercise. At OAPSIE, we try ideate in a similar manner. #engineering #software

- One thing I’ve found helpful is to work on suspending your judgments. Instead of assuming we already know something, it helps to pause, be curious, and ask others: - What are your perspectives here? -What are we missing? -What other information do we need? -What am I holding on to as a truth that may not be applicable here? Suspending our tendency to immediately judge can help us approach situations with more openness and reveal our own faulty assumptions.

Make it clear to your team that not only is it okay for them to challenge your perspectives but it is also expected. Effective leaders understand and embrace that groupthink creates a culture of contagious excitement giving proportionate ownership to members of the team … all ideas welcome, all ideas(even if not adopted) are helpful. To also manage expectations, it’s also important to make clear that some decisions (e.g. in times of crisis, complying with policies or statutes) may not welcome deep discussion due to their nature but that whenever possible, multiple perspectives are best.

I think as leaders, if we want to enable critical thinking amongst others, we have to foster a culture where being "wrong" or not knowing something is ok...in fact is positively embraced. We have to to role model not always being right so that others have the opportunity to learn, explore, research, make suggestions, explore ideas and develop solutions rather than relying on us to have the answer. Critical to this a creating a culture of trusting each other and trusting that not always having an immediate answer is not a problem!

To manage emotions, it can be helpful to start with understanding what triggered the emotion. When I am triggered, I like to ask myself “What must I be believing to have triggered this feeling?” One of my favorite books for navigating emotions is Letting Go - a pathway to surrender by Dr. David Hawkins.

I disagree that emotions are barriers, in fact they are valuable thats why we have them. Embrace them, don't let go they are information. Our judgement is clouded when we do not reflect on our emotional states and without this, our emotions may run amok and drive our behaviors - aka decision making among many behaviors. Mindfulness is situational self reflection about our feelings and behaviors as they relate to our personal and professional goals. So upon self reflection, we ask ourselves why we are experiencing certain emotions such as Joy or Anger, observe the outcome, and then make adjustments. A business culture that practices mindfulness is one that recognizes the value of others which nurtures trust & respect.

Being told to 'manage your emotions', for those whose brain is wired to route mild stimulus directly to the amygdala, instead of through the thalamus, is like saying, you have eyes, just look at the infra-red spectrum. The difference is, human eyes are not designed to adapt to different light frequencies, but human brains are designed to adapt. Where we recognise 'emotion' is a proxy term for neurotransmitters, released as part of the brains wiring-firing process, we can see how a change to that wiring-firing process can alter the individuals capacity for emotional regulation, thus improving potential for critical thinking (in brain processing terms). Wiring-firing patterns update in response to the environment leaders create and self-talk

Kids draw, sing, and dance without concern for how well they perform. But as they get older, their friends, family, and teachers start telling them when something is "good" or "bad," which can shake their confidence, make them less willing to share ideas, develop a defensive posture, and protective attitude about their ideas. Sadly, we carry this behavior into our adulthood. Managers often fall in love with their own ideas and sometimes don't want to share them with others or put them in situations where outsiders might criticize them. But the secret is not to get emotionally attached to your ideas and to realize that ideas are free. If one idea doesn't stick, you can keep coming up with plenty more until you find the right one that sticks.

There are two ways to help manage emotions in this situation. First, diversify your language to better identify the emotions/feelings that are occurring. Feelingswheel.com offers the major emotions we experience and breaks them down to specific feelings with varying intensity. Create space for everyone to process and verbalize these emotions. Second, when we are in a critical thinking session and have conflict on ideas, go back to what the shared goal is. What is the challenge we are all trying to solve? Those moves the situation from “us against each other” to “us against the problem”. The book “Crucial Conversations” gives a ton of great insight on this.

An old technique but a good one is to use De Bono's six thinking hats model - encourage people to approach a question in one mode at a time to give the freedom to be critical, then explore different perspectives and viewpoints, to ask for facts, data and evidence but not let that limit creative thinking.

The best way to institutionalize this behavior is to make it part of the job! Make it clear that you expect your team to express disagreement when discussing direction and change. Everyone is responsible for bringing their best ideas and effort to the work every day, and expressing opposing points of view is part of the job. Of course, you want to ensure that any dissenting opinion is expressed in constructive ways and that the primary driver is a thirst for getting to the right answer. One of my clients has gone so far as to institute an active listening technique: her team must repeat the idea that was originally posed before offering a dissenting opinion. This keeps things polite and positive.

