Think Fast! Turn information overload & thousands of social connections into increased productivity

Description: With over 145 million blogs and millions of Twitter and Facebook users online each day, it’s hard for your employees to ignore the vast pools of information, comments, and networking found on social media sites. Diverse communities and answers to complex questions are available instantaneously. Employees can publish new research, hear about and solve a customer problem, and be active in forums and trendsetting industry conversations – all in a morning! But there are potential dangers and missteps at every turn. Information can be leaked; competitive information shared unknowingly; brands tarnished; and relationships damaged. Information flies at us fast and furiously and this requires everyone to evaluate real-time information before putting it to use and to “think before you post.” Are your employees thinking critically about the sites they access, comments they post, and sources they trust?

Join Breanne Potter from Pearson’s Talent Assessment group to learn how the need for critical thinking and good judgment is greater than ever before. See examples of critical thinking in action and learn techniques for evaluating information. Everyone who attends will receive a copy of Critical Thinking Means Business, Pearson’s guide to improving your thinking at work using the RED model.

What you will learn:

• Learn about the most popular social media platforms and techniques for evaluating information.
• Examine ways in which social media can help your organization recruit & develop top talent and increase productivity.
• Learn how to train your employees to think critically about the source, content, and relevance of social media posts.
• Develop activities to help model critical thinking while using social media through the RED Model of Critical Thinking

Who is Breanne Potter?:

As the Solution Architect for Pearson TalentLens, Breanne Potter works with Pearson’s customers to design organizational development solutions including assessments, training, certification, and on-demand eLearning.  Breanne’s professional and educational background provides her with experience in areas such as training, development, assessments, selection, recruiting, and marketing.  She is also heavily involved with Pearson TalentLens’ Social Media activities including Twitter, LinkedIn, ThinkWatson.com blog, and Facebook. Breanne holds a B.A. in Psychology from the University of Kansas and a M. A. in Industrial/Organizational Psychology from the University of Missouri- St. Louis. Prior to joining Pearson, Breanne served as a Regional Consultant at CPP, Inc.

Do you have questions about how to think critically about the use of social media? Add your questions in the comments section and I will address them in the webinar. Or connect with Breanne on Twitter and LinkedIn to ask your critical thinking and social media questions.

To register for the free webinar, click here.

I believe there are 6 characteristics needed to be a great critical thinker. Sure there may be more but together these are powerful. Do you have them?

1. Curiosity. Allow yourself to be curious. Great critical thinkers tune into their desire to continue learning and understanding how things work. Be inquisitive about anything and ask questions others may have but don’t ask.

2. Humility. Great critical thinkers understand that their ideas may not be the best and that they do not know everything. I once had a fortune cookie that told me, “knowledge comes from being humble” – that once you accept that you don’t know everything you’re more likely to continue your search for answers.

3. Ability to research. Don’t have an answer? Aren’t satisfied with an answer? Does something sound a little off? The ability to research things and bring in multiple resources will unveil a lot.

4. Active Listening. Don’t just hear what others have to say, engage in conversation.

5. Objectivity. Great critical thinkers have the ability to remain objective. They understand the goal, stay focused and don’t let their emotions (or others’) cloud their judgment.

6. Creativity. Allow yourself to be creative. Brainstorming without judgment can spark amazing ideas. Thinking outside the box may create a solution. Sometimes denying ourselves this freedom holds us back more than we’d like to think.

You may critically think and not possess one or more of these powerhouse characteristics. You may even be a good critical thinker and not possess some of these. Or you may value other characteristics and skill sets more. But take a moment and recognize the benefits these offer. Now think of the people you believe to be great critical thinkers. Do they have these characteristics? My guess is yes.  Evaluate yourself – do you have these powerhouse characteristics?

“In fact, a recent study by the Society of Human Resource Management and The Conference Board rated critical thinking and problem solving as the number one skill of increasing importance over the next five years.

And, experts say critical thinking has never been more vital.”

