MANAGING CHANGE,

INSTILLING
CREATIVITY/INNOVATION and
CRITICAL THINKING

With additional coverage on using

ASSERTIVENESS SKILLS

Course Objective
By the end of this course you will be able to:
1. Create a climate for organisational change
2. learn skills to manage this change and encourage creative thinking in your
decisions
3. Using assertiveness techniques to achieve these goals and gain “buy in”
4. Express yourself directly and confidently to achieve your objective without getting
affected by the behaviour of others

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LEADING AND MANAGING CHANGE

Learning Objectives

To understand the different elements of a successful change program

To understand how leadership is linked to change activities

1. What exactly is change management?

Change management is a systematic approach to dealing with change, both from the
perspective of an organization and on the individual level. A somewhat ambiguous term,
change management has at least three different aspects, including: adapting to change,
controlling change, and effecting change. A proactive approach to dealing with change is at
the core of all three aspects. For an organization, change management means defining and
implementing procedures and/or technologies to deal with changes in the business
environment and to profit from changing opportunities

2. Change as a Process
Implementing change philosophy usually results in a process, outlining how change occurs.
All change management processes usually involve some common steps:

 Formal documentation of the proposed change.

 Collaborative review of the change to assess risks and ensure accuracy. This should include
testing of the changes in a lab environment to assess their accuracy, as well.
 Timeline for implementing the change.
 Acceptance of the overall plan by stakeholders.
 Final documentation of the change as it will be implemented

Change occurs as a process, not as an event. Organizational change does not happen
instantaneously because there was an announcement, a kick-off meeting or even a go-live
date. Individuals do not change simply because they received an email or attended a
training program. When we experience change, we move from what we had known and
done, through a period of transition to arrive at a desired new way of behaving and doing
our job.

Although it is the last of the seven principles of change management presented, treating
change as a process is a central component of successful change and successful change
management. By breaking change down into distinct phases, you can better customize and
tailor your approach to ensure individuals successfully adopt the change to how they work.

Understanding change as a process

It is easy to see changes in nature occurring as a process. Whether it is a caterpillar turning
into a butterfly, or winter shifting into spring, we can easily appreciate the process of
change. But when we begin changing our organization with projects and initiatives, we often
forget the fact that change does not happen instantaneously.
The easiest, most basic approach to understanding change as a process is to break change
down into distinct, understandable elements. The three states of change provide a powerful
framework: the Current State, the Transition State and the Future State.

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The Current State - The Current State is how things are done today. It is the collection of processes,
behaviors, tools, technologies, organizational structures and job roles that constitute how work is
done. The Current State defines who we are. It may not be working great, but it is familiar and
comfortable because we know what to expect. The Current State is where we have been successful
and where we know how we will be measured and evaluated. Above all else, the Current State is
known.
The Transition State - The Transition State is messy and disorganized. It is unpredictable and
constantly in flux. The Transition State is often emotionally charged - with emotions ranging from
despair to anxiety to anger to fear to relief. During the Transition State, productivity predictably
declines. The Transition State requires us to accept new perspectives and learn new ways of behaving,
while still keeping up our day-to-day efforts. The Transition State is challenging.
The Future State - The Future State is where we are trying to get to. It is often not fully defined, and
can actually shift while we are trudging through the Transition State. The Future State is supposed to
be better than the Current State in terms of performance. The Future State can often be worrisome.
The Future State may not match our personal and professional goals, and there is a chance that we
may not be successful in the Future State. Above all else, the Future State is unknown
.

The three states of change provide a way to articulate how change actually occurs. Whether
the change is an Enterprise Resource Planning application, a new performance review
process, a new piece of machinery on the production line, an optimized and managed set of
business processes or a new reporting structure - there is always a Current State (how things
are done today), a Future State (how things will be done) and a Transition State (how we
will move from point A to point B).

 EXERCISE
Think about a project you are working on or a project that is impacting you. Using the
following table, try to define each of the three states of change and come up with three
adjectives that describe that state.
  Description: Adjectives describing that state:
 
 Current    
 

 Transition    
 
 
 Future    
 
 
To take the understanding of change as a process one step further, think about who in the
organization spends their time focused on the Current State, the Transition State and the
Future State. The table on the next page looks at three audiences and how they view the
states of change

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 Current Transition Future
 
State State State
What I need to change The goal that I have
Executives and A necessary evil to get me
and why I am trying to implement the decided to move my
senior leaders where I want to be
change organization toward
The focus of my daily
What I'm starting with Where we ultimately want
Project teams work and what I'm
and must improve to end up
charged with solving
The day-to-day work that A disorganized inconvenience
Front line employees, An unknown that may or
I do to deliver value to
managers, supervisors may not be good for me
the organization to me doing my job

Executives and senior leaders live in the Future State. That is what they are responsible for
and compensated for - deciding how the organization should function in 6 months, 1 year, 3
years, etc. Project teams live in the Transition State. They investigate alternatives, decide on
a path and develop a solution to change the organization. Employees, managers and
supervisors live in the Current State. They cannot simply stop their work to implement a
change. They are responsible for keeping the organization functioning while a change is
being implemented.

The disconnect here can have significant ramifications when it comes to communicating
about change. Senior leaders tend to focus on and speak about vision, almost detrimentally
in some instances. Project teams tend to focus their communications on the details of their
solution and the milestones and timeframes when change will happen. Employees want to
know why what they are doing now (the Current State) needs to be changed in the first
place. Change management practitioners play a key role in bridging the gap between the
three states of change.

Managing change as a process

Once you have started thinking about change not as a singular event but as a process, the
question remains: how do you manage the process of change? Managing change as a
process takes place on two levels:
 Individual level
 Organizational level

Individual level
Each individual employee or manager who is impacted by a change must go through
their own, personal process of change. If the change impacts five people, then each
of those five must move from their Current State through their Transition State to
their own Future State. If the project impacts 500 people then there are 500 Current-
Transition-Future processes that must occur. If the initiative impacts 5,000 people,
then there are 5,000 individuals moving from a Current State to a Future State. This
is the essence of change management, supporting individuals through the required
personal transitions necessary in order for a project or initiative to improve the
performance of the organization.

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 Prosci's ADKAR® Model provides a more detailed description of how an individual
successfully moves from their Current State to their Future State. ADKAR describes
the five building blocks of successful change:

Awareness of the need for change

Desire to participate and support the change
Knowledge on how to change
Ability to implement the required skills and behaviors
Reinforcement to sustain the change

Whether it is a change at home, in the community or at work - individuals are

successful at change when they have Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability and
Reinforcement™. This results-oriented description of the individual change process
gives change management practitioners a new focus. For example, instead of seeing
their job as "creating a communications plan," an effective practitioner with a focus
on the individual change process sees his or her job as "creating Awareness" and so
forth.

Two final observations about change as a process at the individual level. First, people
will start the change process at different points in time. A team that is part of a pilot
program may learn about a change and start the change process months before
other larger groups of employees. Second, individuals take different amounts of time
to move through the process themselves. For one, Awareness of the need for change
may only take a few hours where for another it may take days or weeks to arrive at
the point of saying "I understand why the change is needed".

Once we begin viewing and managing the individual change processes associated
with a project or initiative, we will be more successful at enabling those individual
transitions that together will result in successful organizational change.

Organizational level
When it comes to managing change at the organizational level, viewing change as a process
helps determine the sequencing and content of the change management effort.

First, organizational change management itself should follow a process that parallels the
process of change associated with a project or initiative. Prosci's 3-Phase Process for
organizational change management lays out specific activities for Phase 1 - Preparing for
change (occurring during the Current State), Phase 2 - Managing change (occurring during
the Transition State) and Phase 3 - Reinforcing change (occurring during the Future State).

Second, research shows that change management practitioners have five tools or levers
they can use to help move individuals forward through the change process -
communications plan, sponsor roadmap, coaching plan, training plan and resistance
management plan. Depending on if we are in the Current State, the Transition State or the
Future State, different tools will be more effective and the content will change. Two
examples:
a. The training plan - a training plan is a key component of a change management
effort. Employees typically need new skills and competencies when adopting a

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 change to their day-to-day work. But the training plan must be effectively
sequenced based on where employees are in the change process. A training
program that occurs right when employees learn about a change - when they are
standing firmly in the Current State - will not be effective (this is an unfortunate
reality in many cases, however, where the first response to a change is "send
them to training"). Training should be delivered after employees have already
started to move out of the Current State and into the Transition State.
b. The communications plan - the content of an effective communications plan
parallels or matches where employees are in the process of change. Early
communication efforts should focus on explaining why the Current State is not
working and must be changed. Communications later on in the change process
can begin to focus on details and the eventual results the project or initiative is
aiming to deliver. If the first communications to employees focus on the details,
milestones and vision of the change, employees are left with unanswered
questions that cloud their ability to process the details - namely "why?".

Managing change as a process from an organizational viewpoint helps to ensure that

the right activities are occurring at the right time, and that employees are receiving
the right information they need to move through their own personal process of
change.
 
Key lessons for change managers:

1. Treat the changes you manage as a process, and not as a single event or series of events.
2. Individuals experience change as a process. Evaluate and focus your change management
activities based on where individuals are in the change process.
3. No one experiences the process the same.
4. Your organizational change management efforts need to be tied to where you are in the
change process

3. Change as a Tool

Change management can often be enforced and automated through tools. These tools may
provide a variety of functions, including:
 Tracking requests for changes and documenting the details of proposed changes.
 Comparing proposed changes to known-good templates, to help weed out improper
changes. Tools may also allow changes to be proposed through a template, ensuring
a level of consistency for all submitted proposals.
 Enforcing a workflow process that requires peer or supervisory signoff.
 Basic boundary-checking to ensure that company policies and security practices
won't be violated by the change (such as a change resetting all router admin
accounts to have a blank password).
 Displaying the exact changes which will be made to devices' configuration files.
 Tracking the change and deploying it to the affected devices.
 Monitoring devices for changes, pulling the changes, and documenting them for
review. Automatically redeploying a last-known-good configuration to devices which
have been changed without authorization.

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The variety and capability of change management tools provides a lot of functionality to
help businesses better manage their networks.

4. Drivers of Change
Key drivers for change in business are:

 Changing economic, political and social aspects .some organizations stagnate while others
prosper in this changing context.
 One of the main factors driving organisations to change include competitive pressures
 Another is the drive resulting from globalization,
 The growth of consumer, power and
 The scientific technological revolution.
 Unforeseen forces are also drivers of change such as the economic downturn can cause
global instability.

The main Drivers of change in the last decade have been:

Energy costs will In the long term, new energy regulations could fundamentally affect the basic
continue to increase in profit structure of many companies, especially those in energy-intensive
the medium term businesses. Companies that invest in energy efficiency and prepare for supply chain
ripples will be better positioned for future.
Innovation happens To spark new growth streams, companies will increasingly conduct "reverse"
for emerging market innovation”- developing products in emerging economies and versioning these
consumers, not in products for sale in home markets. The best-positioned companies will push
emerging markets innovation practices to be truly global and facilitate seamless idea flow across their
organization and network.
A new return to Recent volatility has created urgency for firms to re-internalize sensitive and
vertical integration strategically activities that were once trusted to third parties. To integrate
gains traction vertically, companies should scour their "extended enterprise" value network for
important assets that could be at risk and internalize them.
Industry shifts create As competitive playing fields change, companies must be prepared to compete
competitive shifts with new players in new ways. To evolve with the market, companies must
reassess their core competencies and markets and use scenario planning to identify
nontraditional competitors.

Increases in Executives have been buried under a flood of information for years, but the
information requires exponential growth in data systems continues to exacerbate this trend. As a result,
more judgment from companies should look to cultivate and exploit asymmetries in high-quality
decision makers information and build robust information filters based on unbiased judgment and
experience.

Markets reward long- Investors (and boards) will grow skeptical over the long term of companies that rely
term strategic focus on share buybacks to boost stock price, rather than demonstrate a strong long-
term growth strategy. To avoid this, align senior executive performance objectives
to longer-term corporate strategy objectives.

Economic recovery Some companies will have experienced such damage from the economic downturn
won't mean recovery that they will not be able to successfully recover as the economy does. Companies
for everyone that closely monitor the health and performance of their suppliers, partners, and
customers will be able to guard against business disruptions.

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 A new war for talent Corporate Executive Board data shows that 25% of high-potential talent have
commences expressed interest in leaving their companies—up 13% from non-recessionary
periods. Companies must develop high-potential employee engagement plans and
maintain robust pipelines of quality talent in in order to win the coming talent war.

5. Change Management Success Factors

The tools and techniques contained in this notes provide a starting point when developing
an approach to generating support and commitment as your organization implements new
ways of doing business.

Change Management should be executed at two levels, to support strategic and tactical
Business Transformation. At the strategic level, the change management challenge impacts
the larger organization on a broader scale and intends to build support and commitment to
creating a culture that embraces the methods, tools and techniques of Business

Transformation. At the tactical level, Change Management activity focuses on the

workforce specifically impacted by Business Transformation. An example of this could be a
continuous improvement project. Change Management is a method that should be
considered at the onset of any effort, either strategic or tactical and needs to be
continuously monitored throughout any effort from multiple perspectives. Change
Management models and tools presented herein apply on both levels, but will require
customization depending on the complexity of the change, and the level of the audience
you are addressing. As stakeholders, senior leaders are much less impacted by a tactical
project, than are front-line leaders who are held accountable to manage the
implementation of solutions resulting from the project.

Recognizing that Change Management is more art than science, the optimal solution
is attained by collaborating with your project team leadership to:
o Understand how the work will change.
o Identify who will be impacted, and how.
o Understand the organizational challenges to gaining necessary stakeholder
commitment and develop an approach to meet these needs, according to the
eight success factors. (To be discussed later in this toolkit)
o Execute your change management plan.

Start with the Change Management Roadmap

Change Management activity has an appropriate starting point in the DMAIC
methodology of Continuous Process Improvement.

Most of the tools described herein are assessment focused, intended to direct your
change management thinking and data-gathering. However, also included are
several activity-tools to guide your efforts in taking action as a result of your
assessment.
Keep in mind that no tool perfectly fits your project situation. These are intended to
be customized and streamlined as needed to fit your organization.

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Change Management actions can be organized around 8 Success Factors.

Establish a Sense of Urgency

 Identify the forces driving the need for change.
 Link them to customers and broader business challenges.
 Highlight that the price of staying the same is higher than
the price of change.
 Compel action.

Clarify / Share the Transformation Vision

 Translate the sense of urgency, or business case into a
compelling picture that draws people toward the future
state.
 Define new people, process, and technology requirements
aligned with the strategy.
 Specify new behaviors for the future state.

Engage Leadership at All Levels

 Identify leadership roles and behaviors required for
success.
 Establish clear accountability for fulfilling responsibilities.
 Set strategies for existing support and leadership of key
people and initiatives.
 Cascade responsibility for leading change down to front-
line leadership.

Establish Change Communication

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  Use varied means to communicate throughout the entire
organization.
 Hold leaders accountable for communication.
 Encourage two-way communication.

Involve Stakeholders
 Involve stakeholders in problem solving.
 Keep stakeholders informed of status toward
organizational objectives.
 Act on feedback from stakeholders.
 Mobilize the right resources at the right time to adopt the
implementation initiative.
 Create a critical mass of effort by impacted groups to
propel the change.

