Critical thinking is about asking better questions

Summary: Critical thinking is the ability to analyze and break down problems effectively to make decisions or find solutions. At the heart of critical thinking is the ability to formulate insightful, different, and effective questions.

To ask effective questions, start by holding onto your hypotheses flexibly. Be willing to fundamentally reconsider your initial conclusions — and do so without getting defensive. Second, listen more than you talk through active listening. Third, use open-ended questions and avoid yes or no questions. Fourth, consider counter-visualization to avoid falling into groupthink. Fifth, take the time to solve a problem, instead of making decisions unnecessarily quickly. Finally, ask quality questions, even difficult ones, and follow the story.

 

Critical thinking is the ability to analyze and break down problems effectively to make decisions or find solutions
Critical thinking is the ability to analyze and break down problems effectively to make decisions or find solutions

Are you solving a new and difficult problem at work? Have you just been promoted and trying to both understand your new role and bring a new perspective? Or are you new to the workforce and looking to contribute meaningfully alongside your more experienced colleagues? If so, critical thinking — the ability to effectively analyze and break down a problem to make a decision or find a solution — will be core to your success. And at the heart of critical thinking is the ability to formulate insightful, different, and effective questions.

Consider this: Clayton M. Christensen is perhaps the greatest managerial thinker of the past 30 years. His book “How You’ll Measure Your Life” is a Harvard Business Review bestseller and one of the five best articles on personal development I’ve read, and his theories about innovation and disruption have transformed business. But my most memorable encounter with Christensen was a talk at Harvard Business School (HBS), where he discussed his own approach to his time as an MBA student decades ago.

He said HBS is where he learns to ask great questions. Impressed by his classmates, he would bring a notebook to class and write down in the notebook the most insightful questions other students had asked. Then he would go home and think about how and why the students were asking those questions. Always curious, Christensen laid the foundation for his future insights by first studying the process by which people ask their best questions.

Think about how and why students asked these questions in class and find out
Think about how and why students asked these questions in class and find out

You can approach curiosity seriously — and use that process to get a better perspective on a new situation or solve some of your most difficult problems. Here are some ways to improve your ability to ask questions on even the most difficult topics:

Keep your hypotheses flexible.

As a former analyst at McKinsey & Company, one of the first things I learned was “hypothetical thinking.” Based on the scientific method, this process allows McKinsey’s teams to solve problems quickly and efficiently. It involves formulating an early answer to a problem and then digging into the data to find ways to improve and refine it. However, the core of this approach is to keep your hypothesis flexible. If you’re too attached to your initial answer, you may refuse to walk away with it, no matter where the data leads. But if you treat your own answer as replaceable, keeping your assumptions flexible, you’ll be willing to completely abandon it if the situation calls for it.

In critical thinking exercises, we often quickly fall for intuitive and crowd-made “answers” or hypotheses — especially in groups — and we ask questions that seek to prove rather than disprove our thoughts. However, important questions can force us to fundamentally reconsider our initial conclusions, and we must be willing to do so freely without a defensive attitude.

Listen more than you talk.

This may sound simple, but the key to good questions is active listening. Active listening is the process of understanding what the other person is saying — both explicitly and implicitly — while also showing that you are connecting with the speaker and caring. Successful active listening allows you to fully grasp an argument, making it easy to question its logic.

Active listening also helps you overwhelm your brain’s “prediction engine” to ask better questions. Our brains tend to produce effective, intuitive answers, but that can limit your perspective. Deep listening is a way to overcome the limitations of that function and open us up to more answers. It also allows you to demonstrate to your partner that you care about what they’re saying and take their point of view seriously, which helps them engage in conversation and be more open to your perspective.

Use open-ended questions.

When you start asking, avoid asking yes or no questions. Instead, ask questions that force respondents to be open and articulate. Instead of asking, “Is this business stable?” asking, “If this business is unstable, how or why will it be?” Instead of asking someone, “Are you happy in your job?” ask, “What do you love about your job and what could be better?” or “Talk to me about a time when you found joy at work and a time when you felt unmotivated.” Then watch the conversation that comes up with more questions. Open-ended questions encourage critical thinking in a group, suggest an individual broaden their perspective, and give everyone time to actively solve problems.

Consider the counter-intuitive.

When we solve problems, we often quickly fall into the collective mindset: The team walks the same path too fast, and instead of periodically making sure they’re on the right track, they keep getting further and further — even if it’s the wrong path. Be the one who asks counterintuitive questions, questions that challenge the group’s conventional thinking and revisit the principles first. There is a chance that your question may be unfounded and the team is moving in the right direction. And, yes, it’s likely that your colleagues who are interested in moving quickly will feel uncomfortable. But every team is obliged to consider counter-visualization and needs someone who is not afraid to ask such questions, in case you need to change direction.

Think about one problem all the time.

In today’s fast-booming world, we try to make decisions too quickly. But the best questions are usually formulated after deliberation and after a good night’s sleep. Sleep can actually help your brain see problems more clearly. And a deliberative process often leads to better conclusions. Research has also shown that when we make hasty decisions, we often regret them even when they were ultimately supposed to be right.

The best questions are usually formulated after deliberation and after a good night’s sleep

What I liked about Christensen’s approach to learning from his classmates’ questions was that instead of dissecting them right then, he would take them home and carefully rethink them in his head. I have a boss who refers to this as “gnawing at a problem.” Just as a delicious stew takes time to simmer, a conclusion or question that needs careful thought out may need space. Resist unnecessary urgency. Map a process that allows you to solve problems in a few days or so. Learn about it initially, then reflect on what you’ve learned and what you should ask. The questions you ask in quiet reflection can be more powerful than those asked early in the beginning.

Ask the next tough questions.

It can be easy to put our brains in control of the journey, accept easy answers, or give in to social pressures that cause us to avoid asking others. But these kinds of insightful questions that allow critical thinking are often delivered in sequences of questions that dig into things. Every parent is familiar with how their child (who is by nature most curious) will ask “why” dozens of times when given an answer. And we parents often find ourselves stuck or reconsidering our own answers at the end of the process of asking this question.

While we don’t need to ask as many “whys” to get to the heart of critical thinking, we should ask deep, deliberate, even hard, questions. It requires energy to listen deeply and map out what’s next, and it’s often the only way to gain a deeper understanding of an important topic.

Critical thinking is at the heart of solving complex problems in new and exciting ways. Building this important skill will help you as you take on new roles, develop yourself within your organization, or simply face a conundrum. Learn to formulate and ask questions, rather than simply answering them.

How to train critical thinking? Let us know your opinion and comment section via email phung.metta@metta.com.vn so we can support and help your business.

Source: https://hbr.org/2022/04/critical-thinking-is-about-asking-better-questions

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