By thinking reflectively, you put yourself in a position to identify the real problem, or put small problems in perspective so that you don’t waste valuable time and energy. Asking yourself reflective questions improves your awareness and focuses your thinking. It allows you to apply what you already know to the situation at hand.
Learn to Stop and Think
The best way to become better at stopping and thinking is to pick one activity, for example, meetings at work or the times when you review your finances. Choose any situation where you want to think more deeply. As you approach the situation, stop and ask a few reflective questions. (For example: What am I trying to accomplish? Which thinking style would be most helpful here? What is my emotional temperature right now?) Don’t rush your answers; give yourself time to process a thoughtful response.
It is more challenging to stop and think when the stakes are high. When a big decision is on the table or a conflict is in play, feelings often come to the forefront and exert too much influence. One way to prepare for these high-pressure moments is to set aside time to think about a significant or emotional moment that occurred previously in your life. Run instant replay; play that moment in your head like a motion picture. Mentally pause the picture and ask yourself reflective questions. You are not trying to change the past, but instead you want to rehearse and practice new thinking at the right moment. Using a past event is a safe way to practice so that you can prepare to do it successfully when the next big situation arises. You are cueing and rehearsing so that you will be ready.
2. Recognize Assumptions1
If you go to the Ritz Carlton, you’ll get great customer service and if you buy a Honda, it will be a reliable car. These are common assumptions based on the reputation of the companies. Assumptions, statements, or beliefs that you assume to be true operate almost automatically, so you take them for granted without checking the facts. They are useful because they save you time. If you didn’t make assumptions, you would be forever checking every single fact in every single instance. In essence, you would be repeatedly and forever saying, “How do I know that to be true?” Your life would grind to a halt.
The problem with assumptions is that sometimes they are wrong. Not too long ago, leading fashion retailer Gap Inc. decided to launch a new logo to refresh its brand. The old logo had been in place for decades and the company assumed a more contemporary image was needed. Unfortunately, it didn’t check its assumption and the online community condemned the move. After only one week, Gap Inc. recalled the new logo and brought back the old one. When assumptions are wrong, they send you down a dead-end track, and you don’t even know you are heading in the wrong direction, which can be a costly mistake. The ability to recognize assumptions will help you avoid pitfalls, and the best place to start is to understand where assumptions come from.
Personal experience is the most common source of an assumption and it is the most difficult to recognize. We hold beliefs and make assumptions based on our culture, background, and experience. Do you favor health-care reform? Do you know why you hold this belief? We see through the eyes of our own experience, and we don’t know what we don’t know.
Gary White, Glenn Susskind, and Lisa Van Wye prepared for their trip to the Iraq border by reviewing a culture brief that was prepared by the Department of Navy Intelligence. They reviewed proper protocol related to religious and cultural practices in the region and specifically within Amenah’s tribe. They received an additional briefing, courtesy of Blackwater Worldwide, on how to prepare for the trip from the Iraq border to Amman, including how to dress, how to comb their hair, and how to avoid unexpected behaviors. Any assumption based on their American experience might cause a problem in a situation that had no room for error. They were American civilians and this was dangerous terrain for them. Furthermore, they would be dealing with a sick toddler who did not speak English, and they didn’t want to do anything that might unnecessarily upset her. A fear-based tantrum or agitation would drain precious oxygen that she couldn’t afford to waste.
Learn to Recognize Assumptions
Distinguish fact from opinion. That isn’t as easy as it looks. When you hear someone say, “Macs are easier to use than PCs,” do you nod in agreement? Most of us do, but that statement is an opinion that needs to be tested (e.g., by asking for whom and in which applications). Popular opinions are the tricky ones, so see how good you can become at distinguishing facts and opinions as you listen to people, watch the news, and surf the Internet. The ability to distinguish facts from opinions will help you recognize assumptions.
Identify stated versus unstated assumptions. Stated assumptions are explicit and you see them all of the time in project plans and contracts: “Josh can complete the project in two weeks, assuming he works full-time on the project.” By stating the assumption, everyone knows what is required (he won’t be able to work on anything else). Stating assumptions increases clarity, quantifies risk, and is a good way to manage your workload.
Unstated assumptions are where trouble usually begins. In dating relationships, couples sometimes hold very different assumptions about what it means to “be together” or to “take a break.” Romantic comedies bank on this type of misunderstanding and miscommunication. Unstated assumptions run rampant in projects and financial deals gone awry and their consequences can be serious.
