As a result of apartment renovation and moving upstairs, a number of my first floor and new second floor neighbors have been in my apartment. They wanted to see my new digs. One of the most striking features of their perusal is a seemingly profound lack of curiosity and very little ability to “notice.” “You have a beautiful apartment,” most respond. But what’s intriguing is what they don’t see unless I call attention to it. And these are not ill-educated people.
I have nearly 45 photos, sculptures, water colors, porcelains and artifacts hanging on the walls—all hung by a professional. One of the most gorgeous is an authentic Navajo rug, along with a recent painting of Indian tribeswomen. Not a single person mentioned one unique, beautiful, artistic hanging, a branch of spruce, covered with dripped copper. I have an extensive library, approximately 1500 volumes, yet no one gave it more than a glance. Not a single question was asked about any of the artifacts.
Even more sad than not noticing my personal context is the seeming lack of awareness of how context actually impacts each of as individuals and as members of a work team. So in the weeks following their visit to my apartment there was no sense they knew me any better, no attempt to get to know me better and no inherent projections of how I would respond to their conversations. The kind of familiarity information that can surface implicitly and explicitly in conversations was completely absent. And I’ve been watching and looking for that knowledge. But it was just never there in any of the dozen neighbor’s conversations. The underlying attitude of curiosity was absent—and so they remained in their small worlds. Expressing interest—but never following through on it. Perhaps, not recognizing what they were looking at or knowing the value of asking questions.
What is critical thinking?
Critical thinking, as I use the term, is the business of identifying the complications of relevant contexts and communication, and unpacking them thoughtfully. That includes physical contexts like those I describe in the above paragraphs. Of course, it also includes all the conversation and non-conversational talk, as well as the supportive physicality seen and heard in posture. So too, movement, non-verbal, language choice, values, arguments, persuasion, written materials, and linguistic forms like small talk, narrative, questioning. Including context artifacts like book choice, pictures, paintings and architecture.
To a very high degree, success in business—and life—is tied to one’s critical thinking skills in relevant, significant situations. One of the most illuminating experiences of critical thinking about “ordinary” talk took place at one of my last executive coaching jobs. I was working with the CEO of a major East Coast mortgage firm and had finished interviewing about twenty of his colleagues in preparation for coaching. I always got to their offices much earlier than any appointment, spending time with various execs and managers in “small talk.” Uniquely, the firm insisted on paying me on an hourly basis, rather than on a project basis. I had noticed the corporate attorney, who regularly received my billings, was unhappy with my fee. Late in the process, I happened to stop by his office and after he asked me how the “project” was going, he expressed frustration with my use of time—and the large bills he was paying just for “small talk.”
I commented that small talk was a lot more than small talk. It gave me all kinds of information about a person, the organization and context in which the CEO was responsible. “What do you mean?” he asked. I did some quick thinking and said, “Well, let me tell you what your small talk has revealed.” I proceeded to discuss his analytical and decisioning style, his values and orientation to work, the quality of his knowledge base, his relationships with employees and family, his emotional frustration with me and all that I could fit into 10 minutes. I noticed he was getting red-faced. So, I stopped my unusual lecture and said something like “what’s up?” He asked, with a bit of tension, “how did you get that information?” And I responded, “small talk.”
By the time I got to the CEO later in the day, it was obvious that his lawyer had gotten to him. The CEO was laughing, and suggested I stop by the attorney’s office later that day. The attorney, a bit shame-faced, wanted to know how he could learn to understand small talk. “It’s proprietary, and comes with a large fee,” I commented. He never took me on, but the relationship with him changed drastically, and my weekly billing was paid on time in the future.
That was a rare bit of feedback, something I would never recommend to another coach, but I was a bit pissed and realized I had nothing to lose. An in-house staff person could get fired for that behavior. But I was getting ready to retire and had other agendas.
However, most observant people pick up on some of that information without my extensive background in rhetorical criticism and counseling psych. THEY HAVE BECOME BETTER NOTICERS. Any smart college grad can run two tracks at a time—talking and noticing. It’s what a business person—or sales person—does when they are talking and then makes some quick adjustments based on the verbal and non-verbal responses of the other. But critical thinking, such as my small talk analysis, requires four key attitudes—call them qualities, if you will.
Four qualities of the critical thinker
Not all of us are born equal in our critical thinking. Some of us are better than others. And some of us grow up around and work with smart people. But even when examining a rich and suggestive situation, some will fail to appreciate its nuances. A gifted critical thinker can build provocative insights out of the humblest of situations. And then confirm their validity in later contexts. Two of the best places to see this done is in the six seasons of White Collar or in any old Sherlock Holmes episodes, now showing on Amazon Prime. If you focus on the leads’ insights, you can see the critical thinking process at work. The writers are geniuses with their scripts.
But I’m also suggesting you watch White Collar or Sherlock Holmes for a second reason. Critical thinkers are actually very good detectives. And you can see and hear the detective work of both Neal Caffrey (Matt Bomer) and Peter Burke (Tim DeKay) or Sherlock Holmes (Benedict Cumberbatch).