Enhance Change Capability

 Provide a framework to manage change and create self-
sufficiency within the business for leading continuous
change.
 Capture and transfer learning from past experience.
 Create increased ability to adapt and thrive on change via
learning and professional development.

Implement Project Integration

 Fully integrate technology, process, and people
components
 Anticipate external and internal events that may impact
the project
 Ensure sufficient flexibility is present in implementation
plans

Enhance Performance and Organization Alignment

 Drive the behaviors needed for new process, technology,
and people performance
 Create an environment where desired behaviors are
modeled, developed, measured, and rewarded
 Reinforce, sustain, and reshape desired performance over
time

6. Resistance: understanding a phenomena that is natural to all of us

“The normal reaction to change is resistance.”

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You may have heard this statement many times before, but do we really know if it is true,
and how this simple statement can impact our change management work? Do we really
believe that resistance is normal, or are we like many business leaders who are surprised
by, and disappointed with, employees who resist change?

A common mistake made by many business leaders is to assume that by building Awareness
of the need for change, they have also created a Desire to engage in that change. The
assumption is that one automatically follows the other. Some managers may fall into the
trap: If I design a "really good” solution to a business problem, my employees will naturally
embrace that solution. In both cases, resistance from employees takes these managers by
surprise and they find themselves unprepared to manage that resistance.

For example
A financial services group wanted to consolidate its call centre across several divisions as a
cost-savings initiative. A consultant was hired to design the best solution and implement the
change. The project just started when rumours began to spread through several
departments: “This organizational change is not good for the company.” Supervisors and
key managers were resisting the change. In some cases they would not show up for design
reviews or they would simply skip key decision-making meetings. Information requested by
the consultant was withheld or half-complete.

At breaks and around the coffee pot, employees complained about the consolidation effort.
Both employees and managers were distracted from their day-to-day work and productivity
suffered. Key managers were rumoured to quit if the change was implemented.

After several months of difficulties and delays, the consultants finally declared the call
centre consolidation in jeopardy. With the project at a stand-still, the executive sponsor
requested an emergency briefing with his leadership team. They quickly identified a
department head in one of the call centres as the focal point for the resistance. Arguments
against the consolidation – initiated by this manager – were spreading throughout the
ranks. It turned out that his supervisors were the same people who were resisting the
change and presumably threatening to leave the organization. The only recourse at this
point was reassignment or termination of this department head. However, both options
would have negative fall-out for the company and the affected manager. The executive
sponsor was faced with a stalled project and a potentially lose-lose decision for a long-
tenured manager. Resistance to the change was spreading like wildfire.

This executive sponsor is not the first or last business leader to be taken by surprise when
employees resist change. The underlying principle at work here, as with many changes, is
recognizing that resistance is normal, and that our success with change is dependent on
how we plan for, recognize and manage resistance.

So why do employees resist change?

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From personal experience, we all know that change creates anxiety and fear. The current
state has tremendous holding power, and the possibility of losing what we have grown
accustom to (and comfortable with) creates worry and anxiety. For many employees, the
future state of workplace changes is often unknown or ill-defined, and this uncertainly
creates fear about what lies ahead.

These physical and emotional reactions are powerful enough by themselves to create
resistance to change. It is likely that each of us have experienced these reactions in our own
lives, whether at work or at home. But there is more to resistance than our emotional
response. From a change management perspective, we must examine the other drivers that
influence an employee’s resistance to change.

A good place to start is the nature of the change itself and how this change is impacting the
employee:

“Were they involved with designing the change?”

“Do they know why the change is being made?”
“Do they believe that the reasons for making the change are valid?”
“Do they trust the ‘senders’ of the change messages within the organization?”
“How will the change impact them and their personal situation?”

You can quickly see that on top of the emotional reactions to change, resistance has other
influencing factors, not the least of which is an employee’s personal situation. This includes
all aspects of a person’s life including family status, mobility (are they in a position to be
flexible in terms of where they live?), financial security, age, health, career aspirations (are
they where they expected to be at this point in their life?), relationships at home and at
work, educational background, upcoming personal events and past success in this work
environment (promotions, recognition, compensation). For example, a person’s financial
situation or health may cause them to make choices related to a change that on the surface
do not appear logical, but when understood make perfect sense. Similarly, a change in a
person’s relationship with a spouse or significant other can cause a fundamental shift in
what is important to that person.

To make this personal angle a bit more complex, we should also recognize that an
employee’s internal value system and “view of self” also contributes to whether or not he
or she will resist a particular change. Without exploring the psychology of human behaviour
in depth here, we can acknowledge that what motivates a person is unique to that person.
We each “march to a different drummer” and a given change may or may not align with
where we envision ourselves in the future. Each of us also has an innate ability to assess
whether or not we could be successful in the “future state” should we decide to move
forward. This “probability of success” plays yet another role in our decision to support or to
resist a change.

Now add the environment or context within which the change is occurring. Employees will
consider the organization’s success of past changes, how much change is already going on,
and the reinforcements or rewards that were part of past change. In short, the
organization’s culture and history directly impact a person’s resistance to new changes. If a
company has a history of starting changes and not following through, or if they have a track

12
record of allowing some groups to opt out of a change, then these past events weigh heavily
on the willingness of an employee to engage in a new change.

Resistance is a normal and natural reaction

You can begin to appreciate why resistance to change is a normal and natural reaction to
change. Even when individuals can align a change with their own self-interest and belief
system, the uncertainty of success and fear of the unknown can block change and create
resistance. The question, therefore, is not if we will encounter resistance to change, but
rather how we support our employees through the change process and manage that
resistance. We must, at some point, ask the question: How much resistance might we avoid
if we would apply change management effectively?

In the example with the call center consolidation project, rather than simply designing a
“great” solution to the call center structure and beginning implementation, a proactive
change management program could have been put in place to engage and support
employees through the transition. Rather than waiting for resistance to happen, or being
taken by surprise when key managers resisted the change, the leadership and project team
could have assumed that resistance to change is a normal and natural phenomenon. If they
had started with this as a basic tenet of change, then their actions and planning would have
prevented the project failure and unfortunate consequence to the resistant department
head.

What is the key message for you?

Consider this basic thought process: If resistance to change is a normal and natural reaction,
then resistance should be expected. If resistance is expected, then our planning activities
should be designed to mitigate that resistance. If our change management strategies and
plans are designed to prevent and manage resistance, then we are not surprised by or
unprepared for resistance when it happens.

We can manage resistance early and at its source. In many cases we can prevent resistance
or greatly reduce it. We also can stop treating resistance as a “problem employee” or a
trouble area. We can understand the many factors that drive resistance, and manage them
accordingly, both professionally and with respect for the employees going through change.
If we do a really good job at managing change, we will find that change management can
shift from preventing and managing resistance to engaging employees and building
enthusiasm and passion around the change.
The three critical and relevant lessons for change management practitioners related to
employee resistance are:

1. Do not react to resistance with surprise; expect it and plan for it. Make resistance management a core element of
your change management plans and engage employees in the change process as early as possible. 
2. Be patient with individuals as they work their way through the change process. Enable business leaders and
managers to become effective change leaders and teach them how to manage resistance effectively. At the same
time, be watchful for persistent and prolonged resistance from managers or business leaders. This level of resistance
is a sign of a weak sponsor coalition and can threaten a project and compromise your success.
3. Assess resistance not only from an individual perspective, but also based on the larger organizational context,
including culture, history and how much other change is going on within that person’s team or department. Change
is equally about the individual as it is the community to which they belong.
CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION

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“Creativity is the single most important attribute that CEOs think is important for future
business success”. - Businessweek
The importance of creativity and innovation can't be overestimated. After all, you can have
the best products and processes now, but if your organization lacks creative thinkers, it's
going nowhere fast. Without new ideas, new products, and new processes, you'll be left
behind by your competition.

In this section we'll explore the importance of creativity, and we'll help you think about how
you can foster creativity and innovation within your team.

1. The Importance of Creative Thinking

Clearly, creative thinking gives us great new ideas, and helps us solve our most complex
problems. However, by encouraging creative thinking, you can also help your people
become more engaged with what they do, increase their self-confidence, and improve their
morale. Human beings, no matter who they are or what they do, have an innate desire to
think and act creatively. (It's not a magical trait that shows up only in artists or musicians: all
of us have a deep well of creativity at our disposal, just waiting to be let out.)

Organizations that suppress this natural drive end up creating teams that are stale,
disengaged, dissatisfied, and unproductive. Clearly, teams like these are incredibly bad for
business!

2. Barriers to Creativity

So, if the creative drive is so instinctive for us, why aren't people creative all the time? The
reason is that there are many common barriers to creativity, especially within organizations.

The attitude of the leadership team is probably the most important factor. In another
recent study, researchers concluded that the support that leaders give has a potent
influence on team creativity. Without encouragement and support from above, people
don't feel safe enough to take risks with their ideas, and, therefore, creative thinking is
stifled
Other issues with team creativity revolve around the common problems that teams face
when people work together in groups. For instance, one team member may be dominant,
drowning out everyone else's ideas in favour of his or her own. Or, other team members
may be shy or apprehensive, and lack the confidence to express their creative ideas.
Also, as teams discuss options, some team members may forget their own ideas while
they're waiting for their chance to speak. Others may feel creatively blocked as they listen
to other people's ideas.
Groupthink can hamper creative thinking, because people's desire for consensus
overshadows their desire to come up with innovative, risky, solutions
Other barriers, such as the pressure to conform, and a natural respect towards authority,
can also play a role in stifling creativity

3. Strategies for Encouraging Creativity

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Avoid Micromanagement can be a major inhibitor of creative thinking. This is one of the
Micromanagement many reasons why, as a leader, you should try to avoid micromanaging your team.
Give your people the space and freedom they need to think creatively, and work and
excel on their own.
Build Trust The relationship between you and your team should be one built on
trust. Without trust and mutual respect, creative thinking can't occur.
This is because creative thinking involves a certain amount of risk, and people don't
take risks with those they don't trust. If this is an issue, learn how to gain the trust of
your team, so that your people feel safe enough to think creatively with you and
each other.
You can also create a sense of safety by reminding your team often how important
creative thinking is to you and to your organization. You may feel that you "sound
like a broken record," but repetition will drive the message home, and will
demonstrate that your interest isn't a passing fad
Don't Penalize Failures Many people resist expressing their creative ideas, and especially acting on them,
because they're afraid of failure. Or, they might be afraid that they'll be penalized if
their idea doesn't work.
As a leader, it's important to help your team overcome the fear of failure, and
recognize that good things can come from it. Many failures hide important lessons
and insights that, when taken to heart, can lead to greater successes down the road.
Failure can also lead to wonderful new products and ideas. For instance, one of 3M's
most famous products, the Post-It note, is the direct result of a failure. A researcher
in the company was trying to develop a new glue, which turned out to be incredibly
weak. Another 3M professional heard about the failed glue and started using it to
keep his bookmarks attached to pages. The rest, as they say, is history.
This classic story is just one example of how failures can lead to innovative new ideas
and products. Learn about the failures in your own organization, use business story-
telling to help your people accept failure, and discover the important lessons that
these failures are hiding.
Use Effective Brainstorming is a popular and effective technique for generating ideas. However,
Brainstorming many of the barriers that inhibit creativity, such as Groupthink, deference to
Techniques authority, and shyness, crop up during brainstorming sessions. This is why it's often
more effective to use variants of brainstorming than it is to use brainstorming itself.
You may also want to press your team to analyze problems in depth, instead of
settling on the first or easiest option. Tools such as the 5 Whys Technique, Cause and
Effect Analysis, and Root Cause Analysis will help your team explore problems in
detail, so that they can come up with creative solutions to them.
Lead by Example Never forget that your team looks to you first when it comes to creativity. Encourage
your people to think more creatively by leading by example.
Come up with your own creative ideas, don't be afraid to take risks, and stick up for
team members whenever they have an unusual idea. The more you demonstrate
your own creative thinking, the more your team will feel safe enough to follow suit.
Encourage Solitude Sometimes, people may find it easier to come up with creative ideas when they're
working alone. Whenever you can, encourage them to take time to explore new
concepts and ideas. If possible, allow them time to pursue projects that they feel
passionate about. Also, consider setting aside a specific space, such as an empty
office or conference room, and provide the tools and resources that they need to
pursue these ideas.
Creative thinking is vital in many business situations. Without it, you won't come up with
great new ideas, and your organization will be left behind.

4. Role of leader

15
As a leader, it's up to you to encourage your team to think creatively. There are several ways
to do this.
 First, make sure you know about the common barriers to creative thinking.
Groupthink, shyness, and a fear of failure can block your team's creativity.
 Next, encourage your team to think creatively. Build trust, so that your people feel
safe to express their ideas, don't penalize failures or bad ideas, and lead by example.
 The more time you spend fostering a sense of safety and encouragement within your
team, the more creative thinking you'll start to see.

5. The Importance of Creative Thinking

“Creativity is the single most important attribute that CEOs think is important for future
business success”. - Businessweek

The importance of creativity and innovation can't be overestimated. After all, you can have
the best products and processes now, but if your organization lacks creative thinkers, it's
going nowhere fast. Without new ideas, new products, and new processes, you'll be left
behind by your competition.
In this section we'll explore the importance of creativity, and we'll help you think about how
you can foster creativity and innovation within your team.
Clearly, creative thinking gives us
 great new ideas,
 helps us solve our complex problems.
 encouraging creative thinking, you can also help your people become more engaged
with what they do, increase their self-confidence, and improve their morale.
 People have an innate desire to think and act creatively. And just waiting to be let
out. .

6. Generating New Ideas

"We need to think differently!"

"This needs some fresh ideas!"
"We have got to be more creative around here!

Are messages like these popping up more and more in your workplace? Faced with
complex, open-ended, ever-changing challenges, organizations realize that constant, on-
going innovation is critical to stay ahead of the competition.

This is why we need to be on the lookout for new ideas that can drive innovation, and it's
why the ability to think differently, generate new ideas, and spark creativity within a team
becomes an important skill. You need to work actively on building and cultivating this skill,
and it can be done! Often, though, we make the mistake of assuming that good ideas just
happen. Or worse still, we get caught in the mind trap that creativity is an aptitude; some
people have it, others don't. Then there is the other self-defeating belief – "I am not
intelligent enough to come up with good ideas."
These assumptions are rarely true. Everyone can come up with fresh, radical ideas – you just
need to learn to open your mind and think differently. This note shows you how to do so.

16
a. How to Generate New Ideas
Standard idea-generation techniques concentrate on combining or adapting existing ideas.
This can certainly generate results. But here, our focus is on equipping you with tools that
help you leap onto a totally different plane. These approaches push your mind to forge new
connections, think differently and consider new perspectives.