Most of the volunteers in “Amenah’s Story,” with the exception of Jonathan Malloch, did not really understand the complexity associated with one very short portion of the trip—the 280 miles between Amman, Jordan, and the Iraq border. They assumed it would be difficult, but they had no idea how difficult. For example, there were numerous checkpoints along the road between Amman and the border, each with long lines of vehicles waiting to pass through the checkpoint. Glenn noted that they hadn’t anticipated this event because it is not something you see in America. They had assumed a more expedient route, and, thankfully, their Blackwater escort was able to bypass the lines. Glenn acknowledged that extra hours going through checkpoints would have made it virtually impossible for them to keep Amenah stable without depleting their medical supplies on the first part of the journey.
The Marines weren’t anticipating near-blizzard conditions as Kevin and the family flew from Haditha to the Iraqi border. It was an extremely unusual event, and military people serving in the region at that time often refer to this January day in 2008 as “the day it snowed in the desert.” Understandably, the Marines had assumed that weather conditions would be within a normal range for the region, and had not planned for delays that extreme weather can cause. Fortunately, this unstated assumption did not derail the project, but weather did come close to shutting down their transportation plans.
It is not easy to recognize unstated assumptions, so we invite you to practice. Can you identify the unstated assumption in this statement? “We need a better recycling program at work. It is important to increase awareness of green initiatives in our company.” Think about what is being implied. The unstated assumption is that a better recycling program will increase awareness. Once you recognize an assumption, you can evaluate it. Maybe a better recycling program will increase awareness, maybe it won’t, or maybe something else would be more effective. If you state the assumption (I assume that a better recycling program will increase awareness of green initiatives at work), you are more likely to evaluate it correctly.
3. Evaluate Information
Before you can jump on an opportunity, you need to evaluate its merits. When you are trying to choose between alternatives, you need to sort through their relative strengths and weaknesses. To make a good choice, you need to evaluate information. The good news is that information is far more accessible than it used to be. The bad news is that our society is now swimming in a sea of information and misinformation. It can feel overwhelming, and to cope effectively, you need a systematic approach.
Before evaluating information, be sure you clarify the situation (stop and think) so that you know what�
��s going on, what you are trying to accomplish, and what type of situation it is. This helps you determine how much and what type of information to gather and evaluate. Try to root out vague and ambiguous language. When you hear phrases like, “I just want to be happy” or “we want a win-win outcome,” you’ve got vague and ambiguous goals. Clarify before you move forward. It takes time to gather information, so know what you need to look for (and what you don’t) before you start.
Is It Relevant and Accurate?
What did Janet Jarrard, Jonathan Malloch, and Mark Lamelza have in common, besides their shared goal to help Amenah? They each needed to clearly describe what success would look like so they could gather and evaluate the right information. For Janet, the keys to success were related to adequate funding and resources (e.g., to pay for airline tickets, to secure housing, to get a female escort, to locate a female interpreter in Nashville). For Jonathan, it was the safety of the civilian medical team and their patient. For Mark Lamelza, it was maintaining security and governance operations in the region without disruption. To evaluate information, you need to have a framework around which you can organize the information. Janet, Jonathan, and Mark each started with criteria that allowed them to efficiently evaluate information related to their part of the operation.
As soon as you have criteria or a “keys for success” checklist in place, you can use two simple questions to evaluate information. The first question centers on the relevance of the information. Sometimes people get off track sorting through irrelevant information, and the common consequence is to feel overwhelmed or confused. As you review information, you will want to ask yourself, over and over again, “Is it relevant based on my keys for success?”
Kevin and his colleagues needed to get tribal permission for Amenah and her mother to travel to America and there were several different groups in Haditha trying to influence the outcome. Rumors floated around and Kevin and his colleagues certainly needed to be aware of political influences, but they couldn’t keep tabs on all of the information that was bubbling up. They needed to determine which information was relevant and which wasn’t, so they focused on the person who would ultimately make the decision, the tribal sheik. They evaluated information related to the al-Jughayfi tribe’s Sheik Said Flayah Othman’s viewpoint, trying to be fully aware of what the sheik knew and what he considered important because he could give the go-ahead. They directed their precious time and attention toward evaluating the information that mattered most.
Now let’s go to the second simple question: Is it accurate? Be on the lookout for information that sounds accurate, but is vague. Notice the difference between “Doctors recommend Zymbia.” and “A survey of the American Medical Association showed that 87 percent of the doctors surveyed recommended Zymbia.” It is easier to evaluate the accuracy of the second example. Watch out for popular opinions (e.g., Macs are easier to use than PCs). They might be accurate, but also be vague regarding for whom and when the conditions are true.
Consider the medical information on Amenah that the extraction planning team was receiving from Iraq. As they prepared for their trip overseas, they would get snippets of information, often through second- and thirdhand sources. The initial reports indicated that she was in reasonably good shape. However, they needed to prepare for arduous travel and they could not confirm the accuracy of the medical information they were receiving. They contacted Dr. Doyle, a pediatric cardiologist at Vanderbilt, several times to go over the information they were receiving, and to collectively work through possible implications. But in the end, they knew that it would be dangerous to take the information they had at face value. Instead, they prepared for medical scenarios that ranged from a relatively healthy child with a hole in her heart to a worst-case scenario. Not accepting information at face value proved to be a wise decision because they were prepared when they met a very sick little girl.
