 Critical Thinking Date Published 1 January 2017 Master Sergeant Smith, the supply section superintendent, just received feedback from the Chief about complaints his section is receiving concerning late deliveries and low levels of materials on the shelves. Master Sergeant Smith promised the Chief he'll investigate the complaints and figure out what needs to be done to remedy the situation. However, from his point of view he already knows what the problem is. Tech Sergeant Green, the receiving NCOIC, is messing up the process somewhere. He believes Tech Sergeant Green doesn't take his job seriously, and if there's a problem he must have something to do with it. So after receiving feedback from the Chief, Master Sergeant Smith immediately heads over to Tech Sergeant Green's office to confront him about the complaints. What do you think will be the outcome of this situation? Has Master Sergeant Smith really investigated the problem? What should Master Sergeant Smith do first? The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks. Christopher Hitchens. Note, this document contains curriculum-sensitive information and may not be used for public dissemination. Inside this chapter, the proficient critical thinker, components of critical thinking, universal intellectual standards, reasoning elements, essential intellectual traits, relationship between the components, hindrances to critical thinking, basic human limitations, use of language, faulty logic, psychological or sociological pitfalls, decision analysis, two-system approach, decision analysis process, impact of critical thinking, subordinate, senior NCO, mission. Upon completion of this chapter, you should be able to terminal cognitive objective, comprehend critical thinking concepts and or their impact on subordinate, senior NCO, and mission effectiveness, terminal cognitive samples of behavior, identify critical thinking concepts and or their impact on subordinate, senior NCO, and mission effectiveness, illustrate critical thinking concepts and or their impact on subordinate, senior NCO, and mission effectiveness. Three, predict the impact of critical thinking concepts on subordinate, senior NCO, and mission effectiveness. Effective Objective. Value critical thinking and its positive impact on subordinate, senior NCO, and mission effectiveness. Effective Samples of Behavior One, enthusiastically dedicate yourself to read and listen to all material about critical thinking and its impact on subordinate, senior NCO, and mission effectiveness. Two, voluntarily complete all coursework related to critical thinking and its impact on subordinate, senior NCO, and mission effectiveness. Three, openly accept critical thinking and its positive impact on subordinate, senior NCO, and mission effectiveness. Four, willingly develop a preference for critical thinking and its positive impact on subordinate, senior NCO, and mission effectiveness. Five, strive toward a commitment to apply critical thinking because of its positive impact on subordinate, senior NCO, and mission effectiveness. Have you ever thought about how you think? When presented with a problem, do you make a quick decision? Or do you take time to analyze it? Do you just look at the problem from your point of view? Or are you able to step outside yourself and think about it from, let's say, your people's point of view? Do you let your emotions and biases guide your decisions? Or do you take the time to look at the problem objectively? In today's environment, you have to be adaptable and able to deal with the abundance of new information that comes in at the drop of a hat. You must be able to analyze and integrate information to solve problems at an incredible pace. Critical thinking requires you to combine your rational logic, creativity, common sense, and intuition into structured expressions of clear solutions and ideas that are useful and relevant to the task. How many times in your career have you had to come up with new ideas or pick from ideas to determine the best one to accomplish the mission? Critical thinking not only helps us become more effective in mission related decisions, it's also useful when it comes to reflection and life choices. This chapter begins with the characteristics of proficient critical thinkers, also known as habits of the mind, to help you adopt the attitude of a critical thinker. Next, you'll examine three components of critical thinking developed by the Foundation for Critical Thinking, a non-profit organization dedicated to change in education and society through the cultivation of critical thinking. Then you'll investigate various hindrances to critical thinking and learn ways you can avoid them. After that, you'll be exposed to decision analysis, an important tool in making critical decisions, and the steps of the process. Finally, you'll end the chapter by covering the impact of critical thinking on subordinate, senior NCO, and mission effectiveness. However, before you get started, it's important for you to understand the intent of this chapter. Critical thinking is essential if we are to get to the root of our problems and develop reasonable solutions. After all, the quality of everything we do is determined by the quality of our thinking. Foundation for Critical Thinking. This chapter was designed with a specific focus. The concepts and principles presented can help you develop habits of the mind. You might be asking yourself, so what does that mean? Well, when going about your daily activities, there are certain things you do on a consistent basis. Certain acts you perform that make your day more efficient and productive. For example, you might get a cup of coffee in the morning as soon as you wake up. Based on your experiences, you've learned this act helps you shake off the fuzziness of sleep. Therefore, it becomes a habit, you do this one thing every day. Or as soon as you get to work, you might check your email before you get started on anything else. Over time, you've learned this one act can help you prioritize tasks you have to accomplish that day, so it becomes a habit. Since you've learned the benefit and helpfulness of these acts, you perform them in an almost ritualistic manner. You do them every day without fail. If you don't, the routine of your entire day might be disrupted. Explore. Habits of the mind are intellectual behaviors that help you produce very powerful results when dealing with problems, dilemmas, contradictory things, situations that are not easily explained or understood and uncertainties. The intent of this chapter is to help you develop thinking habits in the same way as that first cup of coffee or checking your email. There are acts of purposeful thinking you should use in order to make your decision making and problem solving more efficient and productive every day. However, just like you had to learn how that cup of coffee benefits you, this chapter should help you learn how critical thinking can benefit not just you, but your subordinates and mission as well. It'll introduce you to a composite of many skills, attitudes and tendencies intended to act as a foundation for developing sound reasoning habits and also provide you with tips for their practical use. Explore. Critical thinking is the art of analyzing and evaluating thinking with a view to improving it. Paul and Elder. Critical thinking as a skill is developed over a long period and involves considerable practice, just like any other habit. It includes the ability to consider multiple perspectives and approaches and study complex problems without bias. It encompasses the ability to analyze situations critically and reach conclusions that may not follow conventional wisdom, but could be the key to success. Effective critical thinkers have mastered intellectual behaviors to the point that they become habits. However, they had to start somewhere first. Let's start you on that path by taking a look at the attitude a proficient critical thinker possesses. Critical thinking is skeptical without being cynical. It is open-minded without being wishy-washy. It is analytical without being nitpicky. Critical thinking can be decisive without being stubborn, evaluative without being judgmental and forceful without being opinionated. Dr. Peter Facione, the proficient critical thinker. When you are presented with decisions or problems, do you rely on how things have always been? Do you tend to approach situations with a solution already in mind instead of being open to new ideas? Or are you more likely to value your own perspective over the perspective of others? When dealing with important issues, you need to make sure you can approach situations with a certain mindset, a certain attitude to help you select the best solutions. This section will introduce you to the characteristics, qualities or traits a proficient critical thinker embodies, the attitude you should adopt. However, changing your attitude about what you think isn't as easy as changing your shoes. If you truly want to be a better critical thinker, you should work on the following characteristics. Characteristics. Open-mindedness. This characteristic involves a willingness to investigate viewpoints that are different from your own. Being open-minded means you're open to actively listening and thinking about an idea, solution or criticism that, on the surface, you might not normally subscribe to, even if you believe your viewpoint is the right one. For example, let's say one of your people has an idea about changing a process in the work environment that's been around for a while and has been working. If your attitude reflects open-mindedness, you would actually listen to his pitch and seriously think about it instead of just saying no. As a senior leader, when it comes to problem solving or decision making, you should be open to others' perspectives and opinions before acting. Otherwise, you could make a decision or suggest a solution that might not be comprehensive or right for the situation. My mother made me a scientist without ever intending to. Every other Jewish mother in Brooklyn would ask her child after school, so did you learn anything today? But not my mother. Is he, she would say. Did you ask a good question today? That difference, asking good questions, made me become a scientist. Isadora Robbie, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1944. Healthy Skepticism. To be a healthy skeptic, you should ask questions in order to ascertain what's truthful and what's not. Healthy skepticism causes the critical thinker to ask questions instead of immediately jumping on the bandwagon or simply accepting others' opinions. This characteristic also includes a bit of investigation to ensure you're fully informed before making decisions. For example, would you buy a house without having experts come out and inspect it for you? Or would you purchase a used car without first having a trusted mechanic look it over to make sure you aren't purchasing a lemon? On the surface, it may appear that having an open mind and maintaining a healthy dose of skepticism sound contradictory, but they're not. Critical thinkers must be willing to investigate viewpoints different from their own view, but at the same time recognize when to doubt claims that don't merit such investigation. A critical thinker must be neither inflexible nor naive. Being both open-minded and skeptical means seeking out the facts, information sources, and reasoning to support issues you intend to judge. Examining issues from as many sides as possible, rationally looking for the good and bad points of the various sides examined, accepting the fact that your viewpoint may be wrong, and maintaining the goal of getting at the truth or as close to the truth as possible, rather than trying to please others or find fault with their views. However, when trying to find a skepticism balance, you should understand that too much can lead you to doubt everything and commit yourself to nothing, while too little can cause you to believe everything without evidence. Intellectual Humility As Socrates noted, arrogance does not befit the critical thinker. Having intellectual humility means adhering tentatively to recently acquired opinions, being prepared to examine new evidence and arguments even if such examination leads you to discover flaws in your own cherished beliefs, to stop thinking that complex issues can be reduced to matters of right and wrong or black and white, and to begin thinking in terms of degrees of certainty or shades of gray. Sometimes, I don't know, can be the wisest position to take on an issue. For example, let's say one of your airmen tested for promotion and missed it by one point. He came to you and said he was awarded a medal that wasn't in his records. If this medal was included originally, he would have been promoted. You could take the position that he was supposed to check the accuracy of his records prior to testing, and if he didn't, that's his fault. Maybe he'll make it next year. But is it that black and white? Someone with intellectual humility would put aside his belief or opinion and tell his airmen he doesn't know if anything can be done, but he'll check with someone he knows and personnel to see. Explore An argument is a set of statements that provide a position and support for that position. Tongue and Quill Free Thinking A critical thinker must be a free thinker. In other words, you should have an independent mind. To think freely, you must restrain your desire to believe because of social pressures to conform. You must be willing to ask if conformity is motivating your belief or opinion, and if so, have the strength and courage to at least temporarily abandon your position until you can complete a more objective and thorough evaluation. For example, you could be in a meeting where an idea is presented that everyone agrees with. If you were a free thinker, you wouldn't just go along because everyone else is. You might say you'll have to do some research on your own before you can decide if the idea is a good one. This can be quite difficult or even impossible for some, since others might see your actions as holding up the process. The core value of integrity first requires you to demonstrate the virtue of courage by doing the right thing despite fear. It takes courage to think freely despite the social pressure to conform. Free thinkers are those who are willing to use their minds without prejudice and without fear to understand things that clash with their own customs, privileges, or beliefs. This state of mind is not common, but it is essential for right thinking. Where it is absent, discussion is apt to become worse than useless. Leo Tolstoy High Motivation Finally, as a critical thinker, you should have a natural curiosity to further your understanding and be highly motivated to put in the necessary work sufficient to evaluate the multiple sides of issues. You can overcome the lack of essential knowledge on a subject by doing the research needed to reach a sufficient level of understanding before making judgments. This may require you to ask many questions, which can be unsettling for those that have to answer them. Failing to do so could cause you to make an uninformed decision. Imagine if your supervisor presented you with an issue to resolve, but you clearly needed more information. Would you have the motivation to ask questions? Or would you decide asking questions would be too much work and take too much time? A critical thinker cannot be lazy. Adopting the attitude of a proficient critical thinker is the first step to developing and mastering the habits of the mind. As stated earlier, mastering these habits isn't an easy process. However, to begin, you