The good critical thinker is skeptical. You just don’t take life at face value. It’s always important to take life on your own terms. Certainly not on the terms of the context or of the other participants. Though the analytical thinker should be participating in the business, they are also running on a second track: motive. They are always watching for motives that surface in their contexts. But—and this is very important—they don’t let their skepticism become cynicism.
The skeptic takes a second look at the situation, because they realize there is always more to the story than what meets the eye. The cynic, on the other hand, “is a skeptic gone sour, one who refuses to take even a first look because of past disappointments.”
Rod Hart and his colleagues point out that there are two underlying presuppositions that guide their critical thinking: that all influencers (both context and people) deny they are attempting to influence, and (2) all really good influencers deny itself completely. I regularly shop at two grocery stores: Cub, the warehouse store which doesn’t admit that placing certain products is an attempt to persuade you to buy—but you’d have to be dumb and numb not to notice it’s obviousness, and Kowalski’s, which is so good at creating influencing context that you miss their strategies unless you walk in the store thinking about their expertise.
People are sometimes obvious in their attempts to take control and sometimes not at all obvious. So when someone tells us that “these are the facts” of the situation, the critical thinker is as asking himself what are the other facts and priorities? And what’s missing in this conversation?
The skeptic is aware, also, that storytelling—narratives and questions—are often used to throw the critic off the scent. Mere stories, which journalists, politicians and business execs use regularly, are often attempts to sell ideas. Cocktail parties and lunches in business are superb places for selling ideas—because we drop our guards in such contexts. As Rod Hart puts it, “the non-persuader is the best persuader and the non-appeal the best appeal.”
The good critical thinker is discerning. You don’t need to be a genius to be discerning. They take time to judge situations well. They take things apart, separate them to figure out what’s going on. The discerning person is very good at collecting and storing information. But part of discernment is deciding which people or situations need your insight. Not every person or context is worth the time to assess and evaluate. It’s wise to pay attention to situations or people that could impact you significantly as well as to situations that offer the potential for growth and recognition.
In my earlier narrative I commented about the role of small talk. The discerning person collects relevant small talk. He separates it per individual, but he also puts the small talk of the entire group together. Both are sources of insight, values, motives and priorities. Cultures usually have a profound impact on decisioning. So, picking up on the individual, their narratives, experiences and insights—and then putting them into a whole—can provide extensive knowledge of what’s going on in a team and an organization. And then make possible your own decisioning and influencing strategies.
The good critical thinker is imaginative. Almost anyone can pick up information. While the way to real smarts leads through knowledge, there is no path to real smarts and wisdom from information. Imagination, curiosity, creativity—and intelligence, like all behaviors, are learned. You start out with baby steps and keep taking more and more steps until you have a grasp on the behavior. There are plenty of creatives in business, so take every opportunity to work with them. Observe them, use them, get a firm grasp on their behaviors, and then try them on bit by bit. Develop a network of imaginative people so you can run your ideas by them. Just narrow your questioning to small bits and you won’t have to reveal the whole ball of wax when you’re learning.
Imaginative thinking, however, goes beyond merely analyzing or translating messages and contexts. The imaginative critic will explain and think through the implications of his analysis. In other words, after they have filed away relevant analysis there are two more critical steps: “this means that. . . “and “so I’m going to . . . in order to take advantage of the situation.”
The good critical thinker is courageous. Or, I can flip the statement and say that the good critical thinker is not timid. The people who succeed in their critical thinking are risk-takers and--gamblers. They analyze data, pull it together and don’t shrink from judgment. They’re willing to let the chips fall when necessary. And front and center is a sophisticated business and life understanding that powerful people use in their talk and rhetoric to feather their own nest and deny others their rights.
Although I typically tend to be a caring, supportive individual who almost gullibly trusts people, I never let my understanding that not everyone is worthy of trust or caring disappear from my reality perspective. I’m aware also that there always people who want to take more power and limit my/your power. Critical thinking can be used to manage those occasional attempts. Undergirding all this is my very strong notion that everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. And that everything we see is a perspective, not the truth. That goes for the political, educational, religious, economic and cultural. As a young church minister—long before I got into business—I learned that the common wisdom—the received wisdom—is just as often wrong as right. And that often, an authentic, liberated person rejects the common wisdom, for the purpose of creating a healthier, just life and community. That was true even when we lived in Boulder, Colorado, one of the smartest cities in America.
In the final analysis, as a critical thinker, I’m looking for a number of things. Trends and changes in the thinking of others, especially the thinking and actions of leaders and managers. I always want to identify and get further insights into the general understandings of others. “What do they know and what not know? How deep is their understanding of the major and important issues? What implicit knowledge, that needs to be made explicit, is part of this team processes and agendas? What’s the bottom line for these individuals and the organization?” To the degree personally possible, I also ask these same questions of myself. But not obvious in this summary is that I do critical thinking to figure out what the situation is really asking for and how I can achieve my own objectives.
(See especially: Hart, Daughton and LaValley, Modern Rhetorical Criticism, 4th edition, 2018, pp 26-35)