The American Management Association’s Ed Reilly seems to support the message being delivered by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills and the need to teach the 3 R’s as well as the 4 C’s (Critical Thinking, Communication, Collaboration, and Creativity).

“Today’s students are developing the skills that they’ll carry with them for the rest of their lives. Learning leadership and critical thinking skills, along with the traditional skills people learn in school, is a very important tool in terms of building the workforce of tomorrow.”

With the increased need for skilled critical thinkers, it is no surprise many companies are looking for a way to assess critical thinking skills of job applicants.  MDA Consulting, a leadership development firm has been using the Watson-Glaser II Critical Thinking Assessment to evaluate the critical thinking skills of candidates.  MDA’s Scott Nelson said,

“As we are assessing hundreds of candidates every month, we think about using [the Watson Glaser II] as a way to get a keen understanding of an individual’s critical thinking skills. We think the Watson Glaser II is a gold standard. It’s very research based. And it’s very short and easy to use.”

Similarly, Andrea Schilling, Global Director of Human Resources at Varde, uses the Watson-Glaser II to evaluate every employee globally and has attributed their lower turnover rate to understanding a candidate’s critical thinking skills before offering a position.

To learn more about critical thinking, how to assess it, how to train it, and why it’s important, download the free Critical Thinking Means Business White Paper from ThinkWatson.

Do you W.A.I.T in meetings? This guy does!

I keep coming back to a tweet I read month ago.  It said we should “W.A.I.T.” and ask ourselves, “why am I talking?” Some of us may interpret this as another way to say “think before you speak” or “engage your brain before you engage your mouth” but I think it’s taking it one step further.

W.A.I.T first asks you to hold off on speaking until you’ve thought about things but it also asks you a valuable question: why am I talking? What is your goal? In many settings there are two solid goals: you want a call to action and/or you want people to agree with you.

Meeting settings are arguably one of the most important places to effectively communicate. In reality, often times meetings are chaotic with ideas being thrown around, people whispering to their neighbors, people interrupting one another and everyone feeling an urgency to participate. The next time you’re in a meeting W.A.I.T. Genuinely listen and interpret what’s going on. Less is more so think about the most important point you want to make and jot down some notes. In order to make your point more effective offer three supporting ideas.

For example:

My family is discussing how to spend their Saturday afternoon. After listening for a few minutes, I want to suggest we go swimming. My notes might look something like this:

Swimming

1. It’s convenient – the pool is in the backyard.
2. It’s sunny & hot outside.
3. We love to spend time outside, especially in the pool.

As ideas are being thrown on the table and people are underwhelmed and overwhelmed at the same time I calmly present my suggestion and my three supporting ideas. Imagine the response. When you W.A.I.T. you give yourself the opportunity to think about and prepare what you want to say before you engage in conversation & decision-making. You also give others a more completed idea to jump start a new conversation.

It is no surprise that research has established a positive correlation between critical thinking and creativity (between .25 and .30) and the combination of critical thinking and creative thinking is considered “good thinking.”

However, it is possible to have stronger skills in one style of thinking over another.  So, if you could only choose one, which would you choose?  Would you rather be known as a critical thinker or a creative thinker?  Better yet, if you had to hire a new employee, which would you choose:

• The Critical Thinker who scores extremely well in critical thinking assessments, but lacks the creativity to generate new ideas and productively brainstorm, or
• The Creative Thinker who is know for her originality and flexibility, but lacks the ability to reason and analyze which ideas will be successful/well-received.

Which do you feel would be easier to train?  Which skill is more important for overall success?

Which employee would you hire?

The way you portray yourself on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Blog posts will inevitably become your personal and professional brand. Everything you do online is searchable and is permanent.  In addition, perception is reality.  You may have 2,000 tweets, but if your future employer sees one inappropriate joke or controversial statement, you may lose that opportunity.  That one statement may be the only thing someone remembers and colors their perception of you forever.  Even if you believe you have separated your personal life from your professional life online, it is important to remember that nothing is truly separate.  If it can be found online, it is now part of your personal brand.