could start doing a self-check to see how open-minded you are when presented with an idea that goes against the grain. You could walk into new situations with intellectual humility and say, I don't know if you're unsure about an issue. Additionally, you should remind yourself to avoid the That's the way we've always done it mentality and try to be a free thinker. Finally, you should practice attaining the level of motivation required to be a critical thinker by putting in the work, doing research, asking questions, et cetera. If you constantly remind yourself of these attributes, you can start to remove mental roadblocks that might have prevented you from being a critical thinker in the past. Adopting this type of attitude helps you set the stage for developing the habits of the mind. Let's continue to build these habits by covering the components of critical thinking—tools you'll use that could make adopting this attitude a little easier—components of critical thinking. Why do you travel a certain route to work every day? When not in uniform, what do you consider before choosing what clothes to wear? Why do you choose to eat at certain establishments, but not others? When presented with a series of choices, how do you select the right one? You may rely on your intuition to make a decision on these simple problems or situations. This represents a type of thinking you'll learn about later in this chapter. However, when dealing with your people and or mission-related issues, making an ineffective decision could result in a negative impact or critical failure. Therefore, you shouldn't determine what the right idea or solution is based on a whim. You should make decisions or arrive at solutions using well-developed critical thinking components. In this section, you'll learn components—tools you can use to help you make effective decisions. These tools are the universal intellectual standards, reasoning elements, and the essential intellectual traits. At the end of this section, you'll see how these tools combine in a way that helps you develop the habits of a proficient critical thinker and make informed, well-thought-out decisions. Let's get started with universal intellectual standards. Consider the following situation. You are the superintendent of the base pharmacy. One of your NCOs comes to you and says, I have a problem. We've received a number of complaints and I don't know what to do about it. This example is used throughout this section to aid in your understanding of the content. Universal Intellectual Standards Universal intellectual standards are standards which should be applied to thinking to help ensure its quality. The ultimate goal is for these standards to become infused in your thinking, forming part of your inner voice, guiding you to reason better. Clarity Clarity is the gateway standard. This means if a statement or problem lacks clarity, you can't determine whether it meets any of the other intellectual standards. Actually, you can't tell anything about it because you don't yet have an understanding of what the problem actually is. Therefore, because of its importance, clarity should be determined first. When presented with a problem or situation, you could ask the following questions to establish clarity. Could you elaborate further on that point? Could you express that point in another way? Could you give me an illustration or example? Let's consider the pharmacy example above. To establish clarity, you might ask, what are you talking about? Give me an example of the typical complaint. What are the details concerning the complaints? In order to adequately address the problem, you need to have a clearer understanding of what the person asking the question is considering the problem to be. A clearer statement might be, we've received numerous complaints from customers about the long wait times. What can the technicians do to reduce them? As a result of this statement, you now have a clearer understanding of the problem. Now, you can move on to the next standard. Accuracy Once you've determined a statement is clear, clarity, you need to check to see if it's true. You could ask the following questions to determine accuracy. Is that really true? How could we check that? How could we find out if that's true? In the example above, how would you know the complaints are actually about the long wait times? How do you know the problem is something the pharmacy technicians can fix? What kind of metric could you check to establish the accuracy of the problem? You might decide, at this point, you need to engage in some fact-checking. So, if you ask these questions, you might get, well, I've read through the complaints and most of them are focused on how long the customers have to wait to get their prescriptions. Many of them find this unacceptable and want something done to fix it. Those that complain suggest we add more technicians and open more windows to reduce the wait times. I've checked the patient wait time tracker and it does show the average wait time has gone up recently. As a result of this statement, you can tell the problem is accurate because the NCO has read through the complaints and knows what they say. He has also reviewed the patient wait time tracker and found the average wait time has gone up. Finally, at least according to the complaints, it looks like the issue is something the technicians might be able to fix. Precision. A statement can be both clear and accurate, but not precise enough. There might be information you need, but it isn't provided. In order to establish precision, you can ask, could you give me more details? Could you be more specific? Using the example, there are a few things that aren't precise enough. The goal is to get as much information as possible before you make a decision. In the statement above, you don't know how many complaints there are. It could be 10. It could be 100. Also, you don't know exactly how many complaints are just focused on the long wait times or how many complainants suggested adding more technicians and open windows. Finally, you don't know how much the average wait time has gone up. A more precise statement might be, well, we received 80 complaints in the last 30 days. Out of the 80, 70 of them are focused on long wait times, averaging 45 minutes to an hour and a half. The other 10 complaints are about outdated reading materials in the waiting area. All complaints focused on the longer wait times find it unacceptable. However, 50 suggest the fixed action should be adding more technicians. The other 20 say the pharmacy is just too small to handle the large volume of patient prescriptions. According to our internally set metric on patient wait times, the goal is 30 minutes or less. We haven't met this goal since last quarter. In the statement above, you now know how many total complaints have been received in the last 30 days. You know what they're all focused on. You also know what the average wait time is, according to the complainants, and how many of the complainants suggested adding more technicians would fix the problem. Finally, you know what the goal is for wait times and how long it's been since the pharmacy has achieved the goal. A statement can be clear, accurate, and precise, but not relevant to the question or problem. When presented with a problem, you have to weed out the information that doesn't have anything to do with it. To establish relevance, you could ask the following questions. How is that connected to the question? How does that bear on the issue? How does that bear on the issue? In the example above, is it relevant to the problem that some of the complaints are about outdated magazines in the waiting area? Also, is it relevant that many of the complainants think the pharmacy is just too small to handle the workload? Let's take a look at that statement again. Well, we received 80 complaints in the last 30 days. Out of the 80, 70 of the complaints are focused on long wait times, averaging 45 minutes to an hour and a half. All complaints focused on the longer wait times find it unacceptable, however, 50 suggest the fix action should be adding more technicians. According to our internally set metric on patient wait times, the goal is 30 minutes or less. We haven't met this goal since last quarter. If the majority of the problem is the long wait times, then the information about outdated reading materials and the size of the pharmacy isn't relevant to the problem, especially since nothing can be done about that at your level. Breadth. When using the standard of breadth, you should consider if there's an argument or position that hasn't been heard yet. A problem might meet all the previous standards, but is only presented from one perspective. In order to determine breadth, you can ask the following questions. Do I need to consider another point of view? Is there another way to look at this question or problem? What would this look like from a conservative standpoint? What would this look like from the point of view of my subordinates, peers, and or commander? In the pharmacy example, so far you have the perspective of the complainants and what the metrics say. However, you don't have the perspective or point of view of the pharmacy technicians. In order to get a full picture of the problem, you need to be able to see it from all sides. In the example, breadth might look like this. I've talked to all the pharmacy technicians and they agree the wait times have been getting longer in the past few weeks. However, they attribute the problem to time spent answering extensive questions some patients have about their medications. They're also having trouble keeping the shelves stocked with most commonly used medications, so patients have to wait while they restock. Finally, we have two of the 10 technicians preparing to deploy and one completing his PCS out-processing checklist. Once you establish breadth, you have information from both sides of the issue. In this case, the customers, complainants, and the pharmacy technicians. In order to make a decision, you should consider the perspective of both. Logic. When you think, you bring a variety of thoughts together into some order. When the combination of thoughts is mutually supportive and makes sense, the thinking is logical. When the combination isn't mutually supportive, is contradictory, or doesn't make sense, the combination is not logical. Illogical. Consider the following statements. A. All men are mortal. Master Sergeant James Smith is a man. Master Sergeant Smith is mortal. In this example, it's true that all men are mortal. It's also true that Master Sergeant Smith is a man, therefore it's logical to assume that he is mortal. These combinations of thoughts are supportive and make sense. B. All men are mortal. Master Sergeant Jenny Jones is a woman. Master Sergeant Jones is immortal. In this example, it's true that all men are mortal. It's also true that Master Sergeant Jones is a woman. However, it's not logical to assume she's immortal just because she's not a man. These combinations of thoughts don't make sense. This is actually an example of faulty logic, which you'll learn more about later in this chapter. In order to establish if thinking is logical, ask yourself the following questions. Does this really make sense? Does that follow from what you said? How does that follow? Before you implied one thing, now you're saying something else. How can both be true? In the pharmacy example, does it make sense to restock the shelves while patients are waiting? Shouldn't that be done before the pharmacy opens or immediately after the pharmacy closes? Also, originally the NCO said the pharmacy hasn't met its wait-time goal since last quarter. But the pharmacy technician said the slowdown has only been in the last few weeks. This information doesn't make sense. In this case, you might want to revisit the accuracy or precision standard to get better information. Fairness. You naturally think from your own perspective, from a point of view which tends to favor your position. This kind of thinking can be problematic when trying to make decisions that could impact many people. Fairness implies the treating of all relevant viewpoints alike without reference to your own feelings or interests. Because you may tend to be biased in favor of your own viewpoint, it's important to keep the standard of fairness at the forefront of your thinking, especially when the situation may call on you to see things you may not want to see, like problems you weren't aware of or issues that might make you look bad, or give something up you may want to hold on to, like manning or other resources. In the example involving the pharmacy complaints, what do you think would be the impact on the problem if you, the superintendent, only seriously considered the viewpoint of your people instead of being open to the viewpoint of the customers? You might miss the actual root of the problem because your perspective would be biased. How could the situation be impacted if you thought your people were just lazy and lacked motivation? This biased perspective could cause you to discount your people's perception of the problem and potentially side with the customer's viewpoint. Finally, what if a plausible solution to the problem is to move some technicians around to cover the busy times, but you don't want to upset the current schedule that took you a long time to develop? If you hold on to the current schedule, favor your perspective, you could overlook a solution that might be the easiest to implement because it doesn't require additional resources other than the time it would take to create a new schedule. In order to maintain fairness, you should ask yourself the following questions. Are you considering all relevant viewpoints in good faith? Are you distorting some information to maintain your biased perspective? Are you more concerned about your or your superior's vested interests than the common good? Depth. This standard addresses your ability to consider the complexities of an issue instead of just skimming the surface. Sometimes when your people have problems, they usually aren't one-dimensional in nature. There could be more to the problem than what you initially see. You might find there are levels of complexity or layers that need to be addressed before the surface problem can be solved. For example, what if you have a problem with fitness test failures in your unit? There could be many different aspects to this problem. Time to exercise, your people's eating habits, emotional, mental, social, and or physical stressors, increased ops tempo, etc. When deciding what to do, you need to consider all potential reasons why the unit is experiencing the failures before you do something like mandate unit PT three times a week. This solution might only address the superficial surface level problem, but doesn't do anything about the deeper issues that could be causing the failures. If you don't address them, your solution might work in the interim, but won't fix the problem long-term. In order to ensure depth, ask yourself the following questions. How does your answer address the complexities in the question? How are you taking into account the problems in the question? Are you dealing with the most significant factors? In the pharmacy example, it's easy to say, let's just add more technicians to handle the large volume of people. That should fix the problem. However, if you haven't uncovered all the complexities of the issue, if you haven't considered depth, how do you know your solution will work? What if more people aren't an option? What if you didn't consider if you have the right people working the pharmacy windows? What if