Critical Thinking and Creativity: How Do We Get It?
"The value of universities to a capitalist society depends on their ability to resist capitalism, to carve out space for intellectual endeavors that don’t have obvious metrics or market value." New York Times, "The Misguided Drive to Measure Learning Outcomes", Molly Worthen, February 23, 2018
I was reading an article about learning and higher education when I read this phrase, and it resonated deeply with me. If you read about skills and what companies are looking for, you will usually encounter the same set of skills: STEM skills, creativity, critical thinking, problem solving, and communication. STEM skills and communication are prototypical type of skills that today’s education through high school can deliver, but creativity and critical thinking requires something different: allowing people to march to a different drummer rather than conforming to rote learning.
And are companies really ready for the different drummer?
Right now we are facing a crisis of tribalism and don’t want immigrants, a sure sign of enforcing conformity and groupthink. People just want sameness. They don’t want something different.
And yet, in order for companies to survive the changes we are facing, they are asking us to be critical thinkers and creative. But deep down, are the companies ready for it? And what does it mean to be a critical thinker or creative?
In order to solve problems, you can’t be a rote follower. You can’t rely on a cookbook; you have to know how to search for answers and even that might not be enough.
1. You have to stick out
2. You have to question dogma.
3. You have to fail...and fail again.
4. You have to keep experimenting.
Stick Out
You have to learn to be comfortable with sticking out. Sometimes solving things requires doing things differently from everybody else. I once worked at a place where everybody approached the problem the same way because it was an unspoken process at the company, but I, knowing I did not have the skills to perform the same way as everybody else, had to do it differently. Everybody managed project tasks on a project by project basis and I managed the tasks as a program basis using excel to do the work. One manager asked me how I did it, I showed him, and then his head said “no”. Another manager wanted to do away one piece of my process. It was just so dramatically different from everybody else that it was hard to comprehend. But it worked and the fact that it worked so well allowed me to continue using my process. But most companies don’t like to do things differently. Think about the best practices that everybody yammers on and on. Unfortunately, if you just do best practices, you are still going to be mediocre.
Question Dogma
Along with sticking out, you have to be comfortable with questioning dogma. Easy to say but hard to do. Critical thinking requires questioning what you are told, what you learned, what you read and hear. Fake news is especially prevalent in our society today because people just don’t question what they hear. Fake news such as Fox and Friends, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh. Right now, my metric, the only one I can think of, is if the person never admits to being wrong, then that person can’t be believed. Rush Limbaugh failed the test during Hurricane Irma. Sean Hannity fails with his conspiracy theories. And Fox and Friends speaks highly of Trump so slavishly (at least that is the impression I get, I actually don’t watch them because they are not on when I’m free) when they should be pointing out how Trump lies…a lot. None will ever admit to making an error.
Or how about this: our current state of capitalism needs to change from shareholder primacy to doing good for society, even if at shareholder's expense.
But, it’s still extremely difficult to get out of your bubble. I fall in that camp.
Fail and Fail Again
Along with admitting you made an error, you have to be willing to fail. No one likes to fail and companies certainly do not. Unfortunately, you have to fail, and then get up, fail again, get up again and fail a number of times before you figure out how to do something. We all didn’t just get up one day and started walking; we had to fall down a couple of times before we were able to stand up. Same thing with anything we do in life. Unfortunately, companies and shareholders, especially shareholders, do not like failure and that feeling percolates down throughout the company. But we need space to fail and to know that if we fail, we can get back up again and try again without any adverse consequences. Your first program didn’t work? Well, ditch it and try again. Your first draft presentation is not working? Don’t quit and say that you are just not cut out for it; go back and change and fix what is not working.
Keep Experimenting
Concomitant to failing, you have to experiment, explore, and play. You have to be willing to go off in directions that might not pan out or may pan out but in a totally different direction that what you had intended. Companies don’t seem to want us to experiment; it always have to produce value for their shareholders so people don’t extend beyond what everybody else is doing. They have to make money for the shareholders! so they do the safe thing. And don’t experiment. Time is money so don’t do things that might not bring value to the shareholders.
I’m not really sure companies are ready for creativity or critical thinking. It would mean people doing things that could make the executives or shareholders uncomfortable. It could mean some degradation in the share price as people try to figure out new ways of doing things. It could mean people speaking out their minds when executives would rather they just do their usual work.