Incidentally, these techniques can be applied to spark creativity in group settings and
brainstorming sessions as well.

b. Breaking Thought Patterns

All of us can tend to get stuck in certain thinking patterns. Breaking these thought patterns
can help you get your mind unstuck and generate new ideas. There are several techniques
you can use to break established thought patterns:

Challenge assumptions: For every situation, you have a set You want to buy a house but can't since you assume you
of key assumptions. Challenging these assumptions gives don't have the money to make a down payment on the
you a whole new spin on possibilities. loan. Challenge the assumption. Sure, you don't have cash
in the bank but couldn't you sell some of your other assets
to raise the money? Could you dip into your retirement
fund? Could you work overtime and build up the kitty in six
months? Suddenly the picture starts looking brighter
Reword the problem: Stating the problem differently often In the mid 1950s, shipping companies were losing money
leads to different ideas. To reword the problem look at the on freighters. They decided they needed to focus on
issue from different angles. "Why do we need to solve the building faster and more efficient ships. However, the
problem?", "What's the roadblock here?", "What will problem persisted. Then one consultant defined the
happen if we don't solve the problem?" These questions problem differently. He said the problem the industry
will give you new insights. You might come up with new should consider was "how can we reduce cost?" The new
ideas to solve your new problem. problem statement generated new ideas. All aspects of
shipping, including storage of cargo and loading time, were
considered. The outcome of this shift in focus resulted in
the container ship and the roll-on/roll-off freighter
Think in reverse: If you feel you cannot think of anything EXAMPLE
new, try turning things upside-down. Instead of focusing on
how you could solve a problem/improve
operations/enhance a product, consider how could you
create the problem/worsen operations/downgrade the
product. The reverse ideas will come flowing in. Consider
these ideas – once you've reversed them again – as
possible solutions for the original challenge
Express yourself through different media: We have EXAMPLE
multiple intelligences but somehow, when faced with
workplace challenges we just tend to use our verbal
reasoning ability. How about expressing the challenge
through different media? Clay, music, word association
games, paint, there are several ways you can express the
challenge. Don't bother about solving the challenge at this
point. Just express it. Different expression might spark off
different thought patterns. And these new thought patterns
may yield new ideas.

c. Connect the Unconnected

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Some of the best ideas seem to occur just by chance. You see something or you hear
someone, often totally unconnected to the situation you are trying to resolve, and the
penny drops in place. Newton and the apple, Archimedes in the bath tub; examples abound.

Why does this happen? The random element provides a new stimulus and gets our brain
cells ticking. You can capitalize on this knowledge by consciously trying to connect the
unconnected.

Actively seek stimuli from unexpected places and then see if you can use these stimuli to
build a connection with your situation. Some techniques you could use are:

Use random input: Choose a word from the dictionary and look for novel connections between the word and
your problem.
Mind map possible ideas: Put a key word or phrase in the middle of the page. Write whatever else comes in
your mind on the same page. See if you can make any connections.
Pick up a picture. Consider how you can relate it to your situation.
Take an item. Ask yourself questions such as "How could this item help in addressing the challenge?", or
"What attributes of this item could help us solve our challenge?"

d. Shift Perspective

Over the years we all build a certain type of perspective and this perspective yields a certain
type of idea. If you want different ideas, you will have to shift your perspective. To do so:

Get someone else's perspective: Ask different people what they would do if faced with your challenge. You
could approach friends engaged in different kind of work, your spouse, a nine-year old child, customers,
suppliers, senior citizens, someone from a different culture; in essence anyone who might see things
differently
Play the "If I were" game: Ask yourself "If I were ..." how would I address this challenge? You could be
anyone: a millionaire, Tiger Woods, anyone.

The idea is the person you decide to be has certain identifiable traits. And you have to use these traits to
address the challenge. For instance, if you decide to play the millionaire, you might want to bring traits such
as flamboyance, big thinking and risk-taking when formulating an idea. If you are Tiger Woods you would
focus on things such as perfection, persistence and execution detail

e. Employ Enablers

Enablers are activities and actions that assist with, rather than directly provoke, idea
generation. They create a positive atmosphere. Some of the enablers that can help you get
your creative juices flowing are:

Belief in yourself: Believe that you are creative, believe that ideas will come to you; positive reinforcement
helps you perform better
Creative loafing time: Nap, go for a walk, listen to music, play with your child, take a break from formal idea-
generating. Your mind needs the rest, and will often come up with connections precisely when it isn't trying
to make them
Change of environment: Sometimes changing the setting changes your thought process. Go to a nearby
coffee shop instead of the conference room in your office, or hold your discussion while walking together
round a local park
Shutting out distractions: Keep your thinking space both literally and mentally clutter-free. Shut off the

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 Blackberry, close the door, divert your phone calls and then think.
Fun and humor: These are essential ingredients, especially in team settings
:
The ability to generate new ideas is an essential work skill today. You can acquire this skill
by consciously practicing techniques that force your mind to forge new connections, break
old thought patterns and consider new perspectives.

c. Turn Your Idea into Reality

How many times have you thought of a really fantastic idea? Maybe it was something that
would revolutionize the way your office operates. Or perhaps it was a great product that
would appeal to millions of people worldwide.

Most of us have been in this situation at least once, and we'll probably have to admit that
this great idea never became a reality. Sure, it was creative – and it could be done. But we
never acted on it. Why? Why do we think of ideas that we know are good, only to let them
sit in the back of our minds – without doing anything about them?

Step One: Define Who Will Be Affected By Your Idea

Imagine that your great idea is a process that will cut your company's month-end reporting time in half. Who
will benefit from this? Obviously, everyone who's involved in the current month-end reporting system. But
who else? Your company's executives will clearly be interested if timely information is business-critical. And if
your new process will save half a day's work for everyone, then your team will have more time for other things
– perhaps for taking care of clients?
On a small scale, this may be obvious. On a larger scale, techniques like Stakeholder Analysis can help you
think this through thoroughly.
Determining who will be affected by your idea is like defining your "target market." When you're ready to sell
your idea, you know you'll have to talk to these people.

Step Two: Think About How it Will Affect Them

Now that you know WHO will be affected by this idea, briefly think about how it will affect each of them, as an
individual. What will the benefits be? What will be the costs? And will the benefits sufficiently outweigh the
costs for this to be worth doing?
At this stage, you can do this at a superficial level. In step four, after you've planned what you'll do, you can
look at this in more detail.

Step Three: Plan "Backward"

Create a plan for HOW you're going to help these people.
The easiest way to do this is to create a "reverse" plan.
For most people, this may not seem to make sense. You need to plan your steps by moving forward, right?
Well, that's one way to do it. But when you start at the beginning, there are many directions you can take to
reach your end goal, so it's easy to get lost. However, when you start with your end goal and work backward,
things tend to come together much more easily.

Here's an example: One of your internal month-end processes takes 4 days to complete
because of the vast amount of data that your colleague Sara has to process when the month
is over. This causes a lot of stress as senior management are always agitating to get the
figures earlier, and it means that Sara can never take vacation during that period – which is
sometimes frustrating for her. You want the month end work to take no more than one day.
But how can you make that happen? Think "backward":

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 o What's your end result? You want the final results available no more than a
day after the last activity they report on has been completed.
o Immediately, you realize that if Sara could process data in batches
throughout the month, she wouldn't have so much to do after the month
end. But this would require other departments to provide figures every
week instead of only every month.
o You talk to your colleagues in other departments, and they agree to provide
the data every week. Although this does create more work for them, they're
happy to make the change as it means they won't have to handle a large
batch of queries from a stressed-out Sara at month end.

By working backward like this, you'll develop a plan to take that idea you've imagined and
make it a reality. You probably won't get lost along the way, because you started planning in
the place where you want to finish.

Make sure you write down your plan

And make sure you assess the RISKS of your idea. Work on ways to reduce the likelihood
that these risks will occur – or reduce their effects if they do occur. This is especially
important if you depend on someone else for support to implement your plan. Assess, and
then explain, the risks. This will show that you're realistic about your idea.

Step Four: Evaluate Your Proposal

Now that you have a plan in place, you'll need to check it again to make sure that it works as a plan, and that
this plan is worth implementing. This may be obvious, however, if it's not, take a look at Financial Forecasting
and Project Evaluation methods as alternatives – this will explain how to do this thoroughly

Step Five: Ask for Feedback

Next, discuss your ideas with a few people whom you trust. Does the idea seem reasonable and possible to
them? In particular, try it out with some of the people who you think will benefit. Their input will help to
improve the idea.
Be careful here. Avoid negative people who like to discourage others. Feedback can be tremendously helpful,
but don't let yourself be affected by people who don't have vision. Approach those whose opinions you trust,
and stay away from the others.

Example: If you want to set up a business to exploit this idea, be particularly careful who
you talk to. On one hand, talking to others will help you improve your idea. This can be very
important, and can help you find allies and backers. On the other hand, you don't want to
lose control of the idea. Trust is all-important here!

Step Six: Start Taking Action

This is when a lot of people give up. After all, thinking about an idea and planning how to bring it about are
easy and fun, and involve little commitment beyond the time put in. The thought of actually doing all of the
steps you've carefully planned can be a bit frightening, and hard work can be difficult and boring.

If you have done everything right so far – you know who will be helped, you know exactly
what you need to do to get it done, and you've received some feedback from your peers. So
get going. An idea will remain just that – an IDEA – unless you take action to turn it into a
reality.

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Support: In most cases, you'll need the support of others – either for permission to
implement your plan, or for help to actually make it happen.

When you seek approval to go ahead with your idea, make sure that your "sales pitch"
focuses on benefits as well as features. A feature is a fact – for example, "This new
cellphone feature is a camera zoom lens offering 10 times magnification." A benefit is the
result of the fact, the "What's in it for me?" So, "This lens helps you take great impromptu
photos of things that would look tiny on a normal phone camera." With that sentence, your
recommendation just became a lot more personal. Show people what they have to gain –
ideally in time or money, or both.

And when you try to persuade others to help you implement your idea, focus your requests
on your ALLIES, or "friends," to increase the chances that they'll agree. Make sure the work
you ask people to do is within their capabilities, and be sure the work reasonably fits into
their schedules. Set yourself, and others, periodic short-term goals and deadlines. This will
keep the project moving and help ensure that it's completed.

Suggestion
If your idea involves setting up a new business to develop and launch a new product or
service, you'll need a lot of help and training to get things going properly. To get this, for
example, contact a local enterprise or development agency and see what help and advice
they can give, or buy books on starting and running your own business.

Step Seven: Focus on the End Result

Will there be obstacles and unexpected delays when you finally implement your plan? Almost certainly. Things
usually happen that we don't plan for, so it's important to be persistent. Keep your end goal in mind. Obstacles
don't necessarily mean complete stops – they're just issues that you have to work through. You're probably
going to face a few, so expect them

You can see the power of persistence when you look at one of the world's greatest
inventors. Famously, Thomas Edison had over 10,000 failures before he successfully
created the light bulb. Through it all, he never lost his vision. If he had, he never
would have made it through so many unsuccessful attempts – and we would all be
sitting around in the dark.

7. TRIZ

Projects of all kinds frequently reach a point where as much analysis as possible has been
carried out, but the way forward is still unclear. Progress seems blocked, and if the project
team is to move forward, it must develop creative solutions to the problems it faces.

You'll already know about techniques such as brainstorming, which can help with this sort
of situation. However, this type of approach, which depends on intuition and the knowledge
of the members of the team, tends to have unpredictable and unrepeatable results. What's
more, a huge range of possible solutions can be missed, simply because they're outside the
experience of the project team.

21
TRIZ is a problem solving methodology based on logic, data and research, not intuition. It
draws on the past knowledge and ingenuity of many thousands of engineers to accelerate
the project team's ability to solve problems creatively. As such, TRIZ brings repeatability,
predictability, and reliability to the problem-solving process with its structured and
algorithmic approach.

About TRIZ

"TRIZ" is the (Russian) acronym for the "Theory of Inventive Problem Solving." G.S. Altshuller
and his colleagues in the former USSR developed the method between 1946 and 1985. TRIZ
is an international science of creativity that relies on the study of the patterns of problems
and solutions, not on the spontaneous and intuitive creativity of individuals or groups. More
than three million patents have been analyzed to discover the patterns that predict
breakthrough solutions to problems, and these have been codified within TRIZ.

TRIZ is spreading into corporate use across several parallel paths – it is increasingly common
in Six Sigma processes, in project management and risk management systems, and in
organizational innovation initiatives.

Generalized Solutions
Somebody someplace has already solved this problem (or one very similar to it.) Today,
creativity involves finding that solution and adapting it to this particular problem.

The three primary findings of the last 65 years of research are as follows:
 Problems and solutions are repeated across industries and sciences. By classifying
the "contradictions" (see later) in each problem, you can predict good creative
solutions to that problem.
 Patterns of technical evolution tend to be repeated across industries and sciences.
 Creative innovations often use scientific effects outside the field where they were
developed.

Much of the practice of TRIZ consists of learning these repeating patterns of problems-
solutions, patterns of technical evolution and methods of using scientific effects, and then
applying the general TRIZ patterns to the specific situation that confronts the developer.
Figure 1, below, describes this process graphically.

22
Here, you take the specific problem you face, and generalize it to one of the TRIZ general
problems. From the TRIZ general problems, you identify the TRIZ solutions to those general
problems, and then see how these can be applied to the specific problem you face.

Example
A powerful demonstration of this method was seen in the pharmaceutical industry.
Following the flow of Figure 1, the specific problem was as follows: an important process
needed cell walls to be broken down in bacteria cells so that hormones inside the cells could
be harvested. A mechanical method for breaking the cell walls had been in use at a
moderate scale for some time, but the yield was only 80%, and was variable. Higher yields
and a scaleable solution were needed.

The TRIZ general problem at the highest level is to find a way to produce the product with
no waste, at 100% yield, with no added complexity. One of the patterns of evolution of
technology that TRIZ identifies is that energy (fields) replaces objects (mechanical devices).

For example, consider using a laser instead of a scalpel for eye surgery. In this case,
ultrasound could be used to break the cell walls, or an enzyme could be used to "eat" it
(chemical energy). This may seem very general, but it led the pharmaceutical researchers to
analyze all the resources available in the problem (the cells, the cell walls, the fluid they are
in, the motion of the fluid, the processing facility, etc.) and to conclude that three possible
solutions had a good potential for solving their problem:
 The cell walls could be broken by sound waves (from the pattern of evolution of
replacing mechanical means by fields).
 The cell walls could be broken by shearing, as they pass through the processing
facility (using the resources of the existing system in a different way).
 An enzyme in the fluid could "eat" the cell walls and release the contents at the
desired time.

All three methods have been tested successfully. The least expensive, highest yield method
was soon put in production.

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Eliminating Contradictions
Another of the fundamental concepts behind TRIZ is that at the root of many problems is a
fundamental contradiction that causes it (we'll give examples below.) In many cases, a
reliable way of solving a problem is to eliminate these contradictions. TRIZ recognizes two
categories of contradictions:

i. Technical contradictions are classical engineering "trade-offs." The

desired state can't be reached because something else in the system
prevents it. In other words, when something gets better, something
else automatically gets worse. Classical examples include:
- The product gets stronger (good), but the weight increases (bad).
- Service is customized to each customer (good), but the service
delivery system gets complicated (bad).
- Training is comprehensive (good), but keeps employees away from
their assignments (bad).
ii. Physical contradictions, also called "inherent" contradictions, are
situations in which an object or system suffers contradictory, opposite
requirements. Everyday examples abound:
- Software should be complex (to have many features), but should
be simple (to be easy to learn).
- Coffee should be hot for enjoyable drinking, but cold to prevent
burning the customer.
- Training should take a long time (to be thorough), but not take any
time.

