CRITICAL THINKING

CRITICAL THINKING: A
PRIMER
DEFINITIONS
 A commonality among the multiple definitions of critical
thinking is the focus on careful thinking directed to a goal. (
Source)
 Critical thinking seeks to identify reliable information and make
reliable judgement
 The term critical comes from the Greek word kritikos meaning
discerning (Source)
CHARACTERISTICS
 Goal-oriented
 Begins from proper definitions
 Discerning
 Key terms and goals need to be well-defined
 Assumptions and constraints need to be identified

 Reliable
 Assumptions and constraints must be justifiable
 Reasoning must be solid
 Process
 Improves with time, practice and different perspectives
 Different, plausible definitions of key terms leads to legitimate differences in outcomes
 Does not defer to authority

 Exhaustive
NEED FOR CONSULTANTS
 Consultants are hired primarily for their thinking skills
 Many industry terms suffer from lack of standardization
 Insularity and immersion in organization context hamper critical thinking skills of
executives
 Normal thinking processes are hampered by:
 Ambiguity of terms
 Lack of rigor
 Deference to authority
IMPROVING CRITICAL
THINKING
IMPROVING CRITICAL
THINKING
 Critical thinking can be improved by:
 Questioning assumptions
 Ability to ask questions can be improved
 Reasoning through logic
 People need to understand the common biases/traps in reasoning
 Diversifying thought
 Easiest way is to choose teams that are diverse in terms of gender, ethnicity,
educational background and experience
NATURE OF QUESTIONS
 Conversation has two major objectives: information exchange
and impression management
 Questions also help fulfill both objectives
 Questions are of four types:
 Introductory
 Mirror
 Full-switch
 Follow-up
IMPROVING QUESTIONING
ABILITIES
 Know when to keep questions open-ended
 People are less likely to lie if pessimistic assumptions are made

 Match sequence of questions to goal

 Information gathering: Decreasing order of intrusiveness
 Relationship building: Increasing order of intrusiveness

 Use different questioning tactics for cooperative and competitive conversations

 Use the right tone
 An escape hatch helps people open up
 Pay attention to group dynamics
 Participants in conversations prefer people asking questions over those answering them
 Outsiders prefer people answering questions over those asking them
TYPES OF BIASES
 Biases arises because of the use of heuristics
 Biases include:
 Anchoring trap
 Status-quo trap
 Sunk-cost trap
 Confirming-evidence trap
 Framing trap
 Overconfidence trap
 Prudence trap
 Recallability trap
QUESTIONS FROM CASE
 Can you map the person, organization and business?
 What is the motive behind the exercise?
 What are some of the assumptions behind each of the firms functioning that
become questioned during the planning process?
 What are some of the potential problems in the planning exercise?
 How is diversity of thought contributing to the quality of the final output?
 What are some of the specific recommendations that can be made for each of the
firms?
 Which firm is best managed? Why?
MAPPING PERSON,
ORGANIZATION AND
BUSINESS
Name Consulting Firm Firm’s Business Undergraduate Degree
Kenya Fordham Analytics IT Strategy Mathematics
Bill Ng Maiken Brake Merger and Economics
Restructuring
Consulting
Bjorne Tuwinn Cookie Cutter Not mentioned Chemistry
Consultant
Sharon Sharalike Veer Imany Ofus Implementation- Psychology
oriented Consulting
QUESTIONS FROM CASE
 Can you map the person, organization and business?
 What is the motive behind the exercise?
 What are some of the assumptions behind each of the firms functioning that
become questioned during the planning process?
 What are some of the potential problems in the planning exercise?
 How is diversity of thought contributing to the quality of the final output?
 What are some of the specific recommendations that can be made for each of the
firms?
 Which firm is best managed? Why?
QUESTIONS FROM CASE
 What was the purpose behind the restructuring?
 Do you think the purpose was justified?

 What were some reasoning-related biases that could affect the restructuring?
 Did Stanford take care to avoid these biases? If yes, how?

 How were the inputs collected for the exercise?

 How would you link the exercise to the inputs in the reading?
 Were some important stakeholders missing in the process?
 Why would consulting firms be interested in this process?
 What will be some parameters for judging the success of the restructuring?