It is also important to look at the source of the information when evaluating accuracy. For example, do you think Wikipedia is a credible source? How do you know? To gauge the credibility of a source, ask questions: Does the source have expertise in this area? Is his or her expertise up to date? Is he or she impartial and trustworthy? It is important to check your sources.
Jonathan Malloch was getting ready to call off the mission because he had received information from several sources that the operation couldn’t be done. He needed to make a decision, but before he did, he called Gary White and asked for his thoughts. He hesitated for the safety of his colleagues uppermost, even though Blackwater had assured him they could help orchestrate the extraction. Gary told him that he needed to listen to the people who had frontline experience. He said, “Jonathan, you need to listen to the people in the trenches, those are the ones who know it more than someone who is four or five hundred miles away sitting behind a desk. I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but it’s just the truth.” Gary and Glenn thought the mission could be accomplished, and Jonathan respected and trusted their input.
Am I Being Persuaded?
Sometimes when you are evaluating information, others will try to actively shape your evaluation. Persuasion is used successfully by leaders, salespeople, marketing specialists, and even our children to influence and motivate. Being aware of persuasion techniques helps you sort out relevant and accurate information from fluff and spin.
Some persuasion techniques are fairly obvious, such as using a respected person as a spokesperson or using emotionally charged language and appealing to human dreams and desires. Others are more subtle, as evidenced in drug company commercials. Some drug commercials leverage the fact that most people can only remember six to eight pieces of information at a time, and information that is presented first and last is remembered best. The commercials present a long list of benefits, followed by risks and side effects, and then benefits again. Research2 has shown that benefits are sometimes presented using words that are easier to understand and are presented at a slower speed than the risks and side effects, and sometimes visual distraction is added to the mix. The end result of this careful orchestration is that people remember the benefits, but have difficulty remembering the risks and side effects. Training (such as learning to ask questions about relevancy and accuracy) helps you counteract persuasion techniques and improves your ability to evaluate information.
Am I Being Objective?
When you are evaluating information, you can also get sidetracked by common cognitive biases. Human brains tend to use heuristics, simple rules that increase efficiency but introduce systematic error. A number of these mind traps are described in Appendix B, “Cognitive Biases: Common Mental Mind Traps,” but here is a flavor of how they work. If you hear that 92 percent of the patients with a certain disease survive an illness, you will view that information more favorably than if you hear that 8 percent of the patients die. The odds are the same, but you evaluate differently based on the way the information is framed.
Even more pervasive is confirmation bias, the tendency to remember and agree with information that is consistent with your beliefs and values and to not seek out or to critically review information that does match your beliefs. On the morning that Pearl Harbor was bombed, the incoming Japanese planes were spotted on radar and reported, but no action was taken. American planes were due in that day and no one really believed that an attack like that was possible. Confirmation bias happens to all of us, and one way to minimize it, and other cognitive biases, is to add a third question: Am I being objective? Through this question, you are pausing to look more carefully at what you are seeing or hearing.
4. Draw Conclusions
Making the right decision can change your life. It might be making that instantaneous connection in a single moment, or choosing from multiple alternatives after thoughtful contemplation, that forever shifts your life’s course. Either way, the sequence is the same; you accurately evaluate the information and draw a conclusion that logically follows from the information. Unfortunately, mistakes often oc
cur at the intersection between evaluating information and drawing conclusions. Let’s look at two common mistakes:
• Jumping to conclusions often occurs when people are under pressure to move quickly or when they are very results driven. Workplaces across America reward people who take action and get results, and the one downside is a nationwide tendency to jump on the first conclusion without fully vetting other possibilities.
Certainly, the Marines in Operation Amenah were both action oriented and under intense time pressure. However, as a part of their training, they have been taught how to quickly develop and evaluate multiple options before drawing a conclusion. In combat situations, jumping to conclusions can have deadly consequences. In independent interviews, Kevin Jarrard, David Bellon, and Mark Lamelza each consistently described how they canvassed options before drawing a conclusion; this skill is ingrained in these men.
• Overgeneralization is also common, and it occurs when you draw a conclusion that goes well beyond the information at hand. Would you invest all of your savings in the stock market because you read a favorable article in the Financial Times? Of course not. Yet, the economic road over the last few years is scattered with the carcasses of organizations that made a practice of drawing conclusions that extended far beyond a base of solid information.
Now You're Thinking!: Change Your Thinking...Revolutionize Your Career...Transform Your Life Page 7