Example: Dairy farm operators could no longer dry cow manure for use as fertilizer
due to an increased cost of energy. They were faced with a technical contradiction
between dry manure (good) and cost (bad). TRIZ led the operators to a drying
method used for the concentration of fruit juice, which required no heat.

Some of the TRIZ Tools:

The "General TRIZ Solutions" referred to in Figure 1 have been developed over the course of
the 65 years of TRIZ research, and have been organized in many different ways.

Analytic methods such as:

 The Ideal Final Result and Ideality.
 Functional Modeling, Analysis and Trimming.
 Locating the Zones of Conflict. (This is more familiar to Six Sigma problem solvers
as "Root Cause Analysis.")

Prescriptive methods such as:

 The 40 Inventive Principles of Problem Solving.
 The Separation Principles.
 Laws of Technical Evolution and Technology Forecasting.

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The 40 Principles of Problem Solving:

Here are just a few of the Principles and examples of how they could have been used to
create products that were once new and innovative:

Principle
Segmentation (Divide an object into
independent parts)
Local quality (Provide different
packaging for different uses)
Universality (make an object perform
multiple functions)
Nested Doll
Another dimension (Tilt or re-orient
object)
Solution
Individually wrapped cheese slices
"Adult" editions of Harry Potter books
Chocolate spread sold in glasses (with a
lid) that can be used for drinking
afterwards
Store within store (coffee shops in
bookstores)
Squeezable ketchup bottles that sit on
their lids

Using TRIZ
The best way to learn and explore TRIZ is to identify a problem that you haven't solved
satisfactorily and try it. Use the List of the 40 Principles of Problem Solving and the
Contradiction Matrix tool that can be found at www.triz-journal.com to help you through
the process.

8. CHARACTERISTICS OF CRITICAL THINKERS

Characteristics of Critical Thinking

Wade (1995) identifies 8 characteristics of critical thinking. Critical thinking involves asking
questions, defining a problem, examining evidence, analyzing assumptions and biases,
avoiding emotional reasoning, avoiding oversimplification, considering other
interpretations, and tolerating ambiguity. Dealing with ambiguity is also seen by Strohm &
Baukus (1995) as an essential part of critical thinking, "Ambiguity and doubt serve a critical-
thinking function and are a necessary and even a productive part of the process" (p. 56).
Another characteristic of critical thinking identified by many sources is metacongition.
Metacongition is thinking about one's own thinking. More specifically, "metacognition is
being aware of one's thinking as one performs specific tasks and then using this awareness
to control what one is doing" (Jones & Ratcliff, 1993, p. 10 ).
In the book, Critical Thinking, Beyer elaborately explains what he sees as essential aspects of
critical thinking. These are:
 Dispositions: Critical thinkers are skeptical, open-minded, value fair-mindedness,
respect evidence and reasoning, respect clarity and precision, look at different points
of view, and will change positions when reason leads them to do so.
 Criteria: To think critically, must apply criteria. Need to have conditions that must be
met for something to be judged as believable. Although the argument can be made
that each subject area has different criteria, some standards apply to all subjects. "...
an assertion must... be based on relevant, accurate facts; based on credible sources;

25
 precise; unbiased; free from logical fallacies; logically consistent; and strongly
reasoned" (p. 12). 
 Argument: Is a statement or proposition with supporting evidence. Critical thinking
involves identifying, evaluating, and constructing arguments.
 Reasoning: The ability to infer a conclusion from one or multiple premises. To do so
requires examining logical relationships among statements or data.
 Point of View: The way one views the world, which shapes one's construction of
meaning. In a search for understanding, critical thinkers view phenomena from many
different points of view.
 Procedures for Applying Criteria: Other types of thinking use a general procedure.
Critical thinking makes use of many procedures. These procedures include asking
questions, making judgments, and identifying assumptions.

Critical thinkers conceptualize the broad outline of a question to be answered.

 They seek and compare various perspectives on the question.
 They clarify important concepts and assumptions of each perspective
 They generate more than one potential answer to the question.

Critical thinkers gather evidence appropriate to evaluating potential answers.

 They develop a workable approach to gathering evidence.
 They identify reliable sources of evidence.
 They distinguish relevant from irrelevant information.
 They distinguish significant from insignificant evidence.
 They recognize analogous situations and transfer insights to the question they are addressing

In using this evidence to evaluate potential answers, critical thinkers identify

biases and assumptions.
 They strive to identify biases and to control for them.
 They search for unstated assumptions inherent in the question and the potential answers.

In using this evidence to evaluate potential answers, critical thinkers use rational
processes of thought.
 They make credible inferences from the evidence based on rules of logic
 They recognize similarities and differences among the potential answers.
 They explore the implications and possible consequences of potential answers.
 They distinguish among fact, opinion, inference, interpretation, and judgment.
 They recognize when the evidence contradicts a potential answer.
 They can present a coherent summary of their thinking at any point during their evaluation
of potential answers. 

Based on their evaluation of the various potential answers, critical thinkers

tentatively choose one answer as the most likely to be correct.
 They communicate in some conventional manner the reasons for their choice so that others
can examine the validity of these reasons.
 They realize that their chosen answer is provisional and are open to modifying their choice
after such examination.
 They continue to acquire more knowledge about the broad area related to the question in
order to prepare themselves for its further examination

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TRAITS OF CRITICAL THINKERS

Flexibility/Open to new ideas - Honest with themselves. When hear a sound argument,
accept it even if means rejecting own. Reassess view when new evidence is presented.
Example: A friend points out flaws in your favorite restaurant. You realize she is right.

Resist manipulation. Recognize when need admiration and respect or vulnerable

Example: You don’t need to spend 400 dollars on a new Ipod that is only slightly better than
the one you have now.

Overcome confusion. Use resources or authority

Example: You don’t know the procedure to request a new roommate. Hear conflicting
advice from friends. Talk to dorm supervisor.

Ask questions. Penetrate shallow inaccurate statements

Example: When you sign up for a new credit card you ask questions about interest rates,
fees, hidden costs.

Base judgments on evidence, particularly if recognize personal bias. Identify conflicting

evidence.

Example: Your brother’s Apple powerbook is attractive but when buying a new laptop you
choose the one with the software you need for your coursework.

Balance their thinking. Truth is complex in issues / always look at both sides / ponder
possible meanings
Example: Do you want a close small apartment or a distant large apartment?

Look for connections between subjects. Cannot compartmentalize concepts and strategies
Example: Are psychology and chemistry alike?

Are intellectually independent. Seek out ideas from others, then make own judgments

Example: Choosing a major, joining a sorority

CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS

How are your critical thinking skills? Are you a critical thinker? Or are you a poor thinker, a
sloppy thinker, or a rationalizing thinker? Fortunately, poor and sloppy thinking can be
corrected more easily than the last. Many very intelligent people seek only to use their
thinking to prove what they already believe to be true.

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That latter approach is not any part of critical thought. Depending on which psychologist,
philosopher, or brain scientist you ask, critical thinking has many definitions, but all of them
seem to agree that it includes challenging and analyzing our own motivations, thought
processes and conclusions.
What else? Let's start with a basic definition:

"Rational and reflective thinking focused on deciding what to believe and/or how to act."
Rational is not to be confused with logical. Many of the most irrational ideas and actions
proceed logically from a chosen set of premises. If you start with certain premises, like a flat
Earth, it can be perfectly logical to assume a boat will fall off the edge if it goes too far. Logic
simply works from premises to arrive at conclusions systematically, but the premises
themselves may be right, wrong, or imperfect.

Rational thought takes into account the possibility that there is not a perfect
correspondence between our premises and reality. It starts with observation, evidence
gathering, and inductive reasoning. Logic is limited to deductive reasoning, and one bad
premise makes all deductions suspect and possibly false. So critical thinking is rational, but
challenges that which is simply logical.

Critical thinking is reflective, asking questions like, "Where could I be wrong here? What
assumptions am I making and are they justified? What other explanations are there?
For example, suppose on a hot humid day, you think to yourself, "Humidity makes the air
feel warmer, and it is normally more humid in Michigan than in Arizona, so if the
temperature is the same in both places, it will normally feel warmer in Michigan." The logic
is unassailable, but the conclusion is wrong, as I and anyone who has lived in both places in
winter can attest to. Humidity actually makes it feel warmer when it is warm and colder
when it is cold.

How do you avoid errors like this? You ask if it's true that humidity makes air feel warmer.
The experience of a hot day says yes, but because you look for possible errors you note the
hidden assumption that "this is always true at any temperature." Because you challenge
assumptions, you remember that the hot feeling is in part because your sweat can't
evaporate as fast when it is humid, so your body's ability to cool itself is limited. Upon
reflection, you realize this wouldn't matter as much when it's cold, because you don't sweat
much.
In this case, you might already know enough to see the error and come to a different
conclusion. If not, a bit of critical thought would at least point out the need to gather more
information and evidence. This example gives you some idea of the mind set of a critical
thinker, but what else can you do to develop critical thinking skills? Some suggestions
follow.

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CULTIVATING CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS

Ask For Evidence

Get in the habit of asking for evidence when someone makes a claim. This can be as simple
as asking "where did you read that?" or "Was that speculation, or did they test it?" You
should also be prepared to provide evidence for your own claims. None of us carries our
sources with us, of course, but you should be able to get a sense whether there really is
some basis for a claim.

Consider The Source

Since people don't carry evidence around with them, we accept many things said, at least
for the sake of argument (otherwise our conversations would be very short, and more like
interrogations). But we can consider the sources of the information. Does this person
usually remember the facts correctly, and is the source they refer to reliable? Make it a
habit to ask yourself these questions.

Consider Motivations
Motivations determine what we believe, what others believe, and what evidence is
considered by all of us. Thus, some newspapers and magazines can be entirely slanted in
their view, but be motivated to have all of their facts correct. Critical thinking requires that
we ask why they have selected these facts to report, and what facts they are leaving out.
We should of course ask if there is enough of a motivation for simple dishonesty as well.

Challenge Premises
Habitually reflect on the premises of a claim or argument, whether another's or your own.
Actively try to spot weaknesses in them. Remember that one bad premise can taint all that
comes from it.

Be Open To Changing Your Mind

Try to always be ready and willing to change your mind based on new evidence. In the
sciences, critical thinking is crucial, and a good scientist is ready and willing to drop the
beliefs of a lifetime if better ones present themselves. Make it a point to ask yourself what
evidence would change your mind. This prepares you for the possibility.
Consider Your Own Experience
I heard someone make a claim that is "politically correct" the other day. As is common with
such claims, it is assumed that everyone agrees. But just a moments reflection made me
realize that my own experience refuted the claim. Compare what is said to your own
knowledge and experience.

Look For Common Logical Fallacies

Try to habitually identify common logical fallacies and errors. For example, if you ever hear
an argument based on what some "expert" or "authority" said, immediately dismiss it. The
claim may be true, but look for other ways to verify it. An "appeal to authority" is a logical
fallacy based on the hidden assumption that "If he said it, it must be true." Respect for an
authority may suggest a closer look at the evidence, but should not be considered strong
evidence by itself. Watch for this and other logical errors.

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Admit Ignorance
Critical thinking requires to admit we do not understand something so as to to invent an
explanation (this is the whole basis for most claims of "psychic powers"). A better way is to
habitually say, "Hmm... I don't know. I'm not sure. I'll wait for more information or
evidence." Speculation has its place, but when speculation becomes explanation, it stops
the search for truth and prevents the truth from even being seen when it becomes evident.
Look For Alternative Explanations
You mind should be thinking like this: "Hmm... I can see that this explanation makes sense,
but what other explanations are possible?" Of course, when other possibilities do present
themselves, you should then be willing to look at the evidence for these. This is how you
develop critical thinking skills.

CRITICAL AND CREATIVE THINKING - BLOOM'S TAXONOMY

Benjamin Bloom (1956) developed a classification of levels of intellectual behavior in
learning. This taxonomy contained three overlapping domains: the cognitive, psychomotor,
and affective. Within the cognitive domain, he identified six levels: knowledge,
comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. These domains and levels
are still useful today as you develop the critical thinking skills of your students.

Critical Thinking
Critical thinking involves logical thinking and reasoning including skills such as comparison,
classification, sequencing, cause/effect, patterning, webbing, analogies, deductive and
inductive reasoning, forecasting, planning, hyphothesizing, and critiquing.

Creative Thinking
Creative thinking involves creating something new or original. It involves the skills of
flexibility, originality, fluency, elaboration, brainstorming, modification, imagery, associative
thinking, attribute listing, metaphorical thinking, forced relationships. The aim of creative
thinking is to stimulate curiosity and promote divergence.
 
 While critical thinking can be thought of as more left-brain and creative thinking more right
brain, they both involve "thinking." When we talk about HOTS "higher-order thinking skills"
we're concentrating on the top three levels of Bloom's Taxonomy: analysis, synthesis, and
evaluation.

Knowledge
collect describe identify list show tell tabulate
define examine label name retell state quote
enumerate match read record reproduce copy select
Examples: dates, events, places, vocabulary, key ideas, parts of diagram, 5Ws

Comprehension
associate compare distinguish extend interpret predict differentiate
contrast describe discuss estimate group summarize order
cite convert explain paraphrase restate trace
Examples: find meaning, transfer, interpret facts, infer cause & consequence, examples

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Application
apply classify change illustrate solve demonstrate
calculate complete solve modify show experiment
relate discover act administer articulate chart
collect compute construct determine develop establish
prepare produce report teach transfer use
Examples: use information in new situations, solve problems

Analysis
analyze arrange connect divide infer separate
classify compare contrast explain select order
breakdown correlate diagram discriminate focus illustrate
infer outline prioritize subdivide points out prioritize
Examples: recognize and explain patterns and meaning, see parts and w holes

Synthesis
combine compose generalize modify invent plan substitute
create formulate integrate rearrange design speculate rewrite
adapt anticipate collaborate compile devise express facilitate
reinforce structure substitute intervene negotiate reorganize validate
Examples: discuss "what if" situations, create new ideas, predict and draw conclusions

Evaluation
assess compare decide discriminate measure rank test
convince conclude explain grade judge summarize support
appraise criticize defend persuade justify reframe
Examples: make recommendations, assess value and make choices, critique ideas

Affective Domain
Domain Attributes: interpersonal relations, emotions, attitudes, appreciations, and values id
accepts attempts challenges defends disputes joins judges
contributes praises questions shares supports volunteers

CRITICAL/CREATIVE THINKING SKILLS

Thinking Independently
Principle: Critical thinking is independent thinking, thinking for oneself. Many of our beliefs
are acquired at an early age, when we have a strong tendency to form beliefs for irrational
reasons (because we want to believe, because we are praised or rewarded for believing).
Critical thinkers use critical skills and insights to reveal and reject beliefs that are irrational.
In forming new beliefs, critical thinkers do not passively accept the beliefs of others; rather,
they try to figure things out for themselves, reject unjustified authorities, and recognize the
contributions of genuine authorities. They thoughtfully form principles of thought and

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action; they do not mindlessly accept those presented to them. Nor are they unduly
influenced by the language of another.

Developing Insight Into Egocentricity or Sociocentricity

Principle: Egocentricity means confusing what we see and think with reality. When under
the influence of egocentricity, we think that the way we see things is exactly the way things
are. Egocentricity manifests itself as an inability or unwillingness to consider others' points
of view, a refusal to accept ideas or facts which would prevent us from getting what we
want (or think we want).