those individuals haven't been trained properly? What if the majority of those complaints are from a small group of disgruntled customers? What if the goal of 30 minutes isn't realistic for the size of your customer population? By digging into the issue and not addressing it on a superficial level, you can increase the chances your solution will solve the problem. The universal intellectual standards help to inject quality into your thinking. Not all standards will be applicable in all situations. However, if you try to include some of them as necessary, develop a habit of using them, they can help you reason with more fidelity. Reasoning elements. Take a moment to consider the difference between thought and thinking. On the surface they may appear to be the same. However, there is a distinct difference between the two. Thought is undisciplined, random, and unstructured. It can be anything that crosses your mind. Thinking, on the other hand, is more purposeful. It's a deliberate attempt to figure something out. To reason. The following are elements you can use to improve your ability to reason. Let's start with thinking about your purpose. Think about your purpose, goal, or objective. All reasoning has a purpose. It's your goal, objective, what you're trying to accomplish. You can also use the term purpose to include functions, motives, and intentions. When engaging in structured thinking, you should be clear about your purpose and ensure it's justifiable. In order to do this, you should ensure you take the time to state your purpose clearly. Distinguish your purpose from related purposes. Check periodically to be sure you're still on target with your goal or objective. Choose significant and realistic purposes. To clearly identify your purpose, consider the following questions. What's my purpose in doing this task? What's the objective of this task? Should I question, refine, or modify my goal? What's my central aim in this line of thought? Why did I say state the question at issue? Problem to be solved. Reasoning is an attempt to figure something out, to settle some question, to solve some problem. For example, figuring out how to meet new mission requirements or solving a morale problem in your unit. However, these problems are really broad and vague. By using this element, you can lay out the problem in a more specific way or use questions to help guide your thinking. For example, if figuring out how to meet new mission requirements is the problem, your question may be, how can I get more manning to meet the new requirements? Or, what can I do to get my people trained on the new equipment the mission requires? These questions are more specific and help you key in on what you need to actually solve. If your question is vague, it might lack clarity and distinctness, which result in unfocused and chaotic thinking. So your question should be clear and precise enough to productively guide your thinking. To do this, you should state the question at issue clearly and precisely. Express the question in several ways to clarify its meaning. Break the question into sub-questions. Distinguish questions that have definitive answers, yes or no, from those that are a matter of opinion or require multiple viewpoints. The following questions can help you identify the problem that needs to be solved. What question am I trying to answer? What important questions are embedded in the issue? Is there a better way to frame the question? Is the question clear? Is the question too complex? Do others see the question the same way? What kind of question is it? Personnel? Ethical? Mission-related? Or gather information, data, facts, observations, experiences. All reasoning is based on data, information, and evidence. When gathering information, you tend to use these items along with your experiences to figure things out. However, critical thinkers ensure they have all the information they need, and they don't assume all the information they have is always accurate or correct. A lack of or incorrect information could cause a defect in your reasoning. To use the information element to support your thinking, try to restrict your claims to those supported by the data you have. Search for information that opposes your position, as well as information that supports it. Ensure all information you use is clear, accurate, and relevant. Ensure you have gathered sufficient information to support your reasoning. To ensure you're gathering the appropriate information, consider the following questions. What information do I need? What data is relevant to my problem? Do I need to gather more information? Is this information relevant to my purpose or goal? How do I know my information is relevant? Watch your inferences, interpretations, conclusions, and solutions. All reasoning contains inferences or interpretations you use to draw conclusions. Based on my interpretation of the report, I conclude X will happen if we don't, and also give meaning to data. I interpret his comments to mean inferring is what the mind does in figuring something out, because this is so, that also is so, or since this, therefore that. However, inferences should logically follow the evidence. They shouldn't be based on emotions, guesses, or other elements that can't be proved. Additionally, try not to infer no more or less than what is implied in this situation. Therefore, you should infer only what the evidence implies. Check inferences for their consistency with each other. Identify any assumptions underlying your inferences. To ensure your inferences are logical, consider the following questions. What conclusion am I coming to? Is my inference logical? Are there other conclusions I should consider? Does my interpretation make sense? Does my solution follow from my data? How did I reach my conclusion? What am I basing my reasoning on? Is there an alternative plausible conclusion? Given all the facts, what's the best possible conclusion? How should I interpret this data? Clarify your concepts, theories, definitions, principles, laws, and models. All reasoning is expressed through and shaped by concepts. Concepts are ideas, theories, laws, principles, or hypotheses you use in thinking to make sense of things. For example, you could use the concepts in full range leadership, FRL, to help you figure out why your people's motivational levels are low and what you can do to help increase it. You should be clear about the concepts you're using. Make sure you fully understand the concepts of FRL. Ensure there are no defects in them. Check to see if FRL is valid and has been proved via credible research. And use them justifiably. Is FRL appropriate for my problem? In order to do so, you can identify key concepts and explain them clearly. Consider alternative concepts or alternative definitions of concepts. Ensure you are using concepts with precision. The following questions can help you clarify the concepts you're using to ensure they're clear and justifiable. What ideas am I using in my thinking? Are my ideas causing problems for me or others? I believe I have a good theory. Can I explain it fully? What's the main hypothesis I'm using in my reasoning? Am I using the concepts as the original author intended? What distinctions should I draw in reasoning through the problem? Check your assumptions. All reasoning is based on assumptions. Beliefs you take for granted, like assuming you'll always get paid on the first and the fifteenth of each month, or assuming every time you put your car key in the ignition, it'll start. One of the problems with assumptions is sometimes they can be wrong. Maybe one day your car doesn't start. Additionally, assumptions sometimes operate at the subconscious level of thought. You might not be aware you're making them. Whether you're aware of them or not, they can influence your thinking. When making, or when made aware that you're making an assumption, you should clearly identify your assumptions and determine whether they're justifiable by sound evidence. Consider how your assumptions are shaping your point of view. To ensure your assumptions are clear and justified by sound evidence, consider these questions. What am I assuming or taking for granted? Am I assuming something I shouldn't? What assumption is leading me to this conclusion? What's the policy, strategy, explanation, etc. Assuming? What's being assumed in this theory? What assumptions am I making about others? Think through the implications. Consequences. Explore. An implication follows logically from your thinking. A consequence is the result of an action, all reasoning leads somewhere. It has implications, and when acted upon has consequences. For example, if you make a promise, what are you implying? You're basically saying you're absolutely going to do something, even though you didn't explicitly say so. But what if later you don't really want to do what you promised? More than likely, you'll start thinking about the consequences of your action or inaction. What would happen if I did what I promised? What would happen if I didn't? As a critical thinker, you should work to ensure you have a clear understanding of the implications of your reasoning. You could be implying something you didn't mean to or something that's false and the consequences of your behavior. You should think through the likely implications of your behavior before you act. To do so, you should trace the implications and consequences that follow from your reasoning. Search for negative as well as positive implications. Consider all possible consequences. In order to think through the implications of your reasoning, consider the following questions. If I decided to do X, what things might happen? If I decided not to do X, what things might happen? What am I implying when I say, what is likely to happen if we do this versus that? Ask others, are you implying that? How significant are the implications of this decision? Understand your point of view, frame of reference, perspective, orientation. All reasoning is done from some point of view. It's literally the place from which you view something. It includes what you're looking at and the way you're seeing it. Additionally, it could have a serious impact on the results of your thinking. Because of this, you should make sure you understand the limitations of your point of view and that you fully consider other relevant viewpoints. When reasoning from this element, you should identify your point of view. Seek other points of view and identify their strengths. Seek other points of view and identify their strengths as well as weaknesses. Strive to be fair-minded in evaluating all points of view. The following questions can help you assess your viewpoint and identify any limitations. How am I looking at this situation? Is there another way to look at it that I should consider? What exactly am I focused on? How am I seeing it? Is my view the only reasonable view? What does my point of view ignore? Which of these viewpoints make the most sense given the situation? Am I having difficulty looking at the situation from a viewpoint with which I disagree? Have I studied viewpoints that challenge my personal beliefs? Employing these reasoning elements can help you develop habits to transition from thought to deliberate purposeful thinking. When faced with complex, crucial problems, you should try to ensure your reasoning is as reliable as you can make it. Otherwise, you risk making a bad decision or implementing a poor solution that could impact your people and your mission. Additionally, these actions might even damage your credibility as a senior NCO. However, if you use the reasoning elements while thinking, transitioning to structured thought, you'll be well on your way to developing a set of intellectual traits that reflect your ability to engage in effective reasoning regardless of the situation. Essential intellectual traits. Intellectual traits. Essential intellectual traits are traits of mind and character necessary for right action and thinking. They are dispositions of mind and character essential for fair-minded rationality. Or said another way, the virtues that distinguish the close-minded, self-serving critical thinker from the open-minded, truth-seeking critical thinker. You should understand and work to develop the essential intellectual traits in order to be a true critical thinker. Intellectual humility. Consider these examples. Master Sergeant Merrill is an expert at his job and believes he knows everything there is to know about it. Master Sergeant Moore is an expert at her job, but understands there are many things she still has to learn. Which senior NCO is less likely to engage in flawed thinking? Intellectual humility involves being aware of the limits of your knowledge. It includes recognizing any potential sensitivity you might have to a subject or situation based on your personal perspective, being aware of any biases and prejudices you may have, and acknowledging the limitations of your point of view. Individuals that exhibit this trait don't claim more than they actually know, and when challenged, are comfortable saying so. Just because you acknowledge your limitations doesn't mean you're spineless or submissive. Intellectual humility implies you don't combine a need to be intellectually better than everyone else, boastful behavior, or excessive pride in your level of intellect with insight into the logical, foundations of your beliefs. In other words, you don't allow your personal self to impact your thinking self. To develop intellectual humility, which standards and elements would you practice? To know is to know that you know nothing. That is the meaning of true knowledge. Socrates. Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood. Marie Curie. Intellectual courage. This trait involves the need to face and fairly address ideas, beliefs, or viewpoints you may have strong negative emotions about, or may not want to hear. In the workplace, some people feel there are two topics that should never be discussed, politics and religion. Why is that? These topics might be seen as taboo because they are, for some, a part of our belief system. They can also define our social groups. When these topics or beliefs are challenged, we sometimes exhibit a level of fear that prevents us from considering views that conflict with the beliefs at our core. A level of fear that may prevent us from reasoning with fidelity. Intellectual courage is connected with the ability to consider ideas seen as absurd or different, based on our beliefs or viewpoints, are sometimes rationally justified in whole or in part. Additionally, by displaying this trait, you're willing to acknowledge that conclusions or beliefs you or your social group may have can sometimes be far more social group may have can sometimes be false or misleading. This takes courage, especially if the penalties were not conforming to the status quo might be severe. As a critical thinker, you need courage to be true to and honestly evaluate your own thinking and the thinking of others. You shouldn't passively and uncritically accept what you've learned in the past or what you've been told. You should be willing to consider truth in beliefs or viewpoints different from your own and find fault in some beliefs or viewpoints strongly held by you or your social group. You should be willing to question to develop intellectual courage. Which standards and elements would you practice? Intellectual empathy transformational leadership's individual consideration. I see can help reinforce the trait of intellectual empathy. By displaying the I see behavior you empathize with listen to and support your people. This trait involves being able to put aside your own viewpoint assumptions and ideas in order to step into the shoes of others so you can genuinely understand them. Intellectual empathy is displayed in your ability to accurately reconstruct the viewpoints and reasoning of others and to reason from premises assumptions and ideas other than your own. As a senior leader in your organization, you should be able to see and understand things using the lens of your people and superiors when attempting to reason through a problem or situation. Otherwise, you could make a decision that impacts your people or your mission negatively. Additionally, individuals that exhibit this trait are less likely to hold on to their position so strongly that they disregard the viewpoints of others. To develop this type of insight, you may need to remember a time when you believed your position was absolutely right but turned out to be totally wrong. To develop intellectual empathy, which standards and elements would you practice? Intellectual autonomy, free thinking and a high level of motivation, characteristics of the proficient critical thinker are exhibited in the trait of intellectual autonomy. Intellectual autonomy involves having rational control of your beliefs, values and inferences. The idea of critical thinking is for you to learn to think for yourself and to gain command over your thought processes. It entails a commitment to analyzing and evaluating beliefs on the basis of reason and evidence, to question when it's rational to question, to believe when it's rational to believe and to conform when it's rational to conform. This trait reflects your choice to think for yourself instead of blindly believing or agreeing to someone else's viewpoint or position. Individuals that exhibit this trait are not intellectually lazy. They're willing to exercise free thinking and are motivated to investigate evidence and data in order to develop their own understanding independent from the understanding of others. To develop intellectual autonomy, which standards and elements would you practice? Intellectual integrity. This trait involves recognizing the need to be true to your own thinking, to be consistent in the intellectual standards you apply. It includes holding yourself to the same rigorous standards of evidence and proof to which you would hold someone else, practicing what you advocate for others. Additionally, it means you can honestly admit discrepancies and inconsistencies in your own thought and action. AFI 36-2618 states, senior NCOs must clearly meet and strive to exceed the standards and expectations levied upon all junior enlisted airmen and NCOs. Intellectual integrity means you should work on developing the same habits of the mind you would expect from your people. Quite simply, individuals with intellectual integrity hold themselves to the same reasoning standards they hold others to. For example, if you require your people to do research in order to gather accurate and comprehensive information, so should you. If you ask your people to put themselves in the shoes of leadership to understand decisions, so should you. If you direct your people to ensure ideas or opinions presented to you are precise, relevant and logical, yours should be to when presenting ideas or opinions to them. To develop intellectual integrity, which standards and elements would you practice? Intellectual perseverance. One who truly displays intellectual perseverance exhibits the core value of integrity first, possessing the virtue of courage to pursue intellectual truths despite personal or professional risks. This trait involves being aware of the need to use intellectual insights and truths in spite of difficulties obstacles and frustrations you may have or face. It requires a firm adherence to rational principles despite the irrational opposition of others. Intellectual perseverance includes being comfortable struggling with confusion and unsettled questions over an extended period of time in order to achieve deeper understanding or insight. This trait could be seen as one of the toughest of the essential intellectual traits. To be intellectually perseverant, you must resist the urge to panic when you don't have all the information you need to make a decision or get frustrated if you don't know how long it will take to get the information you need. You have to calm your mind so you can reason through the chaos of last minute taskings and other urgent issues. Even when time is short and your stress levels are rising, you should be able to rely on the standards and elements of structured thought. This trait reflects going the distance, not giving up on your thinking process, not giving in to unstructured thought, being comfortable with the ambiguous nature of the moment, knowing that eventually with good reasoning ability, you'll achieve the level of understanding you desire. To develop intellectual perseverance, which standards and elements would you practice? Confidence in reason. One who truly displays confidence in reason exhibits the core value of excellence in all we do, possessing the virtue of teamwork by allowing people to draw their own conclusions, encouraging them to respectfully challenge each other's conclusions and motivating them to work together to reason through any discrepancies. This trait involves confidence that in the long run your own higher interests and those of humankind at large will be best served by allowing people the right to reason and by encouraging people to come to their own conclusions via their own rational faculties. It also includes faith that with proper encouragement and cultivation, people can learn to think for themselves, to form rational viewpoints, draw reasonable conclusions, think coherently and logically, persuade each other by reason and become reasonable individuals, despite common obstacles and hindrances we all face. Transformational leadership's intellectual stimulation, IS, can help reinforce the trait of confidence in reason. Using the IS behavior, you encourage your people to be independent thinkers using creativity and rational thinking to solve problems. This trait is essential for you since senior NCOs often fill the role of coach and mentor in the organization. You should give your people the space to think through things on their own and have confidence they can do it. If they can't, you don't write them off. You help them using the tools presented in this chapter. You should not only work on developing habits of the mind for yourself, you should also encourage this behavior in your people. You can use the universal intellectual standards and reasoning elements when helping them work through mission related issues or interpersonal conflicts. This can teach them how to critically think through their problems and reach effective solutions instead of reacting and displaying behaviors based solely on emotions. To develop confidence and reason, which standards and elements would you practice? Fair mindedness. Sometimes when individuals say something is not fair, they're usually assessing a situation from their own point of view using their own lens. And in these cases, a decision may have been made that doesn't favor their point of view. As a senior leader and decision maker in your organization, believing that something is not fair based solely on your perspective can result in ineffective one sided decisions. This could impact your credibility as a leader and the faith your people have in your ability to lead. However, if you adopt the mindset to consider others points of view, you'll be well on your way to exhibiting the trait of fair mindedness. Fair mindedness involves treating all viewpoints alike without thinking about or referencing your own feelings or interests or the feelings or interests of your friends, peers, or community. It also implies adherence to intellectual standards without reference to your own advantage or the advantage of your group. To develop fair mindedness, which standards and elements would you practice? Just like the Air Force expects you to exhibit the virtues associated with the core values, the essential intellectual traits are indicative of the type of character you should exhibit or at least strive to exhibit as a critical thinker. Up to this point, you've learned about the universal intellectual standards, the reasoning elements, and the essential intellectual traits. By making it a habit to practice structured thinking every day, you can improve your ability to approach problems and issues from a more logical standpoint and to arrive at more comprehensive solutions. However, there's one more thing you should understand about these critical thinking components. They're most effective when used in conjunction with each other. Relationship between the components of critical thinking. At this point, you've learned a great deal of material about the components of critical thinking. However, each component isn't a standalone entity. The intellectual standards when applied to the reasoning elements help develop the intellectual traits. The universal intellectual standards and reasoning elements can help you break down any problem in order to assess it from a rational, logical point of view. They can help you make decisions that are more comprehensive and purposeful versus illogical and emotional. As a senior NCO, you'll be presented with situations, sometimes even complex problems that may require you to take a step back and think, focusing on what's causing it and what you should do about it. Failing to think through problems might cause you to focus on symptoms due to not going deep enough or develop situations that fail because you haven't considered their consequences. Since you'll be charged with leading larger groups of people, it's vital you integrate the universal intellectual standards and reasoning elements into your thinking process. Doing so on a consistent basis helps you develop the essential intellectual traits you need to be confident in your reasoning ability. It may seem like considering these components all the time might be too difficult to do. You shouldn't expect to be an expert critical thinker overnight. It takes some time and effort to master these components every time you're presented with a problem or situation. However, to get started, you can pick one standard and one element at a time and practice using them daily. Once you're comfortable with those, choose another set. By systematically practicing the universal intellectual standards and reasoning elements, you might find yourself slowly developing the essential intellectual traits of a critical thinker. The decision you make when selecting what clothes to wear or which restaurant to go to might not result in a catastrophe. But if you fail to use the critical thinking components when dealing with your people and or mission related issues, you could make an ineffective decision resulting in a negative impact or critical failure. Therefore you shouldn't determine what the right idea or solution is to important decisions based on a whim. Nevertheless, even if you practice the components and work on making them habits, there are still hindrances. Roadblocks you may face that could derail your reasoning ability hindrances to critical thinking each day of your life you become exposed to things that can hinder your ability to think clearly accurately and fairly. Some are the result of unintentional and natural human limitations while others are clearly calculated and manipulative. Some are obvious, but most are subtle or sneaky. Armed with the proper attitude, a critical thinker must next understand how to recognize and avoid or mitigate the gauntlet of deception that characterizes everyday life. This section will cover these hindrances which are divided into four categories. Basic human limitations, use of language, faulty logic or perception and psychological or sociological pitfalls. Additionally, you'll learn how you can overcome these hindrances as you work on improving your critical thinking skills. Hindrances are like booby traps waiting to derail the quality of your critical thinking. In order to deal with or avoid them, you must first recognize them. Let's get started with the first booby trap. Basic human limitations. Basic human limitations. Basic human limitations apply to everyone, including the most proficient critical thinkers. These limitations can remind us that we're not perfect and our understanding of facts, perceptions, memories, built-in biases, etc. can prevent us from seeing or understanding the world with total objectivity and clarity. The best you can do is to acquire a sufficient understanding based on the issue at hand, confirmation bias and selective thinking. This occurs when you tend to notice and look for information that confirms your beliefs while ignoring the relevance of information that contradicts your beliefs. Let's say your base is having problems with DUIs. You might believe this is only a problem with airmen staying in the dorms. However, if you fall victim to this limitation, you'll start monitoring, noticing only when someone from that group gets a DUI while missing or not looking for DUIs that are committed by airmen staying off base. By committing this limitation, you might overlook important information you need in order to make an accurate and comprehensive decision. Or you could target the wrong cause of a problem. Either way, you risk developing a solution that doesn't address the issue or make a bad situation worse. Therefore, to avoid this hindrance, you should obtain and objectively evaluate all relevant information and sides of an issue before passing judgment. In the case of the problem with DUIs, you should consider all airmen assigned to the base that commit DUIs, not just the airmen staying in the dorms. That way, you may be able to suggest a more comprehensive solution that encompasses the entire base population, regardless of where they reside. To avoid this hindrance, you can use the reasoning element of point of view in order to objectively evaluate the points of view of others. False memories and confabulation. Every journey into the past is complicated by delusions, false memories, false naming of real events. Adrienne Rich. This limitation is committed when you're not aware that your memories are often manufactured to fill gaps in your recollection or that some memories of facts over time can be unconsciously replaced with fantasy. Basically, your memory can mislead you if you're not careful. For example, think back to when you were in basic training. You probably look back now and laugh about the experience. You might even think, it wasn't so bad or I really had fun. However, when you were actually going through it, it might have been the worst experience ever. Due to stress, yelling TIs, etc. You might have even thought about quitting. The reason you can look back on the experience with fond memories now may be due to gaps in your recollection. As the years went by, you've forgotten just how scared you were during that time. To combat this hindrance, you need to put more reliance on proven facts than memory recollection or testimonies from others and also know your own memory limitations. Personal biases and prejudices. We each have personal biases and prejudices resulting from our own unique life experiences and worldview. They can make it difficult to remain objective and think critically. When you analyze problems with your own lens, you might overlook certain aspects of a problem or situation. You might even refuse to consider a certain point of view. For example, let's say you're deployed working with other country nationals, OCNs. Let's also say you don't have a favorable