Management Psychology Case Study Essay
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Management Psychology Case Study Essay
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3 Week 3 Seminar Notes Semester 2, 2019, Module 1
Week 3 Management Psychology
Welcome to Topic 3
Welcome to the third topic of the course Evidence-based Foundations of Management. This topic will explore the core capabilities required by managers who practice evidence-based management. You were introduced to these capabilities in the course Evidence-Based Management, they are: metacognitive skills, critical thinking skills and leadership. In this topic we will explore these capabilities in more detail including, why you need them, how to develop them and when to apply them. Essentially, this topic is designed to help you develop your personal approach to evidence-based management.
- Lesson 1: The importance of self-awareness
- Lesson 2: Metacognitive skills
- Lesson 3: Critical thinking skills
Topic Introduction
In this topic we would like you to consider your own approach to managing. We offer insight into metacognition, personal leadership and critical thinking, the core capabilities required by managers with an evidence-based practice. This topic will also provide you with opportunities to develop self-awareness around your values, levels of resiliency, metacognitive awareness and metacognitive regulation as well as increased awareness of your problem solving and analytical thinking skills; the foundations for your personal style and approach to managing in an organisation.
Topic Learning Objectives
By the end of this topic, participants will be able to address the following topic learning objectives:
TLO 3.1 Reflect on levels of personal self-awareness.
TLO 3.2 Assess personal values and levels of resiliency in uncertain and ambiguous circumstances.
TLO 3.3 Identify ways to enhance metacognitive knowledge, metacognitive regulation and critical thinking skills.
Introduction: Lesson 1
Research has shown that most people with management experience say that self-awareness is essential to being an effective manager (George, Sims, MacLean, Mayer and Mayer, 2007). This means knowing who you are and what you stand for. When managers have a deep understanding of themselves they remain grounded and steady in times of crisis and aligned and passionate in pursuing their vision.
Mini-Case: The importance of self-awareness
Professor of leadership, diplomacy, and negotiation, Valon Murtezaj talks about how he developed self- awareness through sharing disappointment and vulnerability with someone with a different perspective and how this has led him to living a life with meaning and purpose.
Valon Murtezaj . The importance of self-awareness. https://youtu.be/LH12DmOwWRk
Baldioi, J. (2009). How to crack the self-awareness paradigm. HBR. https://hbr.org/2009/12/cracking-the-self-awareness-pa
Tjan, A. (2012). How leaders become self-aware. HBR. https://hbr.org/2012/07/how-leaders-become-self-aware
Lipman, V. (2013). All successful leaders need this quality: self-awareness. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/victorlipman/2013/11/18/all-successful-leaders-need-this-quality-self-awareness/#3972505e1f06
Case Question
Within the mini-case we hear Professor Murtezaj talk about his career, the development of self-awareness and contributing to positive change. He suggests that self-awareness is crucial to having a positive impact on others.
>> What do you think of this idea? Can you have a positive influence on other people without high levels of self-awareness? Does self-awareness enhance the influence you can have on other people in any way?
Theory: The importance of self-awareness
Introduction
Self-Awareness is the ability to notice and accurately judge your own performance and behaviour and how you respond to different situations and contexts.
Tasha Eurich, a researcher and organisational psychologist, interviewed a number of successful corporate managers to find out how they developed self-awareness and how it has contributed to their success (2017).
What Eurich found was that self-awareness is made up of two types of knowledge:
- Introspective awareness, the ability to see yourself clearly, know what you value, what you aspire to do; and
- Relational awareness, knowing how other people see you.
Eurich’s (2017) research found that there are quite a few people who possess one of these types of knowledge but not the other, and that people who have both types of self-knowledge and are able to balance them, are the people who are also the most successful at work and in life.
Knowing who we are and striving to better understand ourselves strongly enhances our management skills. It is essential to know who you are and the affect you have on others prior to becoming a manager. Self-awareness improves judgment, including the evaluation (or appraisal) of the quality of information on which you are basing your judgment, and also helps an individual manager identify opportunities for professional development and personal growth.
Recent material from Eurich is contained in a podcast accessible at: https://thefutureorganization.com/truth-self-awareness-dr-tasha-eurich/
Are you a self-aware leader? Knowledge @ Wharton http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/going-wise-helps-us-make-smarter-decisions/
Reading: Chapter 12, section 1 Human Relations: https://saylordotorg.github.io/text_human-relations/s16-01-management-styles.html
How Self-Awareness Makes You More Effective
Self-awareness helps managers identify gaps in their management skills, which in turn, promotes skill development. But self-awareness can also help a manager to understand when they are likely to be at their best and in which contexts they are most effective.