Exercising Fairmindedness
Principle: To think critically, we must be able to consider the strengths and weaknesses of
opposing points of view; to imaginatively put ourselves in the place of others in order to
genuinely understand them; to overcome our egocentric tendency to identify truth with our
immediate perceptions or long-standing thought or belief.

Exploring Thoughts Underlying Feelings and Feelings Underlying Thoughts

Principle: Although it is common to separate thought and feeling as though they were
independent, opposing forces in the human mind, the truth is that virtually all human
feelings are based on some level of thought and virtually all thought generative of some
level of feeling. To think with self-understanding and insight, we must come to terms with
the intimate connections between thought and feeling, reason and emotion.

Developing Intellectual Humility and Suspending Judgment

Principle: Critical thinkers recognize the limits of their knowledge. They are sensitive to
circumstances in which their native egocentricity is likely to function self-deceptively; they
are sensitive to bias, prejudice, and limitations of their views. Intellectual humility is based
on the recognition that one should not claim more than one actually knows. It does not
imply spinelessness or submissiveness.

Developing Intellectual Courage

Principle: To think independently and fairly, one must feel the need to face and fairly deal
with unpopular ideas, beliefs, or viewpoints. The courage to do so arises when we see that
ideas considered dangerous or absurd are sometimes rationally justified (in whole or in part)
and that conclusions or beliefs inculcated in us are sometimes false or misleading.

Developing Intellectual Good Faith or Integrity

Principle: Critical thinkers recognize the need to be true to their own thought, to be
consistent in the intellectual standards they apply, to hold themselves to the same rigorous
standards of evidence and proof to which they hold others, to practice what they advocate
for others, and to honestly admit discrepancies and inconsistencies in their own thought
and action. They believe most strongly what has been justified by their own thought and
analyzed experience.

Developing Intellectual Perseverance

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Principle: Becoming a more critical thinker is not easy. It takes time and effort. Critical
thinking is reflective and recursive; that is, we often think back to previous problems to re-
consider or re-analyze them. Critical thinkers are willing to pursue intellectual insights and
truths in spite of difficulties, obstacles, and frustrations.

Developing Confidence in Reason

Principle: The rational person recognizes the power of reason and the value of disciplining
thinking in accordance with rational standards. Virtually all of the progress that has been
made in science and human knowledge testifies to this power, and so to the reasonability of
having confidence in reason.

Refining Generalizations and Avoiding Oversimplifications

Principle: It is natural to seek to simplify problems and experiences to make them easier to
deal with. Everyone does this. However, the uncritical thinker often oversimplifies and as a
result misrepresents problems and experiences.
Comparing Analogous Situations: Transferring Insights to New Contexts
Principle: An idea's power is limited by our ability to use it. Critical thinkers' ability to use
ideas mindfully enhances their ability to transfer ideas critically. They practice using ideas
and insights by appropriately applying them to new situations. This allows them to organize
materials and experiences in different ways, to compare and contrast alternative labels, to
integrate their understanding of different situations, and to find useful ways to think about
new situations.

Developing One's Perspective: Creating or Exploring Beliefs, Arguments, or Theories

Principle: The world is not given to us sliced up into categories with pre-assigned labels on
them. There are always many ways to "divide up" and so experience the world. How we do
so is essential to our thinking and behavior. Uncritical thinkers assume that their perspective
on things is the only correct one. Selfish critical thinkers manipulate the perspectives of
others to gain advantage for themselves.

Clarifying Issues, Conclusions, or Beliefs

Principle: The more completely, clearly, and accurately an issue or statement is formulated,
the easier and more helpful the discussion of its settlement or verification. Given a clear
statement of an issue, and prior to evaluating conclusions or solutions, it is important to
recognize what is required to settle it. And before we can agree or disagree with a claim, we
must understand it clearly.

Clarifying and Analyzing The Meanings of Words or Phrases

Principle: Critical, independent thinking requires clarity of thought. A clear thinker
understands concepts and knows what kind of evidence is required to justify applying a
word or phrase to a situation. The ability to supply a definition is not proof of
understanding. One must be able to supply clear, obvious examples and use the concept
appropriately. In contrast, for an unclear thinker, words float through the mind unattached
to clear, specific, concrete cases. Distinct concepts are confused.

Developing Criteria for Evaluation: Clarifying Values and Standards

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Principle: Critical thinkers realize that expressing mere preference does not substitute for
evaluating something. Awareness of the process or components of evaluating facilitates
thoughtful and fairminded evaluation. This process requires developing and using criteria or
standards of evaluation, or making standards or criteria explicit.

Evaluating the Credibility of Sources of Information

Principle: Critical thinkers recognize the importance of using reliable sources of information.
They give less weight to sources which either lack a track record of honesty, are not in a
position to know, or have a vested interest in the issue. Critical thinkers recognize when
there is more than one reasonable position to be taken on an issue; they compare
alternative sources of information, noting areas of agreement; they analyze questions to
determine whether or not the source is in a position to know; and they gather more
information when sources disagree.

Questioning Deeply: Raising and Pursuing Root or Significant Questions

Principle: Critical thinkers can pursue an issue in depth, covering various aspects in an
extended process of thought or discussion. When reading a passage, they look for issues
and concepts underlying the claims expressed. They come to their own understanding of the
details they learn, placing them in the larger framework of the subject and their overall
perspectives. They contemplate the significant issues and questions underlying subjects or
problems studied. They can move between basic underlying ideas and specific details.

Analyzing or Evaluating Arguments, Interpretations, Beliefs, or Theories

Principle: Rather than carelessly agreeing or disagreeing with a conclusion based on their
preconceptions of what is true, critical thinkers use analytic tools to understand the
reasoning behind it and determine its relative strengths and weaknesses. When analyzing
arguments, critical thinkers recognize the importance of asking for reasons and considering
other views.

Generating or Assessing Solutions

Principle: Critical problem-solvers use everything available to them to find the best solution
they can. They evaluate solutions, not independently of, but in relation to one another
(since 'best' implies a comparison).

Analyzing or Evaluating Actions and Policies

Principle: To develop one's perspective, one must analyze actions and policies and evaluate
them. Good judgment is best developed through practice: judging behavior, explaining and
justifying those judgments, hearing alternative judgments and their justifications, and
assessing judgments. When evaluating the behavior of themselves and others, critical
thinkers are aware of the standards they use, so that these, too, can become objects of
evaluation.

Reading Critically: Clarifying or Critiquing Texts

Principle: Critical thinkers read with a healthy skepticism. But they do not doubt or deny
until they understand. They clarify before they judge. Since they expect intelligibility from
what they read, they check and double-check their understanding as they read. They do not

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mindlessly accept nonsense. Critical readers ask themselves questions as they read, wonder
about the implications of, reasons for, examples of, and meaning and truth of the material.

Listening Critically: The Art of Silent Dialogue

Principle: Critical thinkers realize that listening can be done passively and uncritically or
actively and critically. They know that it is easy to misunderstand what is said by another
and hard to integrate another's thinking into one's own. Compare speaking and listening.
When we speak, we need only keep track of our own ideas, arranging them in some order,
expressing thoughts with which we are intimately familiar: our own.

Making Interdisciplinary Connections

Principle: Although in some ways it is convenient to divide knowledge up into disciplines,
the divisions are not absolute. Critical thinkers do not allow the somewhat arbitrary
distinctions between academic subjects to control their thinking. When considering issues
which transcend subjects (and most real-life issues do), they bring relevant concepts,
knowledge, and insights from many subjects to the analysis.

Practicing Socratic Discussion: Clarifying and Questioning Beliefs, Theories, or Perspectives

Principle: Critical thinkers are nothing if not questioners. The ability to question and probe
deeply, to get down to root ideas, to get beneath the mere appearance of things, is at the
very heart of the activity. And, as questioners, they have many different kinds of questions
and moves available and can follow up their questions appropriately.

Reasoning Dialogically: Comparing Perspectives, Interpretations, or Theories

Principle: Dialogical thinking refers to thinking that involves a dialogue or extended
exchange between different points of view. Whenever we consider concepts or issues
deeply, we naturally explore their connections to other ideas and issues within different
points of view.

Reasoning Dialectically: Evaluating Perspectives, Interpretations, or Theories

Principle: Dialectical thinking refers to dialogical thinking conducted in order to test the
strengths and weaknesses of opposing points of view. Court trials and debates are
dialectical in intention. They pit idea against idea, reasoning against counter-reasoning in
order to get at the truth of a matter. As soon as we begin to explore ideas, we find that
some clash or are inconsistent with others.

Comparing and Contrasting Ideals with Actual Practice

Principle: Self-improvement and social improvement are presupposed values of critical
thinking. Critical thinking, therefore, requires an effort to see ourselves and others
accurately. This requires recognizing gaps between ideals and practice. The fairminded
thinker values truth and consistency and so works to minimize these gaps.
The confusion of facts with ideals prevents us from moving closer to achieving our ideals. A
critical education strives to highlight discrepancies between facts and ideals, and proposes

35
and evaluates methods for minimizing them. This strategy is intimately connected with
"developing intellectual good faith".

Thinking Precisely About Thinking: Using Critical Vocabulary

Principle: An essential requirement of critical thinking is the ability to think about thinking,
to engage in what is sometimes called "metacognition". One possible definition of critical
thinking is the art of thinking about your thinking while you're thinking in order to make
your thinking better: more clear, more accurate, more fair.

Noting Significant Similarities and Differences

Principle: Critical thinkers strive to treat similar things similarly and different things
differently. Uncritical thinkers, on the other hand, often don't see significant similarities and
differences. Things superficially similar are often significantly different. Things superficially
different are often essentially the same.

Examining or Evaluating Assumptions

Principle: We are in a better position to evaluate any reasoning or behavior when all of the
elements of that reasoning or behavior are made explicit. We base both our reasoning and
our behavior on beliefs we take for granted. We are often unaware of these assumptions.
Only by recognizing them can we evaluate them.

Distinguishing Relevant From Irrelevant Facts

Principle: To think critically, we must be able to tell the difference between those facts
which are relevant to an issue and those which are not. Critical thinkers focus their attention
on relevant facts and do not let irrelevant considerations affect their conclusions. Whether
or not something is relevant is often unclear; relevance must often be argued. Furthermore,
a fact is only relevant or irrelevant in relation to an issue. Information relevant to one
problem may not be relevant to another.

Giving Reasons and Evaluating Evidence and Alleged Facts

Principle: Critical thinkers can take their reasoning apart in order to examine and evaluate
its components. They know on what evidence they base their conclusions. They realize that
un-stated, unknown reasons can be neither communicated nor critiqued. They are
comfortable being asked to give reasons; they don't find requests for reasons intimidating,
confusing, or insulting.

Recognizing Contradictions
Principle: Consistency is a fundamental-some would say the defining-ideal of critical
thinkers. They strive to remove contradictions from their beliefs, and are wary of
contradictions in others. As would-be fairminded thinkers they strive to judge like cases in a
like manner.

Exploring Implications and Consequences

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Principle: Critical thinkers can take statements, recognize their implications-what follows
from them-and develop a fuller, more complete understanding of their meaning. They
realize that to accept a statement one must also accept its implications. They can explore
both implications and consequences at length. When considering beliefs that relate to
actions or policies, critical thinkers assess the consequences of acting on those beliefs.

MODEL OF CRITICAL THINKING AND ITS MODIFICATION

The following is a proposed model of critical thinking:

This model proposes that there are affective, conative, and behavioral aspects of critical
thinking that must be considered in addition to the cognitive processes involved. This
supports the definitions of Mertes (1991), Scriven and Paul (1992), Ennis (1992), and Lipman
(1995) that include some component of beliefs, behavior, or context. First, a stimulus
presents an argument or proposition that must be evaluated. There is an affective
disposition to use critical thinking that must activate the critical thinking processes if it is to
take place. As a result of critical thinking a previously held belief is confirmed or a new belief
is established. This will be established as a component of declarative memory in its semantic
form although there may be episodic information associated with it. There may also be
images or visualizations formed or remembered as part of the critical thinking process.

There is then an affective disposition to engage in the activities of planning and taking action
in order for the critical thinking to act as a guide to behavior. The conative components of
goal-setting and self-regulation must be activated in order to develop and implement a plan
of action. As action is taken it results in feedback from the environment and a corresponding
increase in procedural knowledge. This new learning is then available as either necessary
corrective action is taken to guide action toward the desired goal based on beliefs or a new
situation presents itself that requires additional critical thinking.

37
A complete critical thinking program will successfully deal with each of the components in
the model. As stated previously, the most appropriate teaching methods are possibly
different for each component. For example, if one is most interested in impacting
declarative knowledge (facts, concepts, principles, etc. that are stored in semantic and
episodic memory), the most appropriate teaching method is probably some form of
didactic, explicit, or direct instruction. On the other hand, if the focus is on procedural
knowledge it is likely that modeling and/or personal experience would be more appropriate
teaching methods. Likewise, if one were trying to impact the memory of images or
visualizations, then modeling, active visualizations, or working with pictures might be more
appropriate. Attitudes are probably impacted most directly by socialization and the teaching
method of cooperative learning. Learning the process of critical thinking might be best
facilitated by a combination of didactic instruction and experience in specific content areas.
Impacting conation might best be done through goal-setting exercises and action learning.
Finally, overt behavior and learning to use feedback might best be accomplished using
positive and negative reinforcement.

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ASSERTIVENESS SKILLS
Your Objectives:
List your three main objectives below. What do you want to learn in this course?
What do you want to take away with you? What do you want to become better at?
What do you need?

1.

2.

3.

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What is Assertiveness
“The basic difference between being assertive and being aggressive is how our words and
behaviour affect the rights and well being of others.”
Sharon Anthony Bower

Objective:
By the end of this session you will be able to:
Distinguish between assertive, aggressive and passive behaviour

In today’s complex society it is necessary to be able to express your ideas, opinions and
thoughts freely and regularly. At the same time, respecting other’s rights is as important as
your own and the combination of these two needs has led to a new skill, assertiveness. First,
let’s look at the definition of assertiveness:

Assertive (adjective): confident and direct in dealing with others.

Source: Collins Concise English Dictionary

Assertiveness is the ability to express your needs and uphold your own integrity and dignity
without violating others’ rights.
As the world is becoming more competitive due to increased inter-communications and
becoming more populated, people are beginning to realise that they need to be able to
assert themselves in the workplace or even in their personal life in order to achieve more in
this increasingly competitive world. The society is also encouraging everyone to respect
each other’s rights which means assertiveness is becoming a critical skill.
Benefits of Assertiveness
When people can express themselves freely without fear of others, more ideas can be
generated which leads to more creativity and productivity. A company will greatly benefit
from a workforce whose members can debate, argue and challenge any system, process or
concept. Debates will no longer be led by those who shout the loudest. Instead the
assertive style of communication will come to dominate, boosting the naturally shy

40
to be more talkative and silencing the naturally aggressive to be more considerate
and open to other’s ideas.
The purpose of an assertive communication is to
Be in control of the situation and communication,
while, keeping communication channels open and flexible
Naturally, an assertive tone sounds confident. Confidence comes from knowing
what you want and where you want to go. Confident people always seem to have a
clear mission, a goal that will come to define their behaviour. When you know your
goals, it is much easier to look beyond words and gestures and start to search for
the true intention and meaning. You want to know the motivation behind every
action and communication. This attitude reduces misunderstandings between
people as everyone will have their view as well as others’ views in mind when
engaged in conversations.