Before you make a branding blunder in social media, consider following the RED Model of Critical Thinking:

Recognize Assumptions:

• Not everyone has your same sense of humor, openness to sharing, political/religious views, or interest in bacon.
• Just because you do not have any coworkers, clients, or customers on your Facebook account does not mean the information is private.
• Remember that your planned career path now could change.  You can be controversial now if you’re a professional blogger, but some day you may have to work in a corporate environment and those high traffic posts may come back to haunt you.
• Before you complain about a company online, remember that just because they aren’t your employer or customer now, they may be in the future.

Evaluate Arguments:

• Just as you would avoid an emotional topic at work, avoid it online if that is not part of your intended personal brand.
• When engaged in a debate online, take 3 minutes to think before you respond.  You will phrase your ideas more clearly and avoid overreacting.
• Get a second opinion.  Check with a trusted colleague, mentor or friend to see if they think the content is appropriate.

Draw Conclusions:

• A great rule of thumb is before you post anything, imagine how you would feel reading it to your mother, father, sister, brother, grandma, grandpa, pastor/priest, boss, coworkers, customers, clients, competitors, best friend, future boss, and children.  If it still feels appropriate, then post it.
• Alternatively, think of your posts as serious as a tattoo.  They are both permanent.

Have you made any personal brand blunders in social media?  How did you learn from the mistake?

A meeting cannot stand-alone. There are those who prepare before the meeting and those that reflect on the meeting after the fact. Both of the components are important.

Preparing is essential, even if you aren’t leading the meeting. Anyone attending a meeting can prepare for a meeting using the Critical Thinking RED Model.

Recognize assumptions. You should review what the meeting is about and take a few moments to review an agenda when you can. Acknowledge what your assumptions are before walking into the meeting. Recognizing what assumptions you have walking into the meeting may make it easier to try and set them aside.

Evaluate arguments. Prior to the meeting, make a few notes about the points you want to bring up. Remember you use multiple resources to support your points. Preparing these notes before the meeting will allow you to best support your point but may also allow you to remain objective. Remain objective and don’t allow your emotions to form these points.

Draw conclusions. You should form an objective for the meeting.

The meeting is the meat of this equation. Incorporating the RED Model & critical thinking techniques into a meeting is a longer conversation to have but remember:

You may want to assign someone as the Devil’s Advocate

Ask the rights questions.

Avoid making rash decisions.

Emotions do affect critical thinking.

After the meeting you should take a few minutes to reflect. Again, you can use the RED Model to do so.

Recognize assumptions. Reflect on the meeting overall. Did the meeting remain objective? Do you stick to the purpose? Were people sharing opinions or was everyone able to rely on facts?

Evaluate arguments. Reflect on what was being said. Were you persuaded? Did the meeting suffer from groupthink? Did everyone agree with the boss out of “respect.” Did people get emotional? Who became emotional? Why do you think they became emotional?

Draw conclusions. Reflect on the decisions made or the game plan. How did you weigh the data? Did you hold all data to the same criteria? Did you bring in multiple resources?

The benefit of having a bookend meeting – that is a meeting designated with time to prepare and time to productively reflect – is that you get the most out of the meeting. Preparing for the meeting allows you to actively participate, understand what your personal objectives for attending are and allows you to think about how to meet them. Reflecting after the meeting gives you an idea of how effective the meeting was. This will better prepare you for future meetings but will also give you a sense of what additional legwork needs to be done before the next meeting and to accomplish your goals.

I once heard about a shock experiment on a group of monkeys that made me think about our obedience to authority and classical conditioning.  Several monkeys were held together in a cage, and at the end of the cage there was a ladder with a treat at the top.  The floor was also rigged with wires so the experimenters could deliver an electric shock to the monkeys standing on the floor of the cage.  Each time one monkey would climb the ladder, the rest of the monkeys standing on the floor would receive a shock.