Some of the ways self-awareness helps increase management effectiveness include:
- identifying gaps in skills and knowledge and harnessing opportunities for development;
- knowing your relative strengths and limitations helps you to play on your strengths and develop methods for managing your limitations (which could include harnessing the strengths of others);
- emotional self-awareness can enhance judgment and decision-making when hard evidence is unavailable or ambiguous or when the situation is volatile and complex;
- knowing who you are and what you stand for helps you to regulate your energy levels and the amount of effort you dedicate to projects, this way you avoid wasting time and energy on things that aren’t really important to you or your goals;
- being self-aware helps you quickly identify when your goals and those of the organisation are aligned and when it is not a good fit and action is required; and
- knowing what motivates you personally and understanding the means to discover this knowledge helps you facilitate self-awareness in others; essential to being able to bring out the best in your employees.
Reading: Williams, S. (2003). Self Awareness and Personal development. Available online at: http://www.wright.edu/%7Escott.williams/LeaderLetter/selfawareness.htm
Developing self-awareness
There are many methods for developing self awareness, but if you don’t have the courage or resources to undertake a 10 day silent Vipassana retreat you might try using the Johari Window to enhance your self-awareness. The window, depicted in Figure 1., is a tool that managers can use to develop increased levels of openness and self-awareness. The aim of the techniques used in conjunction with the window is to shift information from the blind, hidden and unknown windows to the open window.
Figure 1. The Johari Window
The four boxes in the figure each represent a self-awareness ‘window’:
- The open window represents information that is known to the individual and which is also known to others.
- The blind window includes information that is known about the individual by others but which remains unknown to the individual.
- The hidden window represents information that is known to the individual but which is unknown to others.
- The unknown window represents information that is unknown to both the individual and others.
There are many methods for developing self-awareness, the essential ingredient however, is willingness. If you aren’t willing to be honest with yourself about strengths and weaknesses, opportunities for development, and when to walk away from something that isn’t right for you, you will find it very challenging to manage other people and may even feel threatened by subordinates with high levels of self-awareness.
While it may seem ‘soft’ and even unnecessary, collecting information for the purpose of developing self-awareness is fully aligned with becoming an evidence-based manager. It is about the gathering and collation of information to make an informed decision about the best course of action, in this case, the action is literally your behaviour and maximising your opportunities for learning and development. Managing yourself is the first step to becoming an effective manager of others, and managing yourself with the help of your evidence-based management capabilities will give you a leading edge over others striving along this path.
With time and faith in the process, you will come to learn:
- How you see yourself, your self-image
- How much you value your self, your self-esteem or self-worth
- Who you’d like to be, your ideal self
Exploring your ideal self in the context of being an effective manager is the means to aligning your existing self-image with who you want to be in the role and how you would like your employees to see you.
Explore websites and books to find the techniques that are most comfortable and effective for you in developing your self-awareness. And remember, this is a long-term project that will never be completed.
George, B. (2015). Know Thyself: How to develop Self-Awareness. https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/what-is-your-true-north/201509/know-thyself-how-develop-self-awareness
Understanding the Johari Window Model. http://www.selfawareness.org.uk/news/understanding-the-johari-window-model
Bill Blake (2014). The Johari Window Model. https://youtu.be/BWii4Tx3GJk
Values and beliefs
As you learnt in the EBM Practice course it is really important for EBM practitioners to ‘disentangle personal beliefs from what the evidence actually says’ (Goodman and O’Brien, 2012, p.311). If you can learn how to surface assumptions underpinning your own beliefs you may also be able to make judgements that better reflect ‘things as they actually are’, rather than how you would like them to be. Another means for uncovering hidden biases and prejudices in your thinking is to develop heightened awareness of your values. Values are our fundamental beliefs about what is important in life and greatly influence other beliefs, attitudes, choices, goals and aspirations.
If you have never reviewed your values using a standardised instrument you might take some time now to try the Rokeach Values Survey: Rokeach Value Survey
www.wec.ufl.edu/faculty/…/rokeach_value_survey%20personal%20responses.pdf
This survey is designed to help you identity your terminal values, states of being that you are ultimately working towards, and instrumental values, which reflect your preferred modes of being or acting. Once you have completed the survey take some time to reflect on what this might tell you about your alignment with the industry you work in or your long-term goals. Becoming aware of incongruences between your values and your current projects or ambitions might help you to avoid unnecessary stress or inflicting ineffective management techniques on some poor, unsuspecting subordinates!
