Much of human thought is accomplished in a lazy or tired mind fashion. Outcomes are realized with a minimum of mental effort.  Decisions and observations are frequently linear extrapolations from prior experiences or commonly held opinions.  This method of thinking has a “what was” foundation. Henry Sidgwick, the noted author, describes thinking as: We think so because other people all think so; or because – after all we do think so; or because we were told so, and think we must think so; or because we once thought so, and think we still think so; or because, having thought so, we think we will think so. Obvious from this description is that fact that critical thinking is not being realized. (Sedgwick, P1)

Critical thinking is different.  It employs a unique, disciplined approach to problem solving. Critical thinkers concentrate on “what ought to be,” and utilize a structured, evaluative process that probes and investigates to the very basic levels of an issue. Moreover, they synthesize many inputs into comprehensive solutions, when rendering decisions. The Critical Thinking Society, a foundation dedicated to the continued development of critical thinking skills, describe this process as: “Critical thinking is the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action. In its exemplary form, it is based on universal intellectual values that transcend subject matter divisions: clarity, accuracy, precision, consistency, relevance, sound evidence, good reasons, depth, breadth, and fairness. (Critical Thinking Community, P2)

The importance of critical thinking cannot be overstressed, particularly for leaders. Leaders must tender decisions that provide optimum outcomes for a large and varied group of stakeholders. Employees, customers, investors and local communities all have expectations that leaders; when creating strategy, instituting policy, or resolving problems, appropriately investigate all relevant issues and viable alternatives before taking action.  Moreover, these stakeholders hold beliefs that leaders must dispatch this decision-making responsibility in a timely fashion. Fortunately, timeliness and quality are not mutually exclusive, both may be simultaneously realized when the disciplines of critical thinking are employed in a decision-making system.

The key observation here is that quality decision-making is a system. Effective leaders understand and embrace this structured approach, rather than view decision-making as a natural right of position; an approach that results in the issuance of authoritative directives.  The systemic approach, which has critical thinking as its engine, requires that an optimal outcome be defined, that present conditions are fully delineated and that proposed actions, decisions, aptly address the matter at hand.  Critical thinking, as defined above, allows leaders to conduct high quality investigations, which prod to the root causes of issues and the viability of alternative measures. This is not to say that past experience is not valued, it is, but only as one input to this structured process.  This is not saying that personal opinion is not valued, it is, but only as another input to the structured process.  Each input into a decision-making system must be critically questioned, probed, investigated and broken down to its basic elements. Similarly, every potential solution must be critically challenged, all “what ifs” must be completely answered and quantified/qualified modeling of alternatives must be accomplished to ensure desired results will be realized from proposed decisions.

Valued and successful leaders are recognized for doing things right the first time. Such leaders demonstrate decision-making skills that make optimal use of resources and build confidence in organizations. These leaders also exhibit a mastery of the critical thinking system.

by Ted Hatch

Foundation for Critical Thinking (Critical Thinking Community)

http://www.criticalthinking.org

Sedgwick, Henry: Personal Communication, January 1940.

Thirty years ago people certainly didn’t know they would want a cell phone or personal computer; they didn’t exist. A reality is the most basic definition of quality still eludes many at the working levels of an organization, as their quality measurements don’t reflect that customers sometimes don’t know what they want. Since nature abhors a vacuum, organizations tend to measure quality in ways that don’t reflect this detail about customers.

If it is the result the customer is evaluating then results should be the key measurements. The key to quality improvement is to have measurements that are both different and fewer. Is it more important that people work long hours or that the job is done well?

To bring this about, a company will want to develop and implement a quality process, not a quality program. An environment that overly stresses inputs over results is shallow and unproductive similar to believing an army dressed up in shiny new uniforms will be effective when the main concern should be with how they will act when the fighting starts.

Quality is a process. Painting a table is a program. Raising children is a process.

Symptoms of an Unsuccessful Quality Process

• The effort is called a program rather than a process.
• The effort is aimed at lower levels of the company.
• People in the organization are cynical when the concept of quality is discussed.
• Management is impatient for results

Errors in the Perception of Quality

These symptoms are often the result of five errors in the perception of what quality is about.