I see this in four stages. 1. Proactively build relationships with leaders from diverse AND different industries, countries, and cultures. 2. Collect lessons, principles, approaches, and solutions (insights) from these resources. 3. When needed, seek feedback from several of your diverse resources. 4. Use the insights as a filter for feedback accuracy and applicability. Bonus: Teach this Peripheral Thinking? approach to your team to accelerate critical thinking in your organization.

When faced with feedback that isn't useful or accurate, consider: Remain Calm: Assess feedback objectively without emotional reactions. Understand Intention: Consider the motive behind the feedback given. Extract Valid Points: Find valuable insights amid inaccurate feedback. Seek Specifics: Request clear details to understand the context. Evaluate Source: Consider credibility before weighing feedback significance. Note Feedback Patterns: Multiple similar feedback points highlight crucial areas. Educate Respectfully: Clarify misunderstandings with polite, informative communication. Acknowledge, Move On: Disregard baseless feedback; focus on constructive input. Use Valuable Insights: Apply accurate feedback for meaningful self-improvement.

Actively seek feedback from individuals with diverse backgrounds and perspectives. Encourage open and constructive discussions where team members can offer their insights, challenge ideas, and provide different viewpoints. Implement regular feedback sessions or create a designated channel for team members to share their perspectives and provide constructive feedback. Encourage a culture where feedback is welcomed and valued, and ensure that differing viewpoints are respected and considered.

When your team is agreeing to a course of action too easily, especially when it is important, assign two members to place “devil’s advocate” and try to poke holes in the logic, data or identify unintended consequences to the decision. This way you keep the decision honest and avoid group think.

Different opinions are useful. For them to be powerful, and transformational these different opinions, perspectives, and ideas are often found outside (way outside) your industry. So leaders, go explore your periphery for ideas, principles, and proven solutions from seemingly unrelated sources.

Self-awareness is crucial to leadership effectiveness. It involves recognizing where you may be overdoing your strengths. By understanding your own inner Saboteurs, you can identify any biases or tendencies towards groupthink that you may have. This self-awareness can help you actively seek out dissenting opinions and diverse perspectives from team members, encouraging healthy debate and constructive criticism.

Adopting the Socratic method (cooperative argumentative dialogue between individuals) can be adopted either informally (as chairman's underlying attitude) or formally (making it explicit).

We regularly encounter organizations with a culture of hierarchy, authority, and fear of challenging the boss. But when it comes to innovation, there is no hierarchy. Great ideas can come from anyone and anywhere. In practice, the best ideas usually come from a non-expert's observation about a situation precisely because they have a beginner's mind and don't see things as an expert but as an outsider. Creating a culture of innovation requires carving out time and space in your organization where people feel free to propose ideas without embarrassment, offense, or repercussions. Conversely, innovative cultures should attack ideas and poke holes in them to see whether they can withstand the criticism that will inevitably come from others.

Though I agree that information overload is detrimental to strong and accurate decision-making, there is a danger that we can use our biases and assumptions to weed out what we deem as irrelevant, inaccurate, or misleading information. If you aren't careful at this point you will end up with a flawed process and lose sight of the goal to think critically.

Eliminate the noise and go straight to the source. The most effective strategy is to filter out the distracting static and focus directly on the primary source. So you took the chance of being vulnerable with your rusty skills, rolled up your sleeves, and got on the front line. How can you weave these lessons from the trenches back into your master strategy? Identify patterns and trends Assess current processes Share knowledge with your team Update training programs Enhance collaboration Adapt to emerging threats Review and revise policies and procedures Monitor performance metrics Foster innovation Continuously improve Getting your hands dirty again can go a long way.

From my coaching experience, powerful questions to reduce information overload are: (1) "what are the patterns and themes in the information?" and (2) "what is the most important information here?"

The issue isn't information overload or poor focus. It's the need for more diverse experiences that help identify the BEST content. For people without diverse experiences, "focus[ing] on the most important, relevant, and reliable information" encourages them to filter out information they don't understand. How do they know it's irrelevant, inaccurate, or misleading? Throughout history, disruption has come from outside an industry because that industry "reduced information overload" and stuck to industry best practices. In a rapidly changing, information-rich environment, we need the perspectives from a broad set of experiences to inform our critical thinking and decision-making skills.

Develop strategies to manage information overload and filter out irrelevant or biased information. Focus on obtaining accurate and reliable data that is relevant to the problem at hand. Develop information filtering techniques, such as identifying trusted sources, utilizing reputable databases or experts, and critically evaluating the credibility of information before incorporating it into your decision-making process. Use technology tools or apps to organize and prioritize information effectively.