Knowing your values also helps you to be authentic in how you are as a manager. While it is very important to have mentors and role models, it is important that you develop your own style rather than imitating someone else; learn from others, but don’t try to copy their style.
Developing awareness of your own values also helps you to practice values-based management, an approach the managing that provides employees with a shared sense of the ethics and principles that guide individual behaviour and organisational direction and contribute to both individual and organisational resiliency during periods of uncertainty and in crisis (Bond and Shapiro, 2014).
Resilience
Resilience is defined by most people as the ability to recover from setbacks, adapt well to change, and keep going in the face of adversity (Coutu, 2002). It is essentially the ability to self-regulate in the face of challenges and set-backs and is vital for managers working in a context of constant change (which is most of us).
In an industry report based on research undertaken by Sarah Bond and Gillian Shapiro (2014, Tough at the Top), the researchers noted that resilience is vital for career success and should be an integral part of management and leadership development (99.9% of their respondents regard resilience as, at least, important to their success, 56% of those same respondents said it was ‘essential’). In their study of 835 managers from public, private, and nonprofit firms in Britain, Bond and Shapiro also asked participants “what is the biggest drain on your personal resilience? The answer given by 75% of respondents: “When I am managing difficult relationships/politics in the workplace”. This means that ensuring you have adequate levels of personal resilience is also about developing your self-awareness and interpersonal skills to assist you in managing relationships during challenging moments.
Bond and Shapiro (2014) offer a framework for understanding how to increase levels of personal resilience.
Figure 1. Based on Bond and Shapiro’s (2014) Framework for developing resilience
In her HBR article on How Resilience Works (2002) Diane Coutu tells the story of Rick Rescorla, an ex military officer who was the VP of security at Morgan Stanley on September 11, 2001. Rescorla himself unfortunately died getting other people out of the south tower when the second plane struck, however he was highly instrumental in developing a plan which saved almost 2700 Morgan Stanley employees and led to the company being able to resume operations almost immediately. Rescorla achieved this through creating a culture that understood what it meant to be prepared for the worst. In this sense, resilience is about having a contingency plan – if you can handle the worse case scenario, everything else will seem pretty straight forward. In her review of a number of stories of personal and organizational resilience, Coutu suggests that there are three essential ingredients to developing your own resilience:
- a staunch acceptance of reality (seeing things as they really are);
- a deep belief, often buttressed by strongly held values, that life, and the work you do, is meaningful; and
- an uncanny ability to adapt, innovate and improvise.
It is interesting to notice how the capabilities that lead to resilience are very similar (if not the same) as some of those required for effective managing.
Bond, S. and Shapiro, G. (2014). Tough at the top. Available online at: http://shapiroconsulting.co.uk/projects/tough-at-the-top/
Coutu, D. (2002). How resilience works. HBR.
EBM Spotlight: Reviewing the Evidence
There are a number of readings throughout this lesson emphasising the importance of self-awareness in developing your approach the managing others. Drawing upon the EBM capabilities that you developed in the Evidence-Based Management course, we would like you to critically appraise the literature used within this lesson and make suggestions for how you would personally approach the development of self-awareness based on your review.
Hint: it may be helpful to refer to CEBMA’s appraisal questionnaire for systematic reviews. Available online at: https://www.cebma.org/wp-content/uploads/Critical-Appraisal-Questions-for-a-SR-or-MA-july-2014.pdf
Activity: Lesson 1
Activity: Reflective self-awareness (Appreciative Inquiry)
We would like you now to take some time to reflect on the content of this lesson and how it relates to you personally. After writing your own notes about your sense of self, how you think others see you, your values and your perceived level of resilience, undertake a process of appreciative inquiry by asking 2 or 3 people who you trust and who you know want the best for you, how do they see you? According to these people when are you at your best? What are your strengths and can they recommend any opportunities for development. What do they perceive as being important to you and do they have any evidence of your levels of resilience?
Question #1: What are the key differences, or incongruencies, between how you see yourself and how others see you?
Question #2: What are some of the similarities, or the degree of alignment, between how you see yourself and how others see you?
Question #3: Looking at your own response and integrating that with what you were told by the people you spoke with, when are you at your best? What are your main strengths?
Question #4: In what ways are you resilient? What habits, attitudes or responses do you exhibit that contribute to you being resilient?
Introduction: Lesson 2
In the ANU EBM framework metacognition is central to all functional and other core Evidence-Based Management (EBM) capabilities. Strong metacognitive skills allows a manager to be aware of how the strategies they use for gathering and collating information and to intentionally allocate cognitive resources for the purposes of appraising and applying information and assessing outcomes.