• The workforce is mainly responsible for the company’s quality problems.
• Workers would do good quality but lack the motivation.
• They are not in a state of self-control and cannot produce good work.
• Quality will get top priority if upper management so decrees.
• To change people’s behavior, it is first necessary to change their attitudes.
• Errors in perception can lead to some horrible slogans and posters around a workplace that do nothing to improve quality.

Here are some examples of posters that hold employees accountable for meeting vague goals.

• Do it right the first time.
• Our job is quality.
• Increase sales by ten percent.
• Increase profits
• Safety is job one.

Questions for Consideration in Building a Quality Culture

• How does the company deal with mistakes? Mistakes will come even in a quality environment. With a quality environment, those unintentional mistakes will be recognized and dealt with but more as a personal tragedy, not a capital offense against the organization.
• How many managers has the company had in the last ten years? Planned or unplanned management turnover robs an organization of the continuity it needs at the help to build a healthy culture.
• Does the company have a long-term orientation? Does it develop and communicate plans for the future and work toward a better life within its walls?
• Does the company have a mission statement that is known and lived by all employees?
• Does the mission statement reinforce people feeling that the company is something they should identify with?
• Does the company deserve admiration?
• What is the company doing to drive out fear and to break down barriers between departments?
• Do employees have pride in their work?

(by Paul W. Larson, who teaches in the LMBA program (www.sjcme.edu/mba) and is founder of the Myrdding Group, paul@myrddingroup.com)

Here are some examples that can be found in many organizations today:

    * Increase sales by 10%

    * Reduce the accident rate by 10%

    * In crease market share by 10%

    * Remove the bottom 10% performers

    * Address and explain all budget variances in excessive of 10%

    * Improve profits by 10%

    * Reduce labor costs by 10%

Why is this? What is so magical about the number – 10 percent? 

When examined in this fashion, questions surface like: “Why not 11%”?  Or “Why not 15%? Or 25%” If 10% is arbitrary, in that it has no basis in facts about the patterns in performance, why not go for a bigger number? Wouldn’t that be better?

The problem with using numbers like this in setting goals and evaluating performance is that there is no credible support for their use—remember we’ve established they’re based on wishes.  Moreover, it is an indication that the management group is out of touch with the dynamics underlying performance of the organization.  What it is reflective of is those in management not looking at performance from a systems point of view; reflecting a limited perspective that often leads, not to improvement, but to making things worse.

The problem with an arbitrary number like 10% is just that, it’s arbitrary and not grounded in an understanding of the capability of the system.  A closer examination will often reveal that it is either too high or too low, leading some to have to reach down to achieve it and others to sub-optimize the system to attain it—neither of these produces a positive contribution to the organization.

There is No Substitute for Knowledge

As with any measure or outcome, there will be variation in what is observed—outcomes are not always the same.  Hence getting to a more fundamentally sound goal requires the use of both systems thinking and statistical thinking. It requires learning from the pattern of variation in performance measures and relating this (pattern) to the very processes that produced them.  The information presented in the pattern can be transformed into knowledge of the producing process—like reading the gradients in an X-ray—that will inform appropriate action.   

Statistical thinking informs us that variation can be common to the process or special to the process.  The former situation means the performance of the process can be counted on to fall within a six-sigma wide band centered on the average; thus any goal beyond this band is very unlikely without changes to the process itself.  So setting a goal beyond what is likely without a corresponding strategy for its attainment is unavoidably setting others, and the organization, up for failure.  Not only is the attainment unlikely, the time spent trying just adds unnecessary cost.

If the pattern in the variation indicates a special variation situation, then no amount of goal setting—no amount of effort—will improve performance until the process itself is brought to a common pattern of variation situation.  That is, the goal must be to work on the process so that its performance predictably falls within its six-sigma wide band.  Once this is accomplished then the work of reducing the width of the band and/or causing a favorable shift in the average should be the goals.   

There is nothing arbitrary or whimsical about this approach to managing performance. Challenging individuals and teams for improvement under this type of management process typically stimulates productive value-added problem solving.  It is an approach that leads to significant performance gains—for both individuals and the organization.  Thus, it is far better to demonstrate your acuity in goal-setting than to be arbitrary.

When life becomes a game, then unavoidably we become the pawns—the victims of our own devices.  That is, not only does one structure his/her life in a way that will inhibit the development of his/her humanness, it also impacts the development of others.