view of the country and its people. One day, you're presented with a conflict that involves one of your airmen and an OCN. Your personal bias might prevent you from being objective when dealing with their issue and could create a toxic work environment or cause you to make a decision that favors your bias or prejudice. To resist this limitation, you should first recognize what your biases and prejudices are. Then work to ensure they don't creep into your thinking process by focusing on the facts, their sources and the reasoning that support any arguments. Physical and emotional hindrance. Physical and emotional hindrances can severely affect your ability to think clearly and critically. These include stress, fatigue, drugs and emotionally related hindrances. For example, have you ever had to work long hours day to day for an extended period of time with no break or time off? If so, you might have found that due to a high level of fatigue and possibly stress, your ability to make effective decisions diminished over time. Or have you ever experienced a day where emotionally you were a little off? It could be that you had an argument with a family member the night before or may be feeling sadness and or depression due to the loss of a friend or family member. In these situations, your ability to think may be reduced as a result of the emotional trauma. Although we've all experienced these or similar types of hindrances at some point in our lives, you should refrain from making critical decisions until you've had the opportunity to either rest if fatigue is a problem or seek assistance from a professional to help you improve your emotional situation. According to AFI 36-2618, you should be aware of and offer assistance to those that experience hindrances such as financial problems, stress and family problems. Failure to address these issues could diminish motivation and negatively impact mission accomplishment. Your people need to know they can count on you, regardless of the situation. Testimonial evidence This hindrance occurs when support for a particular position or standpoint is backed up by testimony from a respected figure that's not considered an expert on the topic. You might see this fallacy occur when watching commercials on television or reading magazines. Companies try to sell products by using a famous actor or sports figure to endorse it. They talk about the uses of the product, but aren't an expert on it. They hope you'll say since X is using it, it must be a good product even though you've never researched the product yourself. Additionally, what some of these companies fail to say or put in tiny writing at the bottom of your television screen is they pay for the testimony these famous people provide. When engaging in critical thinking you should not rely solely on the testimonies and vivid anecdotes of others to substantiate your beliefs because they're inherently subjective, inaccurate, unreliable, biased and occasionally fraudulent or exaggerated. You should resist making judgments based on testimonies alone. Do your own research on the topic in order to make a decision. As stated earlier, these limitations are ones we can all make simply because we're human and not perfect. However, by knowing yourself, prejudices and biases and relying on facts instead of memories, you can reduce the chances that these human limitations will hinder your critical thinking ability. Another hindrance that can have an impact on your ability to think critically is the use of language. You can use the universal intellectual standard of accuracy to evaluate testimonial evidence. Use of language. The use of language is highly relevant to critical thinking. The choice of words themselves can conceal the truth, mislead, confuse or deceive you. From ads which guarantee easy weight loss to politicians assuring prosperity for everyone, a critical thinker must learn to recognize when words are not intended to communicate ideas or feelings, but rather to control thought and behavior. There is no greater impediment to the advancement of knowledge than the ambiguity of words. Thomas Reid. Ambiguity. This limitation involves a word or expression that can be understood in more than one way. Have you ever said or heard someone say, we're going to have a GI party this afternoon? So, what does the expression GI party mean? For those not familiar with his expression, they might interpret it to mean there will be some sort of party with balloons and cake for somebody. However, if you're talking to someone that's been around the military for a while, they should understand it to mean the airman, GI, will be cleaning up party that afternoon. If the intended meaning of an ambiguous word or expression cannot be determined, avoid making judgments until the meaning is clear. Assuring expressions. These are phrases that attempt to disarm you from questioning the validity of an argument. Expressions such as as everyone knows and common sense tells us that are examples of assuring expressions. If you buy into this hindrance, it could cause you to avoid asking questions even if you think there's something wrong with the argument. Disregard assuring expressions and instead focus on facts and reasoning that support arguments. Meaningless comparisons. These types of comparisons include language that implies something is superior but retreats from that view. An ad can claim a battery lasts 30% longer, but does not say longer than what? An older version of the same battery? Another brand of battery? The comparison really doesn't tell you anything. It's meaningless due to its vagueness. So you should avoid making judgments if it is not exactly clear what is being compared. Double-speak jargon. This limitation involves the use of technical language to make the simple seem complex, the trivial seem profound or the insignificant seem important. All done intentionally to impress others. You might find this hindrance occurs frequently when writing bullets for evaluation reports or awards packages in order to make the individual stand out. But it may become a problem if the language is so technical and or complex that someone reading it wouldn't know what the individual actually accomplished. For example, supported base environmental improvement efforts by eliminating biodegradable products accumulating in workplace reduced potentially combustible hazards by 100%. This technical language basically said the person merely took out the trash. To avoid this hindrance learn to recognize the cognitive factual content of jargon words and expressions. If you can't explain it simply you don't understand it well enough. Albert Einstein Emotive content Emotive content is the intentional use of words to arouse feelings about a subject to bias others thinking positively or negatively. Instead of using facts and evidence the person uses words that stir emotion in order to manipulate others into accepting the truth of the argument. For example let's say you're a member of a group of senior NCOs discussing a potential solution to a unit problem. There is Solution A and Solution B on the table. Someone might argue against Solution A by saying I'm really hesitant to accept Solution A. I think the results will be disastrous to our people and destructive to our mission. Additionally it could cause our NCOs to see us as just another good old boy network. Solution A could result in potential segregation among the enlisted ranks and maybe even perceived discrimination. In the example the individual is using words to elicit negative feelings towards Solution A. This could cause others to reject the solution based totally on what they felt instead of the facts and good reasoning. Language is powerful and should be used to draw in emotions but never as a substitute for reasoning and evidence. As a critical thinker you should learn to recognize and distinguish the emotive emotional content of language and be able to look past it. Try to focus on reasoning and the cognitive factual content of language when evaluating arguments and packages. False implications. This occurs when language used is clear and accurate but misleading because it implies something else is true or false when it isn't. For example let's say your mentor tells you hey you can get promoted to Chief Master Sergeant in less than 15 years if you study hard but what your mentor failed to say is you also have to do other things like get excellent evaluations be active in the community and on base show increased job responsibility etc. This is an example of a false implication. It's accurate that you can get promoted to Chief Master Sergeant in less than 15 years and that you do have to study. However your mentor implies through his choice of words that studying is all you have to do to get promoted to Chief Master Sergeant in less than 15 years. To see through false implications try to understand not only the facts presented but also their relevance context and completeness. The words others use when making or assessing an argument can be a hindrance and have an impact on your decision making ability if you're not careful. Learn to recognize when someone is using language to sway you emotionally or mislead you. Language words can also become a problem when used incorrectly to make or support arguments. This hindrance is faulty logic. You can use the implications reasoning element in order to consider if you're an unintentionally implying something that's true or false. Faulty logic. Before you jump into this hindrance you should understand a few things about arguments. Basically arguments are intended to convince or persuade someone to do or think something. Although there are technically multiple elements of an argument this section will only focus on a few parts the claim reasons or support for your claim and the evidence to back up your support. If the evidence is strong and supports the claim well the argument is considered logical. However problems with arguments can be traced back to issues with one of the three parts. As a proficient critical thinker you must be able to recognize when arguments are supported or contain faulty logic. Otherwise you risk accepting an illogical argument which may lead to an ineffective decision. The following are common faulty logic errors used when attempting to make an argument. Superstition. Superstition is the result of an erroneous perception of the connections between unrelated events. When making a claim some people attempt to use it as support or evidence. For example Master Sergeant Hill says my airman is going to receive the airman of the quarter award claim because I gave him a lucky nickel to carry in his pocket. Reason. The last time I received an award I had that same nickel in my pocket. Evidence. In this example the evidence is based on superstition. The lucky nickel. There's no logical connection between the coin and receiving the award. More than likely Master Sergeant Hill received his award due to his accomplishments and hard work. Not because of a coin in his pocket. Argument from Ignorance. This occurs when you state your claim is true only because it hasn't been proven false or vice versa. Additionally this error in reasoning moves the burden of proof from the person making the claim to the other side. I think it's true because you can't prove it's false. For example Senior Master Sergeant legend briefs the commander. Sir I want to go ahead and institute the new policy on PT failures I suggested last week. I presented my ideas to the other senior NCOs during the production meeting. Since no one had any questions they must all agree with it. This is an example of an argument from Ignorance because Senior Master Sergeant legend is essentially saying the lack of evidence. No questions asked is evidence the commander should accept his claim. X is true because you can't prove X is false or X is false because you can't prove X is true. False Analogies. If you make a false analogy to support the validity of a particular claim you've made an error in logic. This occurs when you assume that because two things are alike in one way they're alike in other ways. Usually the way that supports your claim. For example someone might claim Master Sergeant Fisher should be able to write bullets as well as Master Sergeant Gray. They support the claim by assuming that since Master Sergeant Fisher and Master Sergeant Gray are both senior NCOs and Master Sergeant Gray can write excellent bullets so should Master Sergeant Fisher. While it's true that Master Sergeant Fisher and Master Sergeant Gray are alike in one way they're both senior NCOs doesn't mean they're alike in the way that supports the claim. They can both write excellent bullets. In order to be a proficient critical thinker you must learn to recognize the faulty assumptions behind false analogies. Irrelevant comparison. This error occurs when your claim is based on an attempt to compare two things that shouldn't be or can't be compared like trying to compare apples and oranges. For example you may claim learning how to drive a car is the same as learning how to ride a bike. In this example there is a big difference in the skills it takes to ride a bike apples and the skills it takes to drive a car oranges. This is an irrelevant comparison. A more valid comparison might be to claim that learning how to drive a car is the same as learning how to drive a pickup truck. Both are vehicles that require similar skill sets to operate. To avoid this hindrance you should compare like items apples and apples. Pragmatic fallacy. This occurs when arguing something because it works meaning people are satisfied with it or they find it beneficial meaningful or significant even though it hasn't been proven. For example while shopping for new running shoes A1C Sutton attempts to convince A1C Palmer to purchase a certain brand of running shoes because they're advertised to improve your ability to run. A1C Sutton tells A1C Palmer he purchased them last month and his run time on the one and a half mile is faster than before he purchased the shoes. Therefore he concludes that the shoes made him faster. They work. However just because it appears the shoes worked doesn't mean they did. It could be that other factors had an impact on his run time. Practice weather environmental conditions physical or mental condition etc. A1C Palmer should do more research. To avoid this fallacy try to identify or not ignore known or other possible variables that may affect the outcome. Slippery slope fallacy. This is an argument that assumes one thing will lead to another and then another and before you know it you're doing something you don't want to do. Therefore you shouldn't do the first thing. For example if you eat a donut for breakfast today you'll probably eat one tomorrow too. Before you know it you're eating so many donuts that you gain 20 pounds and fail your P.T. test. This is an example of a slippery slope fallacy. It basically argues that if you don't want to fail your P.T. test you shouldn't eat a donut for breakfast. However just because you eat one or a few donuts occasionally doesn't mean you'll fail your P.T. test. This is the misconception. If this were true no one would ever eat donuts. To avoid this fallacy you must be able to evaluate the logic or proof supporting an alleged adverse chain of events. Logically follow the chain. Critical thinkers should be able to navigate through arguments with ease especially if they can identify the ones based on faulty logic. However misleading or incorrect support isn't the only thing you should watch out for. Proficient critical thinkers are also mindful of the hindrances caused by our mental or emotional state and the