APA Model
As you saw in the definition, assertiveness is about rights of people. Let’s consider
the full spectrum of possibilities when it comes to people’s rights. The following
diagram illustrates this:

Your Others'
As

ve
rti
se

Needs Needs
Aggressive Passive

As you can see, a person who only considers his or her own needs can take an
aggressive stance. Conversely, a person who only considers other’s needs at the
expense of his or her own is generally considered as passive. None of these styles
are productive. However as you gravitate towards the centre, you start to consider
everyone’s needs and this is where an assertive person stands.
The distinction based on rights leads to the APA model, where APA stands for
Assertive, Passive and Aggressive with the following definitions:

41
  Passive: You are more concerned about others than yourself
 Aggressive: You are more concerned about yourself than others
 Assertive: You are concerned about yourself and others
In a sense, assertiveness is also about confronting the aggressive person and
defending your own rights.
Most excessively dominant or aggressive people are seen as bullies. Deep down,
bullies are very insecure people. They dominate because they are too insecure to
allow other people share their ideas or have any influence. The roots of this
behaviour can be found in childhood. A bully’s behaviour is reinforced more every
time a passive or non-assertive person is dominated, as the bully gets his or her
own way. The bullying dominant behaviour is rewarded, and so it persists.
This positive conditioning continues to reinforce the bulling behaviour which leads
to a variety of visible signs of naturally dominant people; boosted ego, show-off,
need to build an empire, show of monetary wealth, use of ‘yes-men’ followers and
so on.
Passive people, in contrast, do not aspire to be dominant. In fact they are more
likely to suffer from bullies and they like to be able to resist the pressure and
dominance of excessively demanding people. By using simple techniques discussed
in this course, anyone can resist an aggressive behaviour while enjoying expressing
their own thoughts. Assertive communication can be quite fulfilling.
To be able to express yourself freely, you need to know what your rights are. In
fact it is necessary to know everyone’s rights so you can successfully find the
common subset and act accordingly.
Here are a number of rights that you are entitled to:

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 PRACTICE: Bill of Rights
Add more rights to this list as you see fit.

Bill of Rights

You have the right to be assertive

You have the right to say ‘NO’ or refuse a request

You have the right to answer questions in your own time

You have the right to express your needs even if it doesn’t make sense to others
at the beginning.

You have the right to request that others change their behaviour if they are
infringing on your rights.

You have the right to make mistakes

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Sometimes your rights might be satisfied even if you have not been assertive, in
which case a passive/non-assertive approach might have been sufficient. Don’t
assume that you have to be assertive all the time. You only need to be assertive if
your rights are threatened.
Although we may all want to be assertive when necessary, invariably we may feel
vulnerable or alternatively lose our emotional control, get angry and become
aggressive. Depending on circumstances anyone might have a tendency to prefer to
be passive to avoid problems or aggressive to get what they want even if it means
hurting others. As a result, whatever your natural tendency, it’s good to practice
assertiveness so you can use the skill when you need it.

PRACTICE: My Assertiveness Triangle

Consider the following triangle and place a mark for your natural state.

Assertive

Passive Aggressive

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 PRACTICE: APA Model
Follow the instructions given to you by the instructor to compare the qualities of APA behaviours.
You can document your findings in the following table for your future reference.

Passive

Questions

How do you show this behaviour

verbally?

How do you show this behaviour

non-verbally?

How does this behaviour affect

the other person?

How does this behaviour affect

you?

What are the advantages?

What are the disadvantages?

Please provide examples. You

can provide examples from your
workplace, history, fictional
sources or make your own.

Aggressive

Questions

How do you show this behaviour

verbally?

45
How do you show this behaviour
non-verbally?

How does this behaviour affect

the other person?

How does this behaviour affect

you?

What are the advantages?

What are the disadvantages?

Please provide examples. You

can provide examples from your
workplace, history, fictional
sources or make your own.

Assertive

Questions

How do you show this behaviour

verbally?

How do you show this behaviour

non-verbally?

How does this behaviour affect

the other person?

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 How does this behaviour affect
you?

What are the advantages?

What are the disadvantages?

Please provide examples. You

can provide examples from your
workplace, history, fictional
sources or make your own.

Passive-Aggressive Behaviour
A passive-aggressive person has difficulty expressing anger in a healthy way. An
individual’s feeling may be repressed and he may not even realise that he is angry.
A person can be passive-aggressive either pathologically or temporarily based on
circumstances. The cause usually goes back to strict control exerted by parents in
childhood.
The behaviour of a passive-aggressive person can have a huge negative impact on
the people around him. Worst, due to their lack of insight into their own feelings,
the passive-aggressive often feel that others misunderstand them, expect a lot
from them and criticise their behaviour too much.
For example, a passive-aggressive individual may express his anger indirectly by
manipulating objects in the environment. A co-worker may find lots of rubbish on
her desk, or that her pens are mysteriously misplaced, or her mouse is unplugged.
All drawers are left open, printers have suddenly run out of paper or a harsh note
is attached to a toilet door explaining the ‘issue’.
A passive-aggressive person is afraid of conflicts so usually wants to avoid them.

How to Deal with Passive-Aggressive Behaviour

You can use the following guidelines to

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  Be direct. If you notice something strange and suspect that they are angry
or are expressing their anger indirectly, go to them and say that you want to
help.
 Give them space. Give them some time to adjust and hopefully become
more comfortable and open with you. 
 Give them an opportunity to express their feelings. Since they have
difficulty in expressing themselves, you need to encourage them and hope
that they will open up.
 Don't fight. Fighting might be a satisfying thing to do, but this will only fuel
the conflict. You can calm them by not fighting and defusing the situation
by changing the environment or the setting. A calm environment helps to
solve issues more easily.
 Don't answer with passive-aggressive behaviour. This is a negative
approach which will not help. You will quickly lose control as it creates
paranoia and mistrust. You need to set an example, acting like the other
person doesn’t help the situation. Besides if you misinterpret an action and
take it as passive-aggressive and respond accordingly, you can confuse the
matter greatly and make yourself look really bad.

How to Communicate Assertively

“Never allow a person to tell you no, who doesn't have the power to say yes.”
Eleanor Roosevelt

Objective:
By the end of this session you will be able to:
Express yourself assertively using specific verbal and non-verbal techniques
and get maximum results

Now that you have become familiar with the concept of assertiveness and
understand the distinction between assertive, passive and aggressive behaviour,
you may wonder how best you can express yourself assertively. In this section you
will learn about verbal and non-verbal techniques used to emphasise your message
and express yourself in such a way to get maximum result. Remember, if you feel
like an assertive person, who is confident, knows her goals, knows where she wants
to go and what can be sacrificed in the process, you are already half way there in
expressing yourself assertively. You just need to be aware of a few concepts to
maximise your communication efficiency. These concepts and guidelines are
explained below.

Verbal Styles
The best way to learn what to say is to see what each class in the APA model is
likely to say and what the implications for each style are.
Passive

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  Uses apologetic word such as “Sorry”, “I am afraid”, “Terribly sorry”, …
 There is a lot of uncertainty in the sentences delivered, emphasised by
words such as, “possibly”, “may be”, “if possible”, “perhaps” and “not
sure”.
 Brings himself down in comparison to others by stating “I am not really good
at this”, “You obviously know more about this than I do”, “I have never
done this before”, “It’s my mistake really”
 Expects permission and may ask directly for this. For example, “Can I do
this?”, “Do you mind if I go ahead?” and “Is this OK with you?”
 Dismisses his own needs. For example, “I don’t really need this” and “It’s
OK, I should be alright”
 Very few “I” statements are used in sentences.
Aggressive
 There are many accusations in the language.
 The sentences are full of “I” statements. It is all about the person who is
delivering the request.
 The language is threatening. There can be many “if” statements which lead
to punishment if the request is not satisfied. For example, “If you don’t
comply, I will see to it that …”
 Opinions are delivered as facts.
 The sentences are emotionally charged with words inserted to fuel the
conflict rather than to control it.
 Sarcasm and mockery is used to level the ground for further attacks.
 Forceful words such as “must”, “should”, “will” and “ought” are used
frequently.
Assertive
 Sentences are well composed and logical.
 There seems to be a solid structure to the reasoning and the request is well
thought.
 Statements are clear and concise. The receiving end has no problem
understanding what is wanted of them.
 The person seems to care about the opinion of others and is willing to
compromise as necessary to achieve the higher aim
 “I” statement are present but are used sparingly when appropriate.

Assertiveness General Guidelines

Be direct: Get to the point as clearly as possible and deliver it confidently
Be brief: Less is more. Don’t confuse the other person by extra details or vague
conservative requests. Deliver you request and stop.

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Provide reasons: To support you requests, provide a number of rational reasons.
Make sure to present concise reasons that are directly related to your request.

Tips on Assertive

 Avoid justifying yourself.

 Don’t say sorry when it is not necessary.
 Don’t take a negative comment personally.
 Don’t let others’ response affect your emotional balance.
 Don’t get yourself into emotional arguments.
 Avoid getting intimidated by ignoring the emotional charge.
 Understand and accept that the other person has the right to say no to your
request.
 Avoid flattery.
 Think win-win. Look at the higher objective and get yourself and the other
person to focus on that.
 Keep asking questions to understand the other person’s point of view.
 Don’t assume you know what the other person’s motives are. Ask, and you shall
be lucky!

Effective Assertiveness Sentences

The best way to understand what it really means to be assertive is with an
example. Use the following simple step-by-step procedure to deliver your
messages and requests assertively. A common scenario is used throughout the
following steps for the examples given in each case:
Scenario Example:
Your colleague who is habitually late has arrived late again for an important
meeting.
Don’t Exaggerate
It is important to describe the results and effects of their behaviour specifically.
Don’t generalise, expand or judge.
 What not to say: “There is no point to have a meeting now. This project is
hopeless!”
 Assertive Communication: “We are going to have very little time left for
this meeting as I need to leave for another meeting at 15:00.”
Use Factual Descriptions
If you want to change someone’s behaviour use factual descriptions rather than
your judgment or opinions. Do not label them.
 What not to say: “You’re always late. This is not acceptable!”

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  Assertive Communication: “The meeting was scheduled for 14:00, it’s now
14:35!”
Use “I” Statements, But not Too Many
If you don’t use “I” statements, you may appear passive. If you use too many “I”
statements, you imply that you don’t really care for others. If you use them in
moderation you will get the best of both worlds.
If you use “you”, it can be interpreted as judging as it sounds more like an attack.
By using “I” you put the focus on yourself and how their behaviour has affected
you which is of course what you are entitled to report. This also leads to less
blame and focuses both of you on problem solving.
 What not to say: “You cannot be late again!”
 Assertive Communication: “I’d really like you to be here on time so we can
spend enough time on this project.”
Appeal to Emotion
It is well known that many of our decisions are made emotionally and we may also
be influenced strongly by other’s emotional appeals. There is a powerful formula
you can use to really make someone think while still appearing kind and helpful.
Here is how it works. State your statement with the following structure:
“When you [their behaviour], I feel [your feelings].”
Examples:
 “When you shout, I feel scared”
 “When you don’t keep me in the loop, I feel left out”
If you use facts and data without mixing it with your own opinion, this formula
provides a direct and non-threatening way of dealing with someone to let them
know about the effect of their behaviour.
Appeal to Emotion, Extended
You can extend this formula further by adding information about the effect of
their action. Of course you should only use facts. The formula is as follows:
“When you [their behaviour], then [results of their behaviour],
and I feel [your feelings].”
Examples:
 “When you are late for the meeting, then I have to wait for you, and I feel I
can’t do anything.”
 “When you undermine me in front of others, then I am forced to explain
myself and I feel hurt”
Appeal to Emotion, End with an Action
You can extend the previous formula even further to include an action so the
person you talked to knows what is expected of her. For example:
Use the following formula:

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 “When you [their behaviour],
I feel [your feelings],
because [results of their behaviour].
I want you to [desired action].”
For example:
 “When you tap on my headphone from behind, I feel scared and it makes me
jump, because I don’t expect it especially when I am concentrating on work.
I want you to stop doing this as I am not comfortable with it.”
As you can see, these guidelines are very simple to follow and you can use them to
increase your assertiveness.

Non-Verbal Styles
Now that you have learned how to construct your sentences and know what to say,
you also need to know about the importance of the delivery of these sentences. As
it is well-known, a lot of communication between humans takes place non-
verbally. Imagine what happens if you prepare your assertive reply, but then
deliver it with a low voice, no eye contact and with the facial expression of a
person who is nervous and unsure. The other person will not take you seriously and
in fact may feel confused about the way you put your sentences (since they sound
too strong). It may sound more like intimidation than anything else. Hence, you
need to master the art of communication without talking. The following explains
the body langue used by each style and you can draw your own conclusions.
Passive
 Nervousness
 Lack of confidence
 Keeps distance
 Quiet tone of voice
 Hunched shoulders
 Little or no eye contact
 Smiles when criticised
 Frequent throat clearing
 Pauses frequently as if not sure about the appropriateness of the sentence
 Eager to finish the conversation and move on
 Conscious of the implications of the conversation
Aggressive
 Speech is fast and strong
 Voice is loud
 Piercing eye contact. Keeps the gaze.
 Tone is sarcastic
 Eyebrows can be angry (raised) and facial expression is intense
 Body language is defensive/aggressive: arms crossed, legs apart and pointing
fingers
 May walk or stride around the place while talking

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  Makes loud noises such as banging on the table or makes extra noises by
being a bit more forceful when moving objects around (as if to make a point
that I am not happy)
Assertive
 Emotionally relaxed and reserved
 Clear and confident tone of voice
 Speech is well articulated and controlled as if it has been prepared before
 Erect and solid without having a threatening posture (in other words, a
presidential stance)
 Firm and logical

Assertive Rules to Have in Mind ...

I will not be afraid to speak my mind

I will not be intimidated

I will stand my ground

I will not show any signs of nervousness

My point of view is as important as others

I am in control of my life

I will not let people push me around

I will not change my mind easily

Assertiveness Challenges
Being assertive can sometimes feel a bit scary. If you are naturally passive or
prefer not to confront, an assertive approach may feel aggressive. Of course, you
need to understand that all you are doing is exercising your rights and as long as
you are respecting others’ rights you haven’t done anything wrong. Nevertheless,
there are a number of fears associated with being assertive, and knowing them will
help you to overcome them more easily. These are as follows:
 Afraid of change. Since your assertive request usually demands change, the
change itself can create nervousness. This fear is easy to tackle. All you
have to think of is the new situation. Aren’t you eager to get to this new
position? Would it not be wonderful if you could change the environment so

53
 that it would be more peaceful for you so you don’t have to be continuously
annoyed by someone else’s behaviour? Take your chance and do something
about it. If you don’t, no one will do it for you.

 Refuse to admit your passiveness. Society may demand a lot from us

which means some people may not like to admit they have been passive and
submissive. This is in particular applicable to competitive people who are
not naturally dominant. When confronted with a dominant person, they may
simply refuse to admit they have been dominated because that would not
help their competitive personality. Fortunately, the solution is simple. It is
not about being passive or assertive or even aggressive, it is all about
demanding your rights. Get over the labelling and think beyond that. Ask for
what you deserve, compete for it and you shall get it. No one is labelling
you anything, nor would it matter, if you are getting what you want.