After a few shocks, the monkeys learned that the shocks were only delivered when a fellow monkey started climbing the ladder. Eventually, when one monkey would start to climb the ladder to reach the treat, the other monkeys would attack him to keep him off of the ladder so they would avoid a shock.  They learned that one monkey climbing a ladder = the others receiving a shock, and administered a punishment to any monkey brave enough to try to climb for the treat.  After some time, the shock wiring was removed from the cage, yet the monkeys continued their behavior of beating up any monkey climbing the ladder. Even without the punishment the monkeys continued the punishment behavior.

One at a time, the experimenters then began taking monkeys out of the cage and replacing them with new ones.  When the new monkeys would unknowingly try to climb the ladder they would instantly be attacked by the old monkeys who still remembered the relationship between the ladder and shock punishment.

Over time, all of the original monkeys were gone and only “new” monkeys remained in the cage.  These monkeys had never even experienced a shock for themselves, yet they continued the learned behavior of punishing any monkey that climbed the ladder.

So many of our behaviors in the workplace are based on conditioning from others.  We assimilate to our culture, respect the organization’s hierarchy, and often give up on ideas when told “we’ve done that before.”

We must constantly stop and ask ourselves- Why?  Why do we do what we do?  When we accept that “this is the way things are done” we are not critically thinking.  We are not questioning assumptions and examining arguments about the benefit of multiple alternatives.

Have you seen examples of behavioral conditioning in your workplace?

The Office – Pavlov’s dog from Rauno Villberg on Vimeo.

Until recently, I’ve always gone to one channel for my news. Partly because it’s a news network, dedicated to broadcasting “breaking news” and partly because for whatever reasons I trust that their reports are fair and true.

Two weeks ago I asked myself why I only rely on one network. Since then I’ve been making a point to tune into different news programs. I haven’t found the single best news program but I have found that each program & station is visibly different.

The reporters are different – some share their own commentary while others seemingly read off the prompter, sticking to the message.

The biases are different – let’s admit it, we all know different networks put a little spin on things even if they don’t intent to do so. I’ve even noticed some programs putting an emphasis on different “breaking” news stories than other programs.

Even the stories are different – different networks stress on local topics, national topics, and global topics. I’ve also found that if a story is being reported in real-time, different stations have slight variations of the same story.

When you have such variance between news networks, how do you know what’s accurate? Here are 3 questions you should be asking yourself while watching the news:

1. How do they know that?

2. What assumptions do I need to make in order for that to be true?

3. Where else have I heard information that supports or contradicts that?

For even more critical thinking practice, switch it up and watch different news programs & stations. Ask the same questions but also think about the differences between programs.

Instead of engaging one another in a conversation, removing emotion, evaluating arguments, and seeking to understand one another’s point of view, each individual shuts down logical reasoning and turns to anger and condescension.  Telling someone that they lack critical thinking ability will not advance any conversation. The best way to teach critical thinking is to model it.

When someone engages you in a debate about something highly emotional, follow the RED Model of Critical Thinking to avoid ending the conversation with insults and disengagement.

Recognize Assumptions:

• Identify Fact and Opinion (theirs and yours)
• Ask questions
• Consider the alternative point of view
• Don’t assume that there is one correct answer
• Question the source/credibility of information (theirs and yours)

Evaluate Arguments:

• Check your emotions.  Take a 10 second breather before responding to an emotional statement.
• Ask unbiased outsiders to weigh in or moderate the conversation.
• Seek points of commonality with your partner.
• Acknowledge that the topic is subjective and a unanimous conclusion may not be possible.

Draw Conclusions:

• Remember that winning an argument is less important than maintaining respect with a friend, family member or colleague.
• Be prepared to walk away from the conversation if it turns into a mud-slinging match.
• Find areas of agreement, and emphasize those points as a “win.”

By modeling critical thinking for others you will not only build respect among colleagues, but will be seen as someone who is logical, rational, and able to rise above conflict.

The best way to show that a stick is crooked is not to argue about it or to spend time denouncing it, but to lay a straight stick alongside it

– D. L. Moody