social relationships we have with others. Psychological and sociological pitfalls. Perceptions are common. Everyone has them about certain people events or even problems or issues. As a result they can be easily misinterpreted due to psychological and or sociological influences. When these misinterpretations are exploited or intentionally introduced during arguments they can cause your reasoning to be twisted and lead you or others to make ineffective decisions or arrive at false conclusions. Add hominem fallacy. This occurs when you criticize the person character or reputation making an argument not the argument itself. For example Master Sergeant Longman might disagree with Master Sergeant Johnson's argument. So he says why should we believe what Master Sergeant Johnson said? He's one of the most selfish senior NCOs in the unit. He's only looking out for himself. For a critical thinker the person making the argument is irrelevant. It's the argument itself that matters. To avoid this pitfall you should focus on reasons and facts that support an argument not the person making the argument. However if the source is questionable make sure you independently verify supporting facts. Add populum bandwagon fallacy. This pitfall occurs when someone attempts to appeal to the popularity of the claim as a reason for accepting the claim. Because everyone thinks or does it it must be right. For example your commander might say we're going to do mandatory PT on Friday afternoons. The other units on base are doing it and it works for them. So it should work for us too. Just because the other units are doing PT on that day doesn't mean that that's the right decision for your particular unit. Fridays might not be convenient for mandatory PT due to your units mission related constraints. A valid claim should be based on sound evidence not popularity. Emotional appeal. Emotional appeal occurs when making irrelevant emotional appeals to accept a claim since emotion often influences people more effectively than logical reasoning. For example arguing tech Sergeant Robinson should get a lower form of discipline for safety violations that would normally result in a serious reprimand simply because tech Sergeant Robinson is going through a difficult divorce and is having a hard time adjusting. This claim might be accepted because you feel pity or sympathy for tech Sergeant Robinson. Since an argument requires logical evidence to support its claim don't accept emotional appeals as sufficient evidence to support the claim. Evading the issue red herring. This could happen when someone attempts to divert attention to an issue irrelevant to the issue at hand. Red herrings are distractions that attempt to mislead you. For example while counseling senior airman bird for being late she says I don't know why we're even talking about this or behind on our training tasks and if we don't finish them by the end of the month some people will be decertified. In this instance senior airman bird is attempting to divert your attention from her being late for work to training issues something not relevant to the issue. To avoid red herrings learn to recognize evasion smoke screens which imply a direct attempt to avoid facing an issue. Fallacy of false dilemma either or fallacy. This occurs when someone intentionally restricts the number of alternatives. Thereby omitting relevant alternatives from consideration. An example would be someone making the statement. You are either with us or with the terrorists. Seek opposing arguments on the subject which may reveal the existence of other viable alternatives. Poisoning the well. This type of fallacy can be considered a preemptive strike against an opponent. It occurs when you attempt to create a prejudicial atmosphere against the opposition before he or she has had an opportunity to say anything. This makes it difficult for the opponent to be received fairly. For example let's say Master Sergeant Rafferty has been called into a senior leadership meeting to discuss time off for the airman in his unit prior to an upcoming deployment. Master Sergeant Rafferty would like to advocate for more time off since the deployment is going to be a difficult one. However before he can make his argument Master Sergeant Woodard who doesn't want to give time off due to the number of tasks left to accomplish before they deploy says look I already know what Master Sergeant Rafferty is going to say. He looks for any opportunity to give his people time off regardless of the situation. They probably spend more time at home than they do at work. So before Master Sergeant Rafferty can make his argument Master Sergeant Woodard has poisoned the well since it has been said that Master Sergeant Rafferty likes to give his people time off. The other senior NCOs might be less inclined to seriously consider Master Sergeant Rafferty's argument once they hear it. In this example how much time off Master Sergeant Rafferty gives his people under normal circumstances is not relevant to the issue at hand and shouldn't have any bearing on his argument. The actual issue is whether or not the airman should be given time off due to the difficult nature of the upcoming deployment. When evaluating an argument you should focus on the argument when it's made not prejudicial pre-emptive remarks intended to sway you before you hear all sides of the argument. Senior NCOs should continuously strive to overcome the hindrances of basic human limitations. Use of language faulty logic and psychological or sociological pitfalls while learning to become a proficient critical thinker. If these hindrances are not avoided they can limit your ability to solve problems by clouding the issue or could strain communication between you your subordinates and superiors by misunderstandings and untrue perceptions. In order to become a proficient critical thinker you should be able to recognize these hindrances in the arguments and claims of others as well as the ones you make. Try to learn as much as possible about the hindrances to reasoning as well as consider if you or those around you are currently using any in your thinking. By taking these actions you can work through complex decisions without getting sidetracked due to illogical or faulty thinking. Explore decision-making is the fundamental cognitive process that results in the selection of a course of action from among several alternative scenarios. Decision analysis every decision-making process produces a final choice. The output of which can be an action or an opinion of choice. If you look back to the days when you were a brand new airman just learning your job more than likely you had to really do tasks you were performing. Now through repetition tasks you once thought of as complex are nothing more than routine actions decisions and behaviors. It's only after many hours of complex analysis inferences and effective judgments that tasks become routine enough to require little or no thought. As long as you can do things the same way every time decisions seem to come easy. Their reactive instinctive quick and holistic. However what happens when things change? People are often uncomfortable with change because it takes them out of their comfort zone. Routines change. When you move to something new or different you have to focus on new maybe even complex ways of doing things. You have to take a more deliberative analytical and procedural approach. Depending on the situation both approaches are valuable to the decision-making process. Two system approach. When faced with a decision there are two different approaches that can be taken. One is reactive system one thinking and the other is reflective system to thinking. System one reactive thinking. Reactive thinking system one relies heavily on situational cues prominent memories and trial and error to arrive quickly and confidently at judgments particularly when situations are familiar and immediate action is required. Some of the judgments you make are automatic or reactive rather than reflective. For example Master Sergeant Newton has taken first-aid training consistently since he joined the Air Force. One day while exercising at the fitness center he sees an airman pass out after stepping off the treadmill. He immediately puts his training to use and administers first-aid. He didn't spend a lot of time thinking about what he should do. He made a quick decision and took action. Due to his reactive thinking he was able to assist the injured airman until medical personnel arrived. System one thinking often feels intuitive like decisions made in the heat of battle or in moments of crisis more than likely these decisions are based on expertise training and practice just like in Master Sergeant Newton's case. Some of the advantages of using System one thinking when making decisions include decisiveness when needed. You're able to use your intuition prior experiences and training to make quick decisions instead of having to consider extra information. This can be useful in situations where time is limited and decisions need to be made in the moment or in situations where the decision that needs to be made is something routine that you deal with on the daily basis like what you're going to eat for lunch. Improved time management. Because you don't take a long time to make decisions you essentially free up the time to focus on tasks that require more attention. Perceived credibility and reliability if your decisions are correct. Due to your ability to confidently use System one thinking you can increase your credibility and reliability with your people and your superiors. They can come to you when decisions need to be made on the spot and trust that your decisions should be valid and acceptable. Using reactive thinking effectively can reduce the amount of time spent over thinking something that can be solved more quickly. As you make successful system one reactive decisions you may find that your level of intuition or at least your reliance on your intuition increases as well. However there are a few disadvantages to this type of thinking. Some of the disadvantages of using System one thinking include. Mistakes made if used too often. It's easy to make a mistake if you just react when presented with complex situations that require more analysis. Overlooked details. Since you don't spend a great deal of time pondering the situation before making a decision you could miss important information that can have an impact on the final decision. This might result in missed improvement opportunities. In reactive thinking you're relying on past experiences and training in order to make decisions. This type of thinking doesn't allow time for looking at how a process can be improved in order to make it better. Reactive thinking can result in quick fix solutions. Relying on reactive thinking too much may impair your judgment and our times when making quick reactive decisions can be detrimental and could have a negative impact on those that work with you for you and around you. However when presented with more complex problems you should engage in system to thinking. System to reflective thinking. Reflective thinking system to is broad and informed problem solving and deliberate decision making that relies heavily on information deliberation time planning and comprehensive consideration. If you've ever worked on a car engine and you want the job done right the first time you would pull out a manual make sure you have the right tools and think each step through before proceeding. This type of reflective thinking is useful for judgments in unfamiliar situations for processing abstract concepts and for deliberating when there is time. Some of the advantages of system to thinking include improved critical thinking and problem solving skills. As a result of the deliberate and comprehensive nature of system to thinking. You can solve problems using logical and analytical processes. When dealing with complex issues reflective thinking can add quality to your reasoning ability in order to develop to more informed comprehensive solutions. Forced consideration of logical arguments. Since you've taken the time to reflect you can consider other points of view versus just relying on your own point of view like in system one thinking. However because reflective thinking is a deliberate process there are some disadvantages to using it. They include too much time spent to make a decision. Constantly taking too long to make a decision can make you appear reluctant to make the call. This could impact your level of credibility and reliability with subordinates and superiors. Too much thought put into routine decisions. Even though certain situations require system to thinking using it for routine everyday tasks could cause you to over think. For example would you use reflective thinking to decide which kind of fuel to put in your car? Probably not. This is a task you do quite often depending on the type of car you drive and doesn't require extensive deliberation. In situations like this one reactive thinking is more appropriate. Decreased time management. Good time management is important in analyzing individual situations in order to determine what actions should be taken. Using reflective thinking for every decision would be very time consuming and time is money. If you spend too much time using reflective thinking you could throw off your entire schedule for the day. Not accomplishing important tasks that need to be done. This could result in a late suspense or even neglecting your other senior NCO responsibilities. Truly successful decision making relies on a balance between deliberate and instinctive thinking. Malcolm Gladwell using the appropriate systems thinking. As you think about a two system approach to decision making don't make the mistake of thinking the process is a head versus heart or a right brain versus left brain approach. Human decision making isn't this superficial or simplistic. Likewise don't categorize yourself or your people as system one or system two thinkers. Every individual uses both systems not just one. If you've ever heard or maybe said that's the way we've always done things. It's because too often many of today's problems are solved by utilizing easy and comfortable approaches to obtain a solution. In reality as you may have discovered simple and common approaches aren't always the most effective way of dealing with complex dynamic and diverse problems. As a senior NCO and a member of the profession of arms there's an increasing need for you to improve and create impeccable results through systems thinking. In essence systems thinking is a discipline of seeing the whole recognizing patterns and inter-relationships and learning how to structure more effective efficient decisions. Many reactive judgments can be good judgments but can lead to unnecessary risks and mistaken biases if not used carefully. Thus the true decision is which of your reactive judgments should you make reflective. Since you already have the skill set to make decisions using system one thinking intuition training et cetera the next section will focus on using system to thinking and decision analysis. Decision analysis process. Decision analysis is a technique to assist you or a group when choosing a course of action taking into consideration the objectives alternative options and risks involved. It achieves a structured route towards the best all-around decision. In a team situation this technique also helps to reduce bias when making decisions. Making the right decision in complex situations is critical. That's why decision analysis which is a form of system to thinking can be helpful. You can use it when deciding which