 Afraid to ruin a relationship. An assertive approach may sound too strong

and some people may think that if they employ such an approach, it will
affect their relationship with others. Remember, that if you already feel
concerned about someone else’s behaviour to the point that it is bothering
you, then your relationship is already under strain. If you are interested to
keep this relationship going, then a quick assertive fix, will do wonders in
letting others know about your feeling and rescuing the relationship. In
other words, being assertive is actually good for maintaining relationship
and if delivered correctly, it will be received as a positive feedback. It will
show that you care about the relationship so much that you bothered to go
through the hassle, and risk of, speaking your mind.

 Lack of confidence in your ability. Assertive communication is just a skill

and anyone can learn it with enough practice. Be confident in your message
and it will automatically show through your body language and behaviour.
Think of the satisfaction it brings to change your environment and your
relationship with others.

How to Request
Objective:
By the end of this session you will be able to:

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 Request what you want assertively and get it

As you have seen so far, assertiveness is about asking what you deserve and getting
it. Remember, the objective of a communication is to get results and that requires
a skill to ask the right questions with the correct tone. In this section, you will be
introduced to a number of techniques that will help you to master the art of
requesting.

Use ‘I’s
When being assertive, using ‘I’ statements can be quite powerful. There are a
number of ways you can deliver ‘I’ statements:
Facts
‘I’ statements describing the current situation are a great way to start the
conversation since they are generally factual and represent your concern in a non-
confrontational way.
For example:
 “I have noticed that you are very loud when I am on the phone”
 “I am more qualified for this task than Peter”
Personal Opinion
Beyond facts, you can state your own opinion based on your experience and
interpretation of the facts.
For example,
 “I believe this idea will not work since it is intellectually flawed”
 “I don’t agree with the huge bonus packages that managers are receiving as
a compensation for their expertise”

Emotional Appeal
As we all know, emotions play a significant role in our decision making. Showing
how you feel about certain circumstances can be quite effective in convincing
others of the change you desire.
For example,
 “I feel crossed”
 “I feel I have been stabbed in the back”
 “I don’t feel I am much needed here”
When combined with factual and personal opinion, the combination can be quite
powerful in representing where you stand, how you feel and why.
Demands

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There is no point just to explain your views. Eventually, you need to explain your
true intention. Never leave the other person ‘guessing’ what you want. They are
likely to deliver something else.
For example,
 “I want your full cooperation”
 “I want you to finish this project by the end of today”
 “I will not accept a compromise on quality. We must deliver the best.”
 “I want you to stop interrupting me while I am working, in particular before
lunch break.”
What’s Next
Finally, you should let the other person know what happens next. Alternatively,
you may want to let them know what happens if they do not comply with your
demands. Either way, this statement contains an action and a time stamp.
For example,
 “I expect you to be on time in the next meeting on Friday”
 “If you don’t answer the phone next time, I have no choice but to remove
you from the team”
 “I will meet the client next week and I want to make sure that you will have
everything, the report, the presentation and the contract, ready by next
week”

‘I’ statement combinations

It is now possible to put together ‘I’ statement combinations. When you decide to
be assertive, a sentence with an ‘I’ puts the attention firmly on you. Using ‘I’
statements also helps naturally passive people to focus on their own need a bit
more than what they naturally do. This encourages them to be more assertive.
The combination of the above ‘I’ statements can deliver a firm and assertive
conversation complete with your demands and actions. Consider the following
example:

Facts: “I have noticed that none of my ideas seem to get

accepted or used no matter how elaborate or effective
they are.”

Personal Opinion: “I believe everyone’s ideas must be counted upon and

should be used along with others’ inputs to increase
creativity and motivate the staff to come up with yet
more ideas”

Emotional Appeal: “I feel I have been ignored and my efforts are useless.

Demands: “I want you to take my ideas on board and show that you
pay attention to what I say and prepare. I expect you to
take action on it and not just say I will.”

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 What’s Next: “If my efforts are not used in this team, I have little
reason to stay in this team beyond this month. You need
to prove to me that I am respected and my inputs are
taken seriously.”

PRACTICE: Deliver ‘I’ Statements

Suppose you want to use the ‘I’ statements described above to express yourself assertively in
response to a particular situation that has started to bother you. This situation is described here. Use
the following form to present your ‘I’ statements.

Situation:

You are an engineer who is very enthusiastic about new technologies. You regularly describe the
technical details of new systems that come to market to your colleagues to both inform them and
share your enthusiasm. They much appreciate your efforts. One of your colleagues, however, is taking
advantage of the situation. You have noticed that, several times, when you are both in a meeting with
an important client, he starts to talk about the new technologies you described to him earlier.
However, he delivers this in such a way to undermine you intellectually, sometimes even going as far
as saying the following to you in front of the client, “I don’t think you are aware of this, ...”, even
though you have told him the whole story in the first place.

This has started to annoy you since it is affecting your image especially in front of important clients
who may value technical abilities greatly. You want to approach your colleague and explain the issue
so that this will not happen again. Present your conversation using the ‘I’ statements explained above.

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 Facts:

Personal Opinion:

Emotional Appeal:

Demands:

What’s Next:

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 Have Your Own Opinion

During the course of a day, you may get requests for opinion. If someone asks for your
opinion, then provide your opinion. It sounds simple except that many don’t do it. Consider
the following conversation between two people in a shopping centre:

Person A: “I am a bit hungry. What do you fancy to eat for lunch?”

Person B: “Yeh, I’m hungry too. I don’t know. What do you like?”

Now the question is bounced back to the questioner. Someone asked for your opinion, that’s
exactly what you should provide. You should stop this back-and-forth conversation since not
only it wastes time and can be tiring, it also makes it more difficult to state what you want as
you go deeper into the debate.

Become a leader, take the initiative and lead the way. Why not? Surely if a person asked for
your opinion, he already accepts that your opinion is worth knowing and following.

Advanced Assertiveness Techniques

You have already seen how to construct sentences and the general approach you
must take to deliver an assertive request that gets heard. Here, you will be
introduced to a few more advanced techniques that you can employ based on your
needs.
Brocken Record
Avoid getting pulled into an argument. Instead repeat your point as if you are a
broken record. Use a low level, pleasant voice along with a calm and confident
posture. Keep smiling to show that you are not emotionally affected if you
continuously receive ‘No’ as an answer. This helps you to keep demanding rather
than coming up with new reasons and logic.
Example:
You have taken a product you recently purchased back to the store you bought it
from to get a refund. You approach the customer service representative (CSR) and
exchange the following conversation.
You: “I would like to return this product please.”
CSR: “I am not sure if we can do that.”
You: “Sure, but I like to return it.”
CSR: “We might only be able to give you a store credit”

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 You: “I understand. I would like to receive a full refund please”
CSR: “Let me check. If the product has been opened or used, I am afraid
we won’t be able to refund it”
You: “This is your product and I can’t use it. I need to get a refund for
this”
and so on ....
This technique can be incredibly powerful. When you are going through it, you will
feel that you have stood firm in your position no matter what the other person has
thrown at you. It is quite satisfying and will do wonders for your self-esteem and
confidence.
Verbal Jujitsu
Aggressive people have a tendency to find weak spots and exploit them. If there is
a weakness in you, they will not hesitate to intimidate you to conform to their
needs. They can be quite vicious and bullying. Confronting them directly is not a
practical option since an aggressive person may go a lot further than what you are
willing to do. Inspired by the world of martial arts, you can use Jujitsu to take
advantage of the strength of the attacker and reflect it back at him much like a
mirror.
This is how it works in practice:
Aggressive: “You are just way too unorganised. You can’t handle this.”
Assertive: “I know I am not the most organised person in the world, no
one is perfect.”
Aggressive: “...and you are always late”
Assertive: “I know I might not be on time sometimes, I know most people
here are similar to me.”
Aggressive: “...and you are weak.”
Assertive: “Weakness is a matter of opinion. I know I am quite strong and
my view on this is all that matters.”

As you can see, the assertive person seems to be emotionally balanced and is not
taking the bait whatsoever. The aggressive person will quickly get bored and looses
interest.
Shift Content to Process
Sometimes you can shift the conversation from the content to process by stating
that the current process used in your conversation doesn’t really work and so there
is no point in carrying on.
For example,
“You are going off-topic. This is starting to get frustrating and I feel you are
not really listening."

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Fogging
This is effectively a polite way of saying ‘No’. You hear the request, repeat back
using the same words and then add your own explanation.
For example,
Request: “You should reduce the overhead in your department, very few
companies can afford the kind of overhead you have.”
Response: “Indeed I agree that few companies can afford this kind of
overhead. We are of course different from other companies
because we are successful...”
You simply agree to what they say in principle and not what it applies to you.
Delay the Conversation
Sometimes, conversations just don’t go well and get more and more emotional to
the point where you feel you may not get anywhere at all. This is when you have
to simply delay the conversation to some other time when you can both handle it.
Example:
“I can understand why you are upset and why you have acted this way. I also
think we are both tired now, and I suggest we leave this conversation for
some other time.”
Demand Clarification
If you are under attack and are accused of something, don’t jump to reply by
saying, “I didn’t do it” much like how children do. Instead require clarification and
expand the topic by demanding more details.
For example,
Accuser: “You are just hopeless”
You: “What do you mean specifically?”
Accuser: “You are not a very good manager”
You: “My understanding could be different from yours, but perhaps
you can tell me what my shortcomings are so I can improve
myself.”
Again, you try to avoid talking the bait and stand emotionally firm. Remember, if
you hear a personal attack, do not reply with “No, I am not”. You will immediately
enter a defensive mode and the attacker can carry on delivering more attacks
getting energy from your defence. Instead, defuse the matter by not registering it
and asking for more detail.
Let’s Stop!
This technique is similar to the Shift Content to Process. If you think the
conversation is not going very well, you can demand a pause and reflect on what is
actually happening.
For example,

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 “Hold on a minute. This is not really working. Why are we arguing about
this? This problem should have been solved 3 month ago.”
“I think we need to stop. I am in the middle of something important; I
thought this will only take a couple of minutes, but clearly it needs more
time. I suggest we resume our conversation later when I have more time.”
This technique helps both parties to focus on the real issue that might have been
lost in the original argument. It also gives an opportunity to change gears and shift
the topic to something else. You can also continue with a delay technique to
postpone the conversation to some other time

How to Criticise?
“Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That
way when you criticize them, you are a mile away from them and you have
their shoes.”
Jack Handey

Objective:
By the end of this session you will be able to:
Criticise and change behaviour while staying friends

One of the core skills that every successful individual must have is to receive and
give constructive criticism. We are not perfect and are bound to do things
differently to others. Being able to handle their criticism lets you advance your
skills and learn from others. If you resist them, you will miss the chance to use any
of their advice.
Equally well, you must be able to deliver criticism that produced results. There is
no point to go through the trouble of giving criticism if you know that it will not be
acted on.
In this section you will be given a number of guideline to enhance your criticism
skills and hopefully get the most out of it.

Receiving Criticism
You can easily confuse a criticism with an attack, especially if they are not really
good at delivering them. In any case, you need to keep calm and maintain your
emotional balance. You should not let anyone to disturb you emotionally and you
can achieve this by going beyond the mere communication and try to understand
the motive. Almost always, the intentions are always good. Here are a number of
tips you can use to deal with criticism better:
Believe that criticism is only a feedback; it is about your behaviour, not you as a
person:

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  Don’t generalise the criticism. Don’t take it as if it applies to everything you
do, even if the language used suggests this.
 It is not about you, it’s just about your specific behaviour
 Some criticisms are unfounded. You need to verify this and decide whether
the criticism is useful or not.
 Criticism cannot be forced on you. You need to understand it, absorb it and
when it has sunk in, implement the new change in your life. This may come
slowly and the criticiser must become aware of this.
 Criticism must be about a specific behaviour, otherwise it is of little or no
value.
What happens when a passive person receives criticism?
They stay quiet, accept the criticism, don’t provide a challenge or explanation and
their confidence may be shaken. However, internally they might be fuming,
hurting and in desperate need of further explanation.
What happens when an aggressive person receives criticism?
They may immediately confront and demand all sorts of supporting evidence. They
are likely to take it as an attack, will become very defensive and inflexible. They
might be so ‘blinded’ by the challenge that they can no longer see the real reason
behind the criticism. They may simply treat it like a competition where they must
win, irrespective of what has been discussed.
What happens when an assertive person receives criticism?
An assertive person will listen and try to understand the real reason behind the
criticism. Being proactive, an assertive person accepts that there might be issues
with his behaviour and asks for more detail to make sure the criticism is clearly
understood. He understands the need to receive feedback from others to fully
realise the effect of his actions on others. In short, an assertive person can deal
with criticism without being emotional.

Remember, a criticism must have the following characteristics:

Fair Useful Justified Correct

Not all criticisms have these features, you don’t need to change yourself because
someone asked for it. You need to put the criticism into context and respond
accordingly based on your own values and needs.

Receiving Positive Feedback

Imagine when you receive a positive feedback or effectively a praise. What is the
best course of action? Some people respond by statements such as
 “Don’t mention it...”
 “Ah, that’s nothing...”

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  “Anyone could do it...”
 “It was nothing...”
Despite their popularity, these statements are all negative. What do you think will
happen if you continuously say statements such as these to those who give a
positive feedback to you? They will be demotivated because you always respond
negatively and they simply think (consciously or unconsciously) you don’t want to
hear any more. As you can imagine this is not what people want, since you
absolutely need to receive positive feedback from your friends, family and
colleagues to boost your self-esteem and become more confident in what you do.
Next time, when you receive a positive feedback, all you have to do is to smile,
and say “Thank you”. That’s it. You deserved it. People don’t randomly praise, in
fact they are more likely to criticise than to praise. So when they praise you, take
it like a pro. If you comfortably receive positive feedback, you are also likely to
give them to others.

