As internal communicators continue to lead strategic business roles in organizations, it’s increasingly important to master critical thinking skills, with new perspectives, objectives and understanding – beyond our communication roles. Richard Khleif shares his experiences, approach and practical tips to unpack this multi-layered topic.
Criticality
I was asked to pen a series on “critical thinking” (CT) in Internal Communications (IC), a topic about which I have been vocal in various forums and a skillset that I drive my teams – and myself – to continuously refine. I've also long taught a graduate course on CT and could carry on at length about what it all means, the theories, various attributes, and the like. I'll spare you the deep didactics here, though, so feel free to exhale and keep reading.
In these posts, I’ll talk a bit about what critical thinking means to me in the context of our work (vs. any other definitions), link it to some personal influences from outside the profession that have shaped my approach as a practitioner, and lastly, tie these bits together in an IC-applicable way. I hope that you find what emerges to be useful in some capacity that excludes doubling as a virtual dartboard. J So, off we go.
So, why practice CT? Organizations are comprised of humans, not easily-dismissed abstractions or business-speak euphemisms, and the better we grasp the context within which individuals, their motivations, and their perspectives come together, the more effective we can be in our work. To me, such an understanding begins with awareness of what is in our own heads.
First, start with a model and viewpoint
In this post, I’ll draw from Richard Paul and Linda Elder (I'll call them “P&E”), leading CT scholars and Senior Fellows at the Foundation for Critical Thinking. Their model advises that achieving a critical mindset involves developing cognizance about our own thought processes, including biases, irrationality, blind spots, knowledge gaps, reactive tendencies, and the like, in order to improve the quality of our thinking.
In the P&E view, we must develop a sense of fair-mindedness and mitigate the impact of our egos. This also means being aware of – and managing – emotional versus rational responses to the many stimuli we encounter in our lives. To some degree, there's a bit of a connection to the concept of the Emotional [Intelligence] Quotient (EQ), but they're not the same.
Getting in touch with our most fundamental thought processes – thinking about thinking, or the “metacognitive” aspects of the mind – is much harder than it sounds, though. For one thing, conscious metacognition must take place concurrently with everyday cognition to be effective, so analysis occurs in parallel with thought.
Each of us has been thinking, largely unconsciously and in most cases non-stop, since the moment we were born. Athletes or yoga practitioners among us might recall the practice it took to become conscious of, and deliberate in, breathing…while they respired. It's not easy to simultaneously think about and change a very natural, nearly subconscious thing you are doing, especially while you're in the midst of doing it!
Concepts to ground your thinking
There are three important concepts from P&E to help ground the preceding model with the forthcoming points. The better you understand them, the more you will be able to deepen your thinking. You can findmore about these concepts on the Foundation for Critical Thinking site.
- Broadly speaking, inert information is information which we have taken in but never questioned; we believe we understand it, but do not; we have really never unpacked it, tested it, or operationalized it. Many of us might cite examples like the Pythagorean Theorem, the words in our various national anthems, stereotypes we have heard about other cultures, assumptions we make about the preferences of business leaders, or a host of other things. Do you actually understand what E=mc²means, or how Einstein’s theory of relativity really works?
- Activated ignorance is an even more nefarious beast. It involves taking on patently false information and acting upon it as if it were true. Activated ignorance is often tied to the prevailing views of the day, as was the case with Rene Descartes in an example P&E cite; believing that other species lacked feelings, he conducted a string of horrible experiments on them, never believing that the animals’ piteous reactions had anything to do with pain. Shudder. P&E advise us that it's not always easy to tell when we're subject to activated ignorance, so identifying the clear examples should keep us on alert to the possibility of less obvious ones.
- On the other hand, the pursuit of activated knowledge is a worthy one. This concept refers to absorbing – and actively using – objectively true information to improve our thinking and lead us to discover yet more valuable information. It has significant implications, insofar as it is a key to helping us grow intellectually and achieve our goals in a just, fair-minded way. For example, suppose you enjoyed a Comparative Literature course in college, which led you to further study French-English historical relations, which then spurred you to study in France, which then awakened a deeper, more experiential cultural understanding, which....get it?
Expand and deepen your thinking to become a better communicator
Over the years, I've found that my staff – IC or otherwise – produce measurably stronger outcomes when they see themselves primarily as businesspeople and secondarily as functional experts. To do so, they must understand the broader organizational environment and their roles within it, and the cognitive processes they employ to make decisions must also be honed and reflexively strong.
The ability to step back and take things in broadly, then reflect and introspect before strategizing, acting, and assessing is something I value and expect of my leaders, full stop. Here are some things I encourage them to do:
- Test for Inert Information: Ensure you understand – really, really understand – your organization’s strategy and structure. Think you do already? That may be the case, but test yourself by asking how you know. What does the organization actually do, provide, or sell? How is it structured? Who are key partners or collaborators? What are the hallmarks of success or failure? What does the direction mean in material terms? Who does it impact, and how? How do all the pieces and players fit together? If you can’t answer these questions, you’ve got some work to do.
- Identify and Crush Activated Ignorance: Analyze the guiding principles in your professional actions and behaviors – the things that motivate or inform them in the first place. Have you actually read the social media policy you’re reacting to? Did you have a conversation with that supposedly caustic VP to determine his outlook? Did your finance leader actually say there isn’t money left in the budget? Long ago, my mother taught me how to spell “assume” by pointing out that when we ASSUME, it makes an A$$ of U and ME; that decades-old advice helps me to question whether I’m acting on truth or fiction.
- Build Your Activated Knowledge: As you test for inert information and crush activated ignorance, you learn more about the world around you and can apply your findings in meaningful ways. If you truly understand what’s on audiences' minds, you can tailor your IC approach and potentially learn new skills and methods. The more numerate you are, the more you can help drive engagement initiatives with direct impact on key performance indicators. The more you network in the industry, the better your ideas might become. Activated knowledge can have a snowball effect on wisdom, experience, and business value.
Ultimately, the goal is to develop a world-view that allows us to purposefully shed our often reflexively self-serving tendencies and absorb, then truly understand and apply information and outlooks in an objective, balanced, inclusive way.
We must not only think deeply about the information we accumulate, but the sources of said information and our use of it, too. In a diverse and global business environment – one where many cultures, experiences, remits, media, messages, and skills come together daily – it’s even more important now than ever before.
Tell me: What examples of inert information, activated ignorance, and activated knowledge can you cite from your own experiences? How do you know?
Richard Khleif is Sr. Director, Communications, Engagement, and Development for Oracle and Adjunct Professor, Organizational & Professional Communication at the University of Denver.
- See more at: https://www.melcrum.com/blog/power-critical-thinking-3-concepts-expand-your-perspective?page=show&print=1#sthash.FXpZfyNZ.dpuf