solution to implement or which course of action to take. However before a decision can be made a number of factors have in addition to the steps of the process you can also use the following tools. Brainstorming can help you decide your priorities. Rating sheets can help you make a choice against criteria and solution effect analysis can help you identify any consequences of the choices you've made. This technique formalizes the decision process by highlighting the need to understand that choices have to be made. Discuss those factors that are vital to the success of the decision. Agree what action will satisfy these factors and recognize what could prevent the success of any action. Let's take a look at each step. Decision analysis steps. When attempting to make a complex decision using system to thinking. Decision analysis can help you by providing a step by step process. Is to develop a decision statement. One decision statement. In this step you should prepare a statement that clearly states what decision needs to be made. It acts as a starting point for the process and sets limits for the choices you'll need to make. It should be simple yet accurate since you'll use it to filter alternatives that aren't in line with this statement Tasked with solving problems or making decisions in your work environment this is a vital step. You or your group should spend time thinking critically about what decision you need to make. Don't jump ahead to solutions yet. Even though senior NCOs should be decisive problem solvers thinking of possible solutions upfront is more indicative of system one reactive thinking. If you don't have a good decision statement you risk failing to develop an effective comprehensive solution. This could negatively impact your people or your mission depending on the type of decision that needs to be made resulting in at the very least wasted man hours. Practicing the accuracy and clarity universal intellectual standards can help ensure your decision statement is true. What the goal actually is and clear. No misunderstandings. Practicing the purpose reasoning element can help ensure your decision statement is significant. If not consider using system one thinking and realistic to decision criteria. In this step you'll focus on the decision criteria you'll use to make the decision. Since this is a very important step that can help focus your attention on only relevant solutions. It has three tasks you need to complete. A determine your criteria. The simplest way to determine criteria is to conduct a brainstorming session with those affected by the decision. This could be peers coworkers and or even subordinates if applicable. Additionally if you don't have the expertise to determine what criteria you should be using to assess your alternatives you could ask one or more subject matter experts SME for their input. There's one more thing to consider before moving on. If you're tasked to provide a solution or course of action for a unit issue you might not be the final decision authority. It could be your supervisor or the commander. In this case you should speak with him or her to ensure you know what the expectations are. If not you could go through this entire process and find the solution you picked was not what the final decision authority had in mind be after you compile your list of criteria you should categorize the criteria as either a must or a want the musts are criteria that are essential for any solution to be effective this list of criteria will determine which solutions get to stay on the table. If a solution doesn't meet all the must criteria it should be removed from the table. The gather information reasoning element can help ensure you have all the data you need in order to determine your criteria. The wants criteria are characteristics traits accessories etc. that enhance the solution. In other words there the nice to have's but aren't necessary for the solution to work. You'll use these criteria to compare your alternatives. That way the comparison is fair. If you don't you might be in a situation where you have different criteria for different alternatives. This might skew the final result. Here's another way of looking at it. What do you think would happen if you supervised several airman of the same rank different standards or expectations for each. When it's time to do an evaluation on all individually. You wouldn't have consistent standards to measure them against. Therefore their ratings would be unreliable and probably unfair. If you're making a decision that might impact others in your unit. You can use the universal intellectual standard of fairness to ensure you consider all viewpoints not just your own. When deciding what criteria you should use in order to evaluate the alternatives. After you've ensured your solutions met the musts criteria your list of wants can help you determine which solution is actually selected. If you're going through this process with a group use brainstorming to develop a list of wants. See before finding solutions there is one more important thing you'll need to do. Way your list of wants. This is where you'll assign a weight or importance to each of the wants criteria. You can use any type of scale but for most decisions a one to ten scale works best with one being least important and ten being most important. There is no scientific process for this. It's basically how important you feel each want is the weight you assign a want may be different than the weight someone else assigns the same want. Therefore if working with a group you may want to have each person assign weights individually and then use an average score for each want. That way as a group you're using the same weights to assess the wants criteria without personal bias. Without it you and or your group might not stay focused on the goal or even stall out later in the process due to disagreements about importance. 3 Alternatives During this step you'll look for solutions or alternatives to meet the requirements of your decision statement or solve your problem. They can come from many sources so be open to those that might be a little outside the box. Try to be as creative as you can. If you tend to be highly adaptive seek outside help from those that might be more innovative or vice versa. That way you can ensure a wide range of alternatives that might help you meet your decision statement goal. Again since this is also a very important step there are three tasks you'll need to complete. A first you must locate alternatives. During this time you'll attempt to identify possible solutions. Don't limit yourself because of a fear of reprisal or failure. Additionally don't let existing rules or organizational norms limit you either. Sometimes the best alternatives are ideas that haven't been considered before. Note once you've identified your alternatives consider putting them in a table or worksheet in order to make the results of the comparisons easier to see be next you'll need to compare your list of alternatives to your musts criteria. Since this list of criteria represents your must haves you should be able to evaluate your alternatives very quickly. Either they meet the musts criteria or they don't the alternatives that don't are immediately removed from the table. If you're having trouble identifying alternatives you can use the same tools from step two brainstorming research or help from an SME. Please refer to the graph on page 32 for an example of a list of musts and alternatives for someone looking for living room furniture. As you can see in the example above alternative number three would be eliminated from contention since it doesn't meet the deliver in less than six weeks criteria. However alternatives one two and four meet all the musts criteria and make it to the next phase. See now you need to select the best alternative but instead of just picking one randomly you can use a systematic process to determine which one is best. Remember that list of wants criteria. Well this is where they become important. You'll compare the alternatives you have left using wants criteria. First you should create another table that includes columns for the wants criteria. The weights you previously determined for the wants from step to see. Remember these numbers should indicate your level of importance for each criteria. In the example below the weights or importance have been added for you. The alternatives that passed the musts test and a column for scoring. In the example that follows you'll see the wants criteria and the previously determined weights from step to see. However for now let's leave that column alone and focus just on comparing the alternatives to the wants criteria. In order to compare the alternatives you're going to use another scale weight them based on the items you wanted your living room furniture to have. So in the table below the first one is easily removable washable covers. Let's say alternative number one offers washable covers but they're hard to remove. You might not give it the lowest weight because the covers on this alternative are washable. But you also wanted them to be easy to remove and these aren't. Based on that let's give it a weight of three out of 10. Remember this score is based on opinion. Alternative number two offers easily removable washable covers which is exactly what you want. So let's assign it a weight of 10. Finally alternative number four offers washable covers that are semi easy to remove so let's give it a five. When all alternatives are compared to that particular want differently. All covers were washable but some were easier to remove than others. This difference is reflected in the table below for all three alternatives three 10 and five for the sake of this example let's say you've compared the other criteria and alternatives and came up with the following numbers. Please refer to the graph on page 33 at the top of the page. Now it's time to do a little math. Begin by multiplying the previously determined weight in the gray column by the weights you just assigned for example multiply the previously determined weight for the washable covers nine by the weight of alternative number one three and arrive at a number nine times three equals 27. Put that number 27 in the score column. Do this for all remaining items and then add up the scores for each column to arrive at the total score for each alternative. Here's what your table should look like after all the math is done. Please refer to the graph on page 33 at the bottom of the page. At this point it seems like the decision is clear. Alternative number four scored the highest 175 and therefore appears to be the best choice. But there's still one more thing you need to do that might impact the final alternative selected. Risk analysis four risk analysis after you've selected the alternative that fits your list of criteria you should conduct a risk analysis to see if there are any adverse or unintended consequences of your selection. Based on your analysis you might find a risk that's great enough to cause you to abandon the alternative you selected from helps you as the decision maker look for anything that could go wrong plan for contingencies in the event something does go wrong determine how much risk is involved before committing resources or think about and evaluate the risks in order to overcome them. Note if you're not the final decision maker you can provide him or her with the alternative and associated risks so they can make an informed decision. You can use an element of implications in order to help you consider all possible consequences risks during this analysis. Let's say you use this process to address a problem in your unit. You complete each step and select an alternative that best meets your criteria. However what if this alternative negatively impacts your people. Maybe it requires them to work longer hours for an extended period of time with impact their resiliency. Which is a risk you feel is too great. Therefore not only would you not select this alternative. You would go back and put can't result in longer duty hours with no break as a must criteria back in step 2. At that point you would start over with the previously identified alternatives and possibly even find new alternatives to put on the table. Continuing let's say alternative number 4 the one with the highest score has two chairs with high backs when you go to the furniture store and sit in one of them you realize your dad likes to visit often but he has back problems. This type of chair would be too uncomfortable for him. So now you have a choice to make. Number one. If you decide the style of chair is a risk you can accept he should be able to sit you can keep alternative number four and the process is over. The solution has been selected to address your decision statement. Number two. If you determine the risk isn't acceptable and you don't want chairs with high backs. It now becomes a criteria. You just have to decide how important it is. A if it's so important that it's essential you should add it to the if you do then you'll have to start the entire decision analysis process over with all previously identified alternatives and possibly find new alternatives to be assessed. In other words you have to keep looking at living room furniture. B if it's important but not a deal breaker it should be included on the wants list. If you add it to the wants list you'll need to assign a weight and reaccomplish steps B when deciding the importance of each risk you can use the universal intellectual standard of depth to ensure you're considering the complexities associated with each risk. If you don't conduct a risk analysis you should select an alternative that either does more damage to the situation or might even cause additional problems that you'll have to find solutions for. Either way failing to conduct a risk analysis could require additional impact your timelines if applicable and even your ability to accomplish your mission effectively. Even though this process might take some time it's worth the effort. After going through it you can select the best solution and consider possible risks for your problem as well as have hard data to back up the selection. Realistically speaking senior enlisted leaders don't need to run every decision they make through such an extensive process. In fact the Air Force depends on senior NCOs to apply their extensive knowledge and experience system one thinking to most day today's decisions. However there are times when senior NCOs have to make critical decisions and solve complex problems. In these cases by using the decision analysis process system to thinking you should increase your chances of making high-quality fact-based decisions. Institutional competency communicating active listening when listening to your people's ideas and opinions you should evaluate them objectively even if they conflict with your own impact of critical thinking critical thinking is a foundational chapter in this course for a reason when used consistently and correctly these concepts can help you in all aspects of your professional and personal life. They serve as the starting point from which all of your leadership and management abilities flow whether you're making work center decisions solving a problem dealing with subordinates or buying a new home having a set of tools to help you navigate through the haziness of unstructured thought can have an impact on your subordinates you and your mission subordinate effectiveness how proficient you are at exhibiting the traits of a critical thinker can have an impact on your subordinates there are or will be times when they bring you ideas on how something