I am sure you know several people who tend to define him/her self by his/her role or position in an organization or in society.  In so doing, they associate success in life with attaining superiority within these various roles.  So, with success in life being synonymous with having more—more prestige, more possessions, and more wealth—they identify with their trappings. 

As a result there is a strong tendency to forsake the development of one’s potential as a human being for the acquisition of material things in life.   I am sure you know others who are striving to gain as much as they can that they are losing so much of themselves in the process—they may have a lot of stuff, but no substance.

Each of us has a choice of how to be-in-this-world.  We can choose to focus attention on enhancing the experiences in life through our very existence, or we can choose to place attention on increasing the existence of material things in life.  Focusing on the former does not preclude the latter, but focused attention to the latter inhibits the former—it need not be an either/or proposition. 

The realization of your leadership begins with your understanding of the very person you are and not with what you do, the position you hold, or what you have. The emergence of your leadership requires that you let go of the irrational desire for the material trappings in life and begin to value and influence the unfolding of the (human) potential we all have.  However, in light of our socially constructed beliefs, this takes considerable courage.

By Gregory A. Gull, Ph.D., a recognized thought leader by Executive Excellence Publishing (among the Top 100 Thought Leaders, 2005), is the designer and director of the Leadership MBA program at Saint Joseph’s College of Maine (www.sjcme.edu/mba).

Most of us would rather be with those like us.  Unfortunately, this itch to be with our “own” is a wake up call to make brand new friends from other countries.  One of the hottest and wealthiest artists in the US is Japanese and his name is Murakami.  Murakami’s work sells in the US and Japan, and it is a fantastic blend of Disneyland and the Japanese Edo Period.  Murakami takes from the past, and gives it new meaning in the present (aka re-inscribing).  Murakami transcends but includes the past.  McLuhan noted that we drive into the future looking into the rearview mirror.  Murakami gets it.

Many organizations do not have such sensitive antenna and they definitely do not get it. They come up short in understanding the wider system of the world which is their market.  If you want to gain a deeper sense of the global market, you could study epidemiology but I doubt many captains of industry would entertain this idea—even for a second!  For them, it is the Harvard Business Review, a circle of trusted contacts, and consultants.  In other words, this is exactly what everyone else is doing.  This does not foster creativity, it is dull, unproductive and not a strategy for sustainable success.

The global system also consists of islands. These are spaces within systems which include schools, hospitals, airports, and prisons.  They are places unto themselves, isolated but having specific material needs that must be satisfied.  You can do business with them especially if you understand them.    

Many business books lack the humanist insight.  If you have read one marketing book you have read them all, leaving you with no edge.  Do any of them suggest studying the contemporary art of China to learn Chinese culture in order to grasp the sensibility of China?  I doubt it very much! At best you might be quickly introduced to a Chinese ad (probably hopelessly outdated).  The approach is backwards.  Especially with the advent of information technology, information transfer is placed higher than knowledge in importance and thus inhibits us becoming learners.  This is a luxury no one can afford.

There is no international business.  It’s just business, stupid!  This is an important and subtle point for those seeking to lead cross-culturally.    

By Mark Friedman, president of Third-Culture (http://www.third-culture.com/ ) and a member of The Leadership MBA faculty.

They may be masters of their domain and seem to be in control, but in a world of self-actualizing employees, they are completely out of their element. Companies today are looking to create and dominate emerging opportunities. A self-directed learning organization is a competitive advantage in exploiting those opportunities.

Those organizations that have achieved this state realize they simply can’t be disorganized or inefficient, except to people who don’t understand. They have achieved a true transformation of the governance model of an organization.

The Role of Empowerment in Self-Direction. People don’t produce well in spite of “loose” management practices such as self-direction. They produce well because of them. Self-direction begins with creating space for people. In many companies, creating this space is seen as losing efficiency. When managers truly create this space, though, they may lie awake at night worrying about what someone might be doing at that very moment.

Since most managers cannot live with this anxiety for too long they tend to err on the side of more control, not less. This leads to their tendency to assume the role of controlling managers who hold down the costs of output. This is the polar opposite of the role of empowering managers who use self-direction to focus on increasing the output per unit of cost.

