Thinking: How we do it & can we do better?

1. Thinking:How we do it & can we do better? Professor Karen Carr Cranfield Defence and Security

2. What is Thinking?

3. Detect / Collect Apply / Confirm Direct Recognise / Structure / Understand Identify / Prioritise / Select

4. ‘Target’ examples: • Intent • Person • Solution • Pattern

5. Detect / Collect Apply / Confirm Direct Recognise / Structure / Understand Identify / Prioritise / Select

6. Some Implications • You cannot increase your probability of being right without also increasing your probability of being wrong • To improve performance you must change the characteristics of the ‘processor’ (your thinking) • Understanding thinking and practicing it helps you do this

7. Exercise – Thinking Awareness • You will be presented with some problems to think about • Can you identify what kind of thinking you are using for each problem? • NB These exercises are used to help you think about your thinking – getting the answer right is not so important!

8. Keeping these 6 circles, move one circle only to make an L-shape with 4 circles on each arm of the L.

9. Lessons • ASSUMPTIONS • Importance of exploring the problem definition before the solution • Use of analysis and insight

10. The objects below have something in common: • Which one of the following three objects is the next element in the row? Insight Test 4

11. Lessons • Seeing with different perspectives • ‘Letting go’ • Creativity vs. analysis

12. Intelligence • What kind? • How much? Bird Chimp Human

13. Multiple Intelligences 7 “Frames of Mind”: • Linguistic • Logical-mathematical • Musical • Bodily-kinaesthetic • Visuo-spatial • Interpersonal • Intrapersonal • PLUS?: Naturalistic, Existential Howard Gardner, 1983 7

14. Systematic Conscious Thinking Analysis Reason Deliberate Explicit Effortful Primary Fast Tacit Non-conscious Thinking Intuition Experience Automatic Holistic

15. Cognitive Styles Allinson and Hayes (1996) The Cognitive Style Index

16. IntuitionHenri Poincaré, Foundations of Science, 1908 “I turned my attention to the study of some arithmetical questions apparently without much success ............I went to spend a few days at the seaside, and thought of something else. One morning, walking on the bluff, the idea came to me that the arithmetic transformations of indeterminate ternary quadratic forms were identical to those of non-Euclidean geometry.” (Poincaré, quoted in Hadamard, 1945, pp. 13–14).

17. Exercise Please refer to hand-out We shall not ask for your answers to be attributed

18. Prediction Yellow Group > White Group

19. Anchor Point Effect(Source: Kopelman & Davis, 2004) A series of trials conducted over 13 years revealed an average of High estimates 45%> Low Estimates.

20. Would you like to buy? Iyengar and Lepper

21. 10 x more likely to buy

22. Framing Effect   “75% pass” “25% fail” “Problems if you don’t” “No problems if you do” Allow natural death Do not resuscitate Same information – presented differently You can both mislead and be misled

23. Metaphors as Framing “Crime is a beast” • Enforcement “Crime is a virus” • Systemic reform Initial metaphor not remembered

24. Storytelling “Strategic leaders create a drama that resonates with members” (Boal et al. p.421) • Leader role in creating meaning, shaping reality, developing a sense of self in others, developing and distributing ideas, encouraging behaviours, stimulating connectivity, developing expectations. • Use of ‘stories’ to do this. BOAL, K.B. & SCHULZ, P.L. (2007), ‘Storytelling, time and evolution: The role of strategic leadership in complex adaptive systems’The Leadership Quarterly, 19, 411-428.

25. Heuristics and Biases • ‘Hard-wired’ thinking that we are born with • This type of thinking evolved to help us function efficiently in our natural environment • It biases us to respond quickly, be social, keep mental resources free for the unexpected (See Annexes in JDN 3/11)

27. Thinking and Emotion • Brain biased by emotions • Advantageous for social and interpersonal behaviour • Decision making depends on emotions (Antonio Damasio) http://faculty.txwes.edu/mskerr/files/3304_ch2.htm

28. “Intuition”: Good or Bad?

29. Non-Conscious Intelligence • Short-cuts, rules of thumb, quick solutions that have evolved in context - “hard-wired” • Creativity, learning, dealing with complexity and ambiguity, making use of experience – slow to build, fast to extract

30. Developing Creativity • Preparation • Incubation • Illumination • Verification

31. Lots of stimulation - connections Do the unusual – swap hands, change environment, speak to different types of people Gestures (enact metaphors) Analogy –stretch it Role play Individual thinking and pairs Immersion http://www.scubadivingpackages.net/tag/packages/

32. Incubation • Do something else • Sleep • Go for a walk • Don’t think

33. Illumination • Early rise • Deadline • Ritual, signal • Bin the good ideas (don’t get attached)

34. Implement and verify • Rational sifting • Watch out for heuristics • Context effects

35. What we have learned • Non-conscious intelligence • Good for creativity • Good for complexity • Good for collating experience and using it fast • Prone to heuristics and bias

36. Ways of Thinking Two fundamental functions: • DIVERGENT: • Constructing, expanding, exploring • CONVERGENT: • Deconstructing, reducing, selecting • Consciously OR non-consciously

37. The grass is wet……therefore…… • The lights are out….therefore…. • The car is too expensive…..therefore…. • The telephone is ringing….therefore….

38. Exercise From the statement below, what deductions can you converge upon – eliminate all assumptions, extract the basic fact(s). You can take the statement to be true as given(!). “A red car was travelling above the speed limit on a country road.”

39. Applied Knowledge? Assumptions Which limit, which road, where was the car travelling? Weather, time of day (not expect speeding on snow?) Travelling (on its own, on a lorry, etc) Images Type of car Traffic (associations with country?) Occupants? (Associations with red car and speeding)

40. Lessons • ASSUMPTIONS • Inferences • Implicit sense-making • Effects of experience and knowledge

41. Some other creativity techniques • Embodied metaphors (paths, boxes) • Lateral thinking (e.g. concept fan, random word) • Visualisation (thought experiments) • Avoid obstacles: • “Not my area” • Need for closure, control • Fear of failure • Being judgemental

42. Asymmetry in creative thinking Value ‘lateral move’ - not finding solution De Bono

43. Concept Fan “Put object on ceiling” Model aircraft Sticky ceiling Sticky object Throw Piggy back on another object Spikey Self propel Rope Raise me off the ground Object to ceiling Stick Lengthen arm Fix object to ceiling Lower ceiling

44. Thinking: Ways and Means DIVERGENT WAYS Creative thinking Intuitive development Analogy Inductive reasoning Hypothesis generation Lateral thinking Conscious brain Non-conscious brain Intuitive decision making Insight “Thin slicing” Expert judgement Analysis Deduction “Slow thinking” CONVERGENT WAYS

45. A ‘convergent thinker’ sees a limited, predetermined number of options. By contrast, a ‘divergent thinke’ris always looking for more options. Many of us get stuck in convergent thinking and, as a result, don’t see the many possibilities available to us.

46. Clear Analytical Thinking • Practice makes perfect • Techniques can be mastered • Few people have studied logic

47. How to ask a question • Why might Jane Smith have omitted to do a risk assessment? • She forgot • She was under time pressure • She thought it was unimportant Divergent becomes convergent – which type of thinking do you want?

48. Ontology Problem Bowl Eggs Recipe Flour Oven Milk Whisk

49. Ontology Problem Subordinate? Independent? Training Equipment Information Personnel Infrastructure Which common properties? Organisation Doctrine Logistics

50. Defence Security