Giving Criticism
Now that you have become familiar with how to receive criticism, let’s explore the
best techniques to deliver constructive criticism with productive results. First,
there are a number of principles:
 Only criticise a behaviour that the person can change
 Be very specific and to the point.
 Deliver the criticism soon after the ‘behaviour’ to get maximum effect. No
one will be impressed if you say, “I am not so happy with what you did three
months ago...”. The usual reaction would be, “What did I do?” while looking
amused and non-caring.
 You should be able to provide examples of the ‘behaviour’ you are
criticising and be able to reference them back to the person
 Only deliver facts. Try to keep your opinion out of it. Most people can easily
work out the issue on their own when they are confronted with the facts.
You don’t have to explain everything.
 Use a matter of fact voice and a positive body language.
 Use empathy in your statements and appeal to their emotion. For example,
o “You may not have been aware of this...”
o “I understand how tough your situation must have been...”
o “I know how you feel. I have been there myself”
 Thank the person for putting effort into this.
o “Thanks for listening...”
o “I know I can count on you”
o “Knowing you, I am pretty sure this will not be an issue again”
Putting it Altogether
Here is an example of delivering criticism to a colleague considering the above
guidelines:
“I have noticed that when we were talking to Peter (the manager) you
talked as if you have prepared the entire presentation on your own. Of
course as you know at least half of the presentation was prepared by me

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 and you simply copy-pasted it. You did a similar thing a few weeks ago with
John too.
This doesn’t do justice to the amount of work I do. I understand that you
might have been stressed when you were talking to Peter, but I want you to
report everything in a fair way.
I know how eager you are to prove yourself, I am much like yourself, but of
course it is not appropriate or fair if it is done at the expense of your
colleagues who are there to help you all the time.
Thank for considering this, I am sure I can count on you next time and I
don’t think this will be an issue in the future. Cheers.”
Now let’s examine this in more detail:
“I have noticed that when we were talking to Peter (the manager) you
talked as if you have prepared the entire presentation on your own [specific
criticism]. Of course as you know at least half of the presentation was
prepared by me [facts] and you simply copy-pasted it [facts]. You did a
similar thing a few weeks ago with John as well as I told you before
[reference back to previous behaviour].
This doesn’t do justice to the amount of work I do [effect on you]. I
understand that you might have been stressed when you were talking to
Peter [empathy], but I want you to report everything in a fair way [your
needs].
I know how eager you are to prove yourself [empathy], I am much like you
too [facts], but of course it is not appropriate or fair if it is done at the
expense of your colleagues who are there to help you all the time [deliver
as facts].
Thank for considering this [thanks], I am sure I can count on you next time
and I don’t think this will be an issue in the future. Cheers. [thanks again]”

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 PRACTICE: Constructive Feedback
Suppose you are a team leader. You have a team member who needs to be led by hand. He has
been in the team for six months now and must be capable of handling the tasks on his own.
However you have noticed that he doesn’t take the initiative to move the project forward and if
you are not monitoring him closely, almost nothing gets done. He seems lost when not guided.

How would you deliver your criticism (constructive feedback) considering the guidelines mentioned
above? Write your criticism below and share with the class.

How to Praise?

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 Objective:
By the end of this session you will be able to:
Use a simple technique to reinforce the behaviour of others

To encourage others and reinforce a particular behaviour we can use praise.

Unfortunately we don’t praise much and miss on the opportunity to use this really
powerful and effective technique which is known to deliver lasting results.
Why don’t we praise
The most common reasons for not praising others as often as we should are:
 Because we think they should have done it correctly as part of their job or
responsibility so there is no need for praise.
 We may somehow think it undermines us to praise others on their success
and achievements.
 We don't want to make the other person feel embarrassed.
Fortunately we can overcome these easily by using a systematic approach when
praising. Remember, praising someone doesn’t necessarily reduce your status. It’s
a sign of confidence to praise someone without feeling inferior. Praising is an
effective encouragement method and one of the main essences of influence.
5-Step Praise
To deliver an effective praise make sure the person knows the reason for praise.
This way they are more likely to repeat that particular behaviour. Follow these
steps:
1. Warm up. Put it into context.

• Example: “You know the client we had in the office last week.”

2. Praise specifically. The more specific you are the better.

• Bad example: “Well done that was good.”

• Bad example: “Not too bad. You didn’t mess up.”
• Good Example: “You were very professional in showing him around
the office and in making him feel comfortable. I am very glad that
you made sure he was welcome.”

3. Describe the impact. This is a critical step as it motivates the person and
creates an incentive for a repeat behaviour. They need to know, from your
point of view, what was the result of their activity. If you miss this step, you
significantly reduce the chance of repeat behaviour as the person may not
know if you approved of his or her activity.

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 • Example: “The meeting went very well. Part of that was because he
was impressed with our hospitality and wanted to do business with
us.”

4. Reinforce Identity. It shows their specific contribution and leaves no room

for misunderstanding.

• Example: “…and of course you were the main person who made him
feel at home here. First impressions count a lot and you delivered.”

5. Congratulate. Finish off nicely.

• Example: “Thanks very much. I am very impressed with your work.”

PRACTICE: Praise
You are a team leader and you want to praise a member of your team who has been very creative
with a customer and has managed to impress them so much that they want to do more business with
your company.

How do you phrase your praise?

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 Reinforce the Describe the Praise
Congratulate Warm Up
Identity Impact Specifically

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 Assertiveness Grand Rules
If you don’t decide for yourself about your life, someone else will decide for you.

This is your only chance, there is no second chance. Do your best.

The longer you don’t use it, the quicker you lose it.

No one can do it for you, you have to do it for yourself.

Life is all about choices. What matters at the end is what you have done with the time
that was given to you.

You must choose all the time, the worst thing you can do is not to pursue your choice.

You are your biggest asset and your best resource.

You know all that you need to know to do what you have to do.

You know yourself better than anyone else, and no one knows you better than yourself.
Make the best of it.

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How to Disagree
“When I disagree with a rational man, I let reality be our final arbiter;
if I am right, he will learn; if I am wrong, I will;
one of us will win, but both will profit.”
Ayn Rand

Objective:
By the end of this session you will be able to:
Disagree with the other person such that they know where you stand,
understand your position and won’t take it personally

The 6-Step Disagreement Technique

Sometimes you may not agree with the other person. Getting emotional over the
subject doesn’t help anyone, so you must avoid it at all costs. Indeed, there is a
process you can follow to deliver your disagreement in a subtle way as not to
appear aggressive, but deliver your core message anyway.
1. Start with ‘Yes’.
You have two choices when someone makes a statement: you can say ‘Yes’ or ‘No’.
If you say ‘No’, the other person may immediately get into a defensive mode and
start to argue with you to prove that he is right. Alternatively, you can say ‘Yes’,
even if you don’t agree, at least to have a chance to present your view. This is why
many people respond by, ‘Yes, but...”. They want to start with ‘Yes’, but as they
want to change direction, they continue with a ‘but’. Of course, this leads to Yes-
Butting which is equally bad. The solution is simple. Just say ‘Yes’ and continue
with the next statement. Try not to use ‘but’ in your sentence.
2. Deliver Soft Statement.
Having delivered ‘Yes’, you now want to move on to your main disagreement. In
this case, levelling the field will help you to deliver your main point smoothly. This
is achieved by using a soft statement, usually appealing to emotions such as the
following:
 “As a senior person with different values, I can understand where you are
coming from...”
 “As a manger whose concern is the utilisation of the team members, I can
understand your concern...”
 “As someone who has been in this industry for many years, I can tell you
that...”
 “You are certainly very informed on this topic. I am actually quite excited
that we have bumped into each other and I take this as a great opportunity
to explore different aspects of this grave issue...”
3. State the Process.

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Now explain how you want to deliver your response. This statement is designed to
buy you time. By indicating up front that you need to explain something for more
than a few seconds, you effectively prevent the other person to interrupt you and
give yourself more chance to get to the point. Naturally, if the other person does
not let you to carry on, she is not interested in your point of view and there is
probably no point to carry on with the conversation. Some examples for this step
are as follows:
 “I will give you three reasons...”
 “Let me tell you a story...”
 “Let me share with you what we found in this activity...”
 “Can I walk you through the steps that I have gone through before getting to
this conclusion?...”
4. Provide Reasons.
Now that you have prepared the scene, provide your reasons and justifications.
This forms you logical argument. Provide plenty of data and facts.
5. Disagree.
The other person has heard your facts, data and justification. If you have got this
far, all your hard work has paid off. This is now the critical step. You must cash it
in by disagreeing directly. You must be clear and concise, using the strongest
terms possible to deliver your disagreement. For example,
 “So, this is why I do not agree”
 “So, I don’t think you are right on this matter”
 “So, it would be a mistake to carry on with your idea”
Remember to use a firm and positive body language. You cannot afford to be soft
in this step. Most important of all, don’t apologise. It is a matter of opinion, and
you have shown why your opinion is different, there is no reason to say you are
sorry about it.
In addition, use ‘so’ at the beginning of the sentence, to make it a conclusive
statement based on what you have already discussed.
6. Compromise.
With any debate or disagreement, you may need to go back and forth several times
examining each other’s point of view. To reach a conclusion that suits both of your
needs, you may need to compromise.

Disagreement Examples
Now, let’s put everything together.
Example:
“I want you to finish this draft by tomorrow and not by the day after
tomorrow as it was originally planned.”

Say Yes: “Yes”

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 Deliver Soft “I understand the need. I know that the customer is eager
Statement: to receive this.”

State the Process: “I need to put you into context of what we are going
through here.”

State the Reasons: “We have been working on two projects this week and
they are both critical to finish. Their deadlines have been
moved twice now and we simply want to finish them off,
otherwise it may look bad on us if we have to shift the
deadline again.”

Disagree: “So, considering our workload we will not be able to work

on another task.”

Compromise: “However, we will be able to work on this from next week

and I will see to it that these will be the first tasks that
the team will go through.”

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 PRACTICE: Disagreement
Consider the following scenarios and fill in the 6-step process to provide your disagreement. Be
creative in coming up with reasons, perhaps drawing up from your own experience in your industry.

You have been told that your project’s budget cannot be

Scenario 1 extended.

Say Yes:

Deliver Soft
Statement:

State the Process:

State the Reasons:

Disagree:

Compromise:

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 The new phone call processing system you have provided is
Scenario 2 not accepted mainly due to the fact that it is very different
from what is already in place.

Say Yes:

Deliver Soft
Statement:

State the Process:

State the Reasons:

Disagree:

Compromise:

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 Your application for the management role has been rejected
Scenario 3 on the ground that you don’t have management experience.

Say Yes:

Deliver Soft
Statement:

State the Process:

State the Reasons:

Disagree:

Compromise:

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 Be Unusual

When growing up, we are programmed to behave in a certain way by our parents, our
teachers, our peers and the society at large. We imitate a lot and learn what to do and when
to do it. When we want to do something we haven’t done before, or we haven’t seen done
before, we get utterly stressed. What is going to happen now? How are other people going to
respond? Are they going to laugh at me? Are they going to punish me? Would I be seen as a
psychopath? Even if the task is simple or you know that others do it all the time (such as
public speaking) you may still feel sick to your stomach by the thought of being on stage and
forgetting what you need to say next.

The best way to tackle such anxiety is to get used to doing unusual things and seeing the
reaction of others. After all, you will know the worst that can happen! The following task helps
you to do things that are out of the box and unusual. There is no harm done to anyone by
doing these so you should be comfortable to follow them:

 Go to a busy train station, shopping centre, library or any busy public place. Lie
down on the floor for 15 seconds, and don’t move. Just relax. Then stand up and
carry on. You don’t have to explain why you have done it, but if you want to be
prepared, just say that I felt like relaxing a bit.
 Wear extremely unusual cloth and go to a shopping centre. Put some pink fake
hair on, a hat and sun glasses and simply go for window shopping pretending
that all is normal.
 Go to a busy supermarket. Put a wool or soft hat on your head and then place a
water bottle on your head. Try to keep it stable. It’s actually not that difficult.
Try to do your entire shopping with the bottle on your head. Most important,
pretend that all is normal and try not to have any eye contact with others as if
you are showing off. Behave as if this is how everybody shops! If you have
kids, take them with you, they will utterly enjoy the process. Even better, make
a bet with them over something, and if you lost promise that you will go
shopping with a bottle on your head!

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How to Say No

Objective:
By the end of this session you will be able to:
Say No and be loved for it!

Unable to Fulfil
Sometimes you might be unable to fulfil someone’s request. You may have valid
reasons to say no. However, the problem is that people don’t like to hear no.
Hence, you have to deliver your message in such a way to avoid upsetting your
clients. Essentially you want to say no, but also help others by putting yourself in
their position. This way they understand where you are coming from and
appreciate your efforts to help them.
To deliver a “Soft No”, follow these steps:
 Provide reasons. Say No and state your reasons upfront. This is your logical
answer.
 Provide sympathy. Sympathise to show that you care about them.
 Provide alternative. To really demonstrate that you care, try to find
alternative solutions so that they feel there is a way out of the situation.
This is a critical step as you show you mean good and are trying to find an
alternative solution.
An example will illustrate this better. Consider the following situation:
“You can’t assign a customer to a hairdresser of their choice as your hair
dressing company has a policy of first-come first-served.”

To say no follow these steps:

I am afraid we can’t assign specific hairdresser for each customer

Reasons because we have a policy to serve customers based on their
arrival time.

Sorry about this. We want to be fair, so all customers are

Sympathy
satisfied.

If you really want to see John, we have a dedicated time for

bookings on Saturday. It may cost you a bit more, but that’s the
Alternatives
only way we can book a specific stylist for you. Would you like to
do that?

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Exercise: Saying NO

PRACTICE: Saying No
Consider the following situations. What would you tell the customer? Use the three-step model just
described.

Situation 1. You can’t sell nutrition supplements to the customer until

the customer has filled in a comprehensive medical
questionnaire.

Reasons

Sympathy

Alternatives

Situation 2. You can’t give confidential information of a patient in the

hospital, even if the person calling is a close relative.

Reasons

Sympathy

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Alternatives

Situation 3. You can’t post any products until you have received a
purchase order.

Reasons

Sympathy

Alternatives

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 Say No for Two Days

One of the best ways to exercise your assertiveness skills is to learn how to say no. As with all
skills repetition is the key. So for the next 2 days, choose to say ‘no’ to every request.
Effectively you will be adopting a similar technique to what children do all the time which is
probably why they are so successful in getting what they want and when they want it.

Remember, you need to say no to everything. You cannot be selective or it will ruin the
exercise. You want to get comfortable to say no and more important you want others to
become comfortable in hearing no form you (at least sometimes). If you never say no, you can
easily be classified as a pushover.

When saying no, don’t try to come up with all sorts of reasons and justifications. It really isn’t
necessary and is not that critical as long as you sound rational. Remember, providing a reason
is far more important that the real reason. You can make life easier for yourself by providing a
simple blanket response to all requests:

“I’m Sorry, I really can’t. I have way too much to do at the moment and I am already
on overdrive.”

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 Assertiveness Homework

Now that you have learned how to be assertive, you need to test your knowledge and skills
with a small task before you can start using your new skill back at work.

After the course, select a couple of tasks from the following list and make assertive requests.
The next day follow with other requests until you become comfortable with the idea of
assertively asking for something. Nothing is better that sheer practice and persistence. If you
keep repeating the skill, it will come naturally to you when you most need it, in particular
when you are under stress.

Remember, the following are just simple exercises that make you comfortable to ask and get
want you want. Once you become more comfortable to ask, you will end up getting a lot more
in life than ever before.

REQUESTS

 Ask a person in the train or bus to give you their seat

 Ask a person to hand you part of the newspaper they are reading
 Go to a pub/café and ask for a drink of water
 In a supermarket, select one item, go to the cashier and ask the people in the
queue if you could be served first
 Take 10Kg more than your usual 20Kg luggage to an airport and convince the
check-in staff to accept your luggage without paying penalties or taking items
out of your suitcases
 When offered a freebee promotion (e.g. sample shampoo), ask for another
 Make a casual chitchat with a stranger from the opposite sex
 Go to a shop and ask for something they don’t have
 Go to a supermarket and find out if they have a tasting session of a product such
as cheese. Ask the tasting specialist to give you a lot of cheese for free (You are
allowed to eat them there and then, but it must be a lot more than what a typical
customer gets).
 Go to a shop and ask who else sells what they sell (in other words find their
competitors directly), then leave.
 Identify a mixed couple, approach them and ask the person of the opposite sex
about direction to a particular place
 Ask your colleague/neighbour for a favour

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