A control-oriented manager might be more effective in a shrinking business but an empowering manager will most likely be more effective in a growing business.

Grow the People and They will Grow the Business. In looking at a successful human activity, a trait that consistently shows up is that success has been steadfastly rooted in the newly discovered capacity of the people involved. People have a natural tendency to expand outward and create networks. In doing so they become part of a larger system. These systems can be stimulated but they do not accept direction.

Systems like these can only be disturbed or provoked and that provocation comes from new information and knowledge. Facts about volume, cost, or quantity do not stir a system to action. The interest and meaning that comes from that information does get things in motion though.

This is why it is so difficult to transfer programs from one organization to another. These are not separate groups, they are separate systems. When organizations attempt to transfer programs, they are not disturbing the system with new information. They are insulting it with direction from the outside.

By Paul Larson, founder and network coordinator of the Myrddin Group LLC in San Antonio (www.myrddingroup.com ) and a member of The Leadership MBA faculty.

The view that leadership is something that one possesses or acquires is both popular and wrong.  Given our predilection for command and control mechanisms in organizations the popularity of this view is no surprise.

Viewing leadership as a possession or position creates two classes of people, because it maintains a separation between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots’.  In practical terms it preserves the right of a select few to direct and control the fate of the many.  Unfortunately this view preserves the position of those in power irrespective of whether they’ve developed the capability to provide the much needed leadership experience.  Clearly advancing this view interferes with the very emergence of leadership.  Could this be why we find many looking to those at the top for this experience only to be disappointed time and time again?

The positional view of leadership also fosters idol worship.  What develops is a dependent or even co-dependent relationship between the leader and the led; a relationship that inhibits the development of those involved.  With a focus on external trappings the needed introspection is inhibited—a categorical imperative for authentic leadership.

Moreover, with idolatry, the leader (assuming the rights of position) seeks control and resists criticism and the led (deferring to the rights of position) seek approval and avoid conflict.  In such a relationship people tend to both cover up mistakes and withhold honestly sharing (their) perspective.  As a result the needed productive feedback for improvement—of both the leader and the led—is not provided.  Consequently, the leader and the led do not give each other the opportunity to use experience for learning—prefiguring the future to be a re-presentation of the past. In other words, the relationship between the leader and the led becomes sterile and (humanly) unproductive—no synergy, no creativity.

Viewing results as the mark and measure of leadership often associates it with the acquisition of tools and skills.  The assumption is that an individual could provide leadership—get the results—if he/she just acquired the right skills and used the right tools.  Accordingly, each year organizations spend large sums of money sending their aspiring young executives (often newly minted MBAs) off to leadership training with the expectation that they will acquire the requisite skills to bring leadership (i.e. results) to the organization.

It is understandable how people—especially the recipients of the training—learn to view these skills as tools to help them move up the corporate hierarchy in their effort to advance their career in pursuit of a leadership position.  Unfortunately, this serves to further the erroneous belief that leadership is the attainment of a position, of a high rung in the hierarchy.  It also perpetuates the misunderstanding that leadership prowess is affirmed by the accomplishment of material results, such as growth in material assets and increases in profit.  Surely just before the ground shook beneath them (e.g. AIG, GM), with some collapsing (e.g. Chrysler, Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns), many thought leadership in these organizations—those at the top with the tools and skills driving results—were just exemplary.

The road to leadership has more to do with interior development than the acquisition of skills and development of techniques—who among us loves to be techniqued!  The rare but nonetheless critical leadership components include: development of self, moral development, social development, emotional development, intellectual/cognitive development, critical thinking, strategic thinking, statistical thinking, and systems thinking.  These are not skills or mere tools but capabilities of the mind.

A person’s progress toward providing the experience of leadership begins when he/she acknowledges that his/her leadership capacity flows from who he/she is not from what he/she has or has done.  The truth is leadership begins with authenticity!  Hence the leadership we seek lies within each of us and it is released when we truly engage in education that facilitates the development of the leadership critical competencies—the development of the leadership mind.

By Gregory A. Gull, Ph.D., a recognized thought leader by Executive Excellence Publishing (among the Top 100 Thought Leaders, 2005 ), is the designer and director of the Leadership MBA program at Saint Joseph’s College of Maine (www.sjcme.edu/mba ).