can be better or they may have an opinion about something going on in the work environment sometimes it's easy to ignore or put off your people's ideas or opinions because there's so much going on it's even easier to pass judgment right away yes or no and continue on however AFI 36 dash 26 18 the enlisted force structure states you have a higher calling than just passing judgment you're charged with developing your people to be better leaders and supervisors you should be coaching and mentoring them to one day take on the responsibilities you currently have this extremely important task may require you to demonstrate some of the essential intellectual traits of critical thinking for example exhibiting confidence and reason requires you to encourage your people to think for themselves as well as truly believe that they are capable of doing just that instead of giving them the answer when they come to you give them a question something as simple as how would you do it or what do you think can help them build confidence in their ability to reason in a purposeful way additionally by listening and walking them through the rationality of their ideas regardless of how far outside the box they may be you can help them begin to build the trait of intellectual courage you should want them to be comfortable providing you with ideas or viewpoints that are different from yours you want them to be true to their ideas and opinions even when faced with pressure from their peers courage is what it takes to stand up and speak courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen Winston Churchill listening and thinking about what they have to say isn't just about the actual decision itself it's about increasing their ability to think through their problems on their own this type of development may involve taking time to understand their point of view or just reminding yourself to be fair and withhold judgment until you've had a chance to gather information instead of just saying no failing to create an environment that fosters an inclusive respect for your people's ideas not being fair-minded could have a negative impact on the profession as a whole it could decrease your team's effectiveness and quite possibly stunt their development by not allowing them to work on their own thinking process or develop the confidence they need in their abilities to reason and make decisions it could damage the mutual respect that is the foundation of the profession of arms as members of our profession your people need to be true to their own thinking eager to offer their skills abilities and ideas they need to be cultivated into innovative critical thinkers encouraging this type of behavior enhances your people's effectiveness by helping them become more confident in their decision-making ability in thinking process resulting in airman that are ready and capable to take on the responsibility of defending our nation however this isn't something that's only applicable for your people you should also engage in more purposeful thinking to enhance your effectiveness as well institutional competency embodies airman culture develops self developing yourself by improving your critical thinking skills enhances your ability to model and advance the professional air force culture all airman should embody senior nco effectiveness throughout this chapter you've read how the concepts and principles can help you become a better critical thinker why is being a proficient critical thinker so important to your effectiveness well according to AFI 36 dash 26 18 you should strive to be an experienced operational leader that can merge your people's skills and resources with other teams functions in order to effectively accomplish the mission this isn't an easy responsibility to meet however focusing on your effectiveness as a senior nco by continuing to develop yourself so you can better lead your people is a good place to start developing yourself isn't something that just happens every once in a while it's much more involved than that it should happen every day in order to truly embody airman culture you should assess your strengths and weaknesses on a continuous basis just this act alone requires you to engage in critical thinking when making your assessment you should exhibit intellectual humility being aware of and acknowledging the limits of what you know can help you identify the activities you need to engage in to close the gap additionally you should have courage to recognize some of your conclusions or beliefs about your strengths may be false as a result of feedback you may find there are things you thought you were good at but might not be you should be ready to face and address viewpoints you may disagree with or don't necessarily want to hear for example what if you received feedback that your writing skills needed to be improved maybe some of your people are asking another senior nco to help them with their bullets and packages because they perceive that other senior nco skills are better than yours how would you feel about that if you already know writing is a weakness for you you might not mind if your people go to someone else for assistance however if you think through the implications of that line of thought you should realize one potential consequence of depending on another senior nco's ability doesn't improve because you haven't developed yourself in that area when you don't improve your weaknesses and rely on the strengths of someone else another potential consequence might be that your credibility as a senior nco could be negatively impacted why should your people come to you for writing assistance when they can go to someone else that's better additionally the trust and respect your people have for you might decline as well if they know you're not good at writing and you're not trying to improve they might not trust that when you write their packages or evaluations they'll be good enough to compete with those written by other senior nco's either of these consequences could make you less effective as a senior nco especially in the eyes of your people however if you decide to dedicate time and effort to improve yourself one model the behavior of an airman expected to meet the institutional competency of embodies airman culture each airman should engage in lifelong continuous improvement in order to advance the overall knowledge and experience of the Air Force team this will require you to adopt the habits of a proficient critical thinker maintain an open mind when presented with ideas you might not understand use a healthy dose of skepticism in order to seek out facts and ask the right questions and possess a certain level of natural curiosity in order to find ways in which your people and mission can be better improved your commitment to model these behaviors and habits reinforces character courage and competence attributes of the profession of arms to meet the institutional sub-competency of developing yourself when you or someone else identify a potential weakness you should take it upon yourself to engage in activities to address it doing so may require you to exhibit intellectual perseverance committing yourself to improve even though you might face external obstacles scheduling resources etc or internal obstacles limitations in your own thinking undertaking a process of self-development can enhance your overall effectiveness in meeting the responsibilities the air force expects of you as a senior n c o 3 lead your people more effectively whether you're directly responsible for five airman or a hundred airman they'll look to you for guidance and depend on your experience and knowledge as they figure out the type of airman they want to be they need to know they can rely on you when dealing with problems or issues requiring assistance and be confident the help you provide will be appropriate they can't do this if you don't have the skills you need to help them leading your people may require you to use components of critical thinking reasoning elements such as assumptions to make sure you're not assuming things you shouldn't and implications to consider the consequences of the guidance you provide additionally when providing this guidance you shouldn't allow hindrances like faulty logic cloud your judgment or lead you to jump to wrong conclusions try to be fair-minded in your decisions and solutions considering your people's point of view without referencing your own as it turns out developing yourself in this case improving the quality of your thinking is not just about you it's about being the best you can be so you can lead your people in the most effective way possible using critical thinking as the backbone for self-development can have a positive impact on your effectiveness as a senior nco however ultimately you should improve your ability to think critically in order to ensure your mission is being executed as effectively as possible institutional competency leading people taking care of people evaluates options plans or programs and selects the appropriate actions solutions and resources when confronted with a personnel problem or situation emotional physical spiritual and social mission effectiveness you'll learn later in this course that the air force is committed to maintaining its advantage in the air space and cyberspace domains this requires all airman to be adaptable with an eye toward continuous improvement as a result your leadership will expect you to offer guidance make decisions and provide solutions to ensure your part of the larger air force mission remains effective according to AFI 36 dash 26 18 the enlisted force structure senior nco should help leaders make informed decisions as well as draw upon their knowledge and experience to provide constructive to best meet the challenges facing their organizations one way you can do this is by adopting a strong proven decision-making process you'll be presented with problems and situations varying from simple to most complex that could have an impact on your missions effectiveness you may find yourself dealing with personnel issues CDC or fitness failures disciplinary issues standard violations etc. that at this point in your career you probably don't need to engage in a deep level of thought in order to address using your system one thinking you can address some of these issues quickly based on prior experiences you've had and dealing with them however this doesn't mean you can disregard the components of critical thinking you can still use system one thinking while exhibiting the trait of intellectual empathy putting yourself in your people's shoes in order to better understand their perspective or you can apply the universal intellectual standard of depth to make sure you're taking into account all the factors that may have impacted or contributed to the issue at hand your goal should be to deal with these types of personnel issues quickly while applying sound reasoning in order to get your people refocused on the mission you may also be faced with complex problems that require you to be more reflective in your thinking as a senior nco your span of control may be larger now than it's ever been in your career you're responsible for managing your part of the organization and using resources assigned to you as effectively and efficiently as possible due to this increase in scope and responsibility you may need to engage in your system to thinking in a more deliberate way using tools from decision analysis the quality of the decisions you make or solutions you present to senior leadership for example your senior leadership will depend on you to not only identify potential problems that might impact the mission but also to have solutions ready to fix them you need to be able to show your leadership that the solutions you put on the table are supported by facts and data by establishing decision criteria prioritizing them and selecting and evaluating solutions based on them you can help ensure what you bring to the table is something that is realistically executable additionally you can present the risks associated with the solutions so your leadership can make more informed decisions as a practitioner of the profession of arms your test with the security of our nation and the protection of our citizens this is a huge responsibility that shouldn't be taken lightly therefore you should ensure the decisions you make are founded in logical reasoning free of hindrances that could cause you to be misled or to mislead others and are evaluated using a sound process supported by facts your mission the Air Force mission is too important to fail honing your critical thinking skills reducing the haziness of unstructured thought can help you and your subordinates maintain the level of effectiveness necessary to ensure our profession endures and our mission never fails summary this chapter began with a brief overview of the proficient critical thinker here you learned that characteristics such as being open-minded to investigate new ideas and motivated to reach a sufficient level of understanding on a subject before making judgments can help you develop to the proper attitude a critical thinker should have next you started deeper into critical thinking by covering its components you learned that if you commit yourself to incorporate the universal intellectual standards and reasoning elements into your daily reasoning work to make them habits of the mind you're well on your way to exhibiting the essential intellectual traits that critical thinkers possess then you learned there can be roadblocks to purposeful reasoning these roadblocks or hindrances such as use of language and psychological pitfalls can mislead you and others if not identified and addressed appropriately after that you walked through the decision analysis process which is a system to reflective approach to decision making by using this structured process you can increase your chances of making effective decisions for complex issues backed up by fact based data finally you ended this chapter by making the connection between critical thinking and subordinate senior nco and mission effectiveness critical thinking as a skill isn't something you can read about and automatically put in your leadership toolbox it should be mastered in order to do so you must make adjustments and how you reason through everyday problems and situations just like having that first cup of coffee in the morning or checking your email as soon as you get to work our habits you may have developed over time critical thinking involves habits of the mind that also need to be practiced and refined over time as an airman and senior nco the air force expects you to represent the profession of arms in the most effective way possible you and every other member of our profession are held to a higher standard as a result of the trust bestowed upon us by the American people to meet this high standard you must demonstrate a commitment to continuous improvement and self subordinate development this commitment will require you to think about problems and situations in a more purposeful way it'll challenge you to stop looking through your lens and look through the lens of others both up and down the chain of command this commitment will require you to be a proficient critical thinker a e man of logic for the millions once said thinking is skilled work it is not true that we are naturally endowed with the ability to think clearly and logically without learning how or without practicing people with untrained minds should know more expect to think clearly and logically than people who have never learned and never practiced can expect to find themselves good carpenters golfers or pianists