Mini-case: How thinking works
Dr. Derek Cabrera is an internationally recognized expert in metacognition (thinking about thinking), epistemology (the study of knowledge), human and organizational learning, and education. In this talk Dr Cabrera explains why learning to think well is crucial to the wellbeing of everyone on the planet in that it is an essential ingredient for achieving sustainability.
Derek Cabrera – How thinking works: https://youtu.be/dUqRTWCdXt4
Reading: Draeger, J. (2017). Keep Calm and Improve with Metacognition – http://www.improvewithmetacognition.com/keep-calm-improve-metacognition-reflecting-three-years-reflecting/
Case Question
We would like you to do a mental audit of the thinking strategies you use to learn. You might do this by writing about a time when you didn’t have the information you needed to solve a problem or answer a big question or choice you had to make, for example, what to study or how to access the education you desired.
>>How do you gather new information?
Did you consider the quality or source of the information or were you just happy to find an answer to your question?
OR
>> Did you use any of the strategies outlined in the video? Drawing distinctions, seeing relationships, understanding the system around the information or considering things form multiple perspectives?
Theory: Metacognition
Introduction
Essentially, there are two aspects to metacognition and developing skills to work with these two aspects will allow you to do two significant things:
- Metacognitive awareness
Having awareness of your own thoughts and thinking style, knowing what you know and what you don’t know and how you learn. Being aware of your own mind.
- Metacognitive regulation
Having the ability to intentionally determine how you will think, and what you will think about and focus your attention accordingly. Being able to think on purpose.
Metacognitive awareness
Metacognition is considered to be a higher-order function compared to ‘regular thinking’ and is essentially the ability to be aware of your own thinking. With metacognitive awareness you can then develop metacognitive knowledge, which involves ‘thinking about thinking’ (Bogdan 2000; Flavell 1999; Metcalfe 2000) – hence the term ‘meta’- cognition. Metacognitive knowledge is the information you have available from knowing what and how you think.
Metacognitive knowledge is essentially what you know about your own thinking. In order to know what you are thinking you first need to put some effort and energy into developing awareness. Three of the most basic things you can do for yourself at home and in the workplace to help you develop metacognitive awareness are:
- Learn how to learn – watch other people, search for techniques online, watch TEDtalks and videos from other credible sources about how to learn (this also requires a growth mindset which we will cover in a later lesson in this course)
- Seek opportunities to learn – if this sounds familiar it is because it is one of the 11 competency clusters we learnt about in Lesson 3 of Topic 2. Go to talks, listen. Attend meetings and seminars, listen. Ask clients and stakeholders for feedback, listen – see the pattern?
- Seek and use feedback – also familiar? Another of the 11 competency clusters we learnt about in Lesson 3 of Topic 2. Get feedback from everyone around you, not just the people in charge. A formal process for seeking the feedback of everyone who is affected by your performance is called 360 degree feedback – a formal process that includes feedback from an employee’s subordinates, peers (colleagues), and supervisor(s), as well as a self-evaluation by the employee him or herself, the process it usually accompanied by several coaching sessions to get the most benefit from the feedback. But there is no need to wait for someone to undertake this formal process for you, you can collect this information casually as you go about your work. The secret to using feedback to improve your performance? Listen to it and apply it, it wont always be helpful or even positive but you might still learn something from it.
Using these three strategies to develop metacognitive awareness will lead to the gathering and collation of information about your own thinking, resulting in metacognitive knowledge. Once you have metacognitive knowledge to work with you can move on to developing:
- Metacognitive skill: being able to think about what you are thinking in a variety of ways, from multiple perspectives (also called cognitive flexibility; Cañas, Quesada, Antolí and Fajardo, 2003); and
- Metacognitive experience: being aware of the experience of thinking about thinking and how it feels (Hacker, 1998).
In the video at the beginning of this lesson, Dr Cabrera outlines his D-S-R-P framework for thinking about thinking and suggests that we should develop awareness of the following four cognitive processes:
DISTINCTIONS: notice the distinctions you make between ideas, objects and things and be aware of how you can see things as having a particular identity and other things are other than that, something different. We make judgments about how some things are included within a certain grouping and other things are not. For example, as a manager you might have a fixed idea about what work your team is responsible for and what is not part of what is expected of your team.
SYSTEMS: we organise things into part-whole groupings and can see any one thing as a part or the whole. Begin by noticing how big or small a thing is when you categorise it as a part of something else or an entire thing in itself. This can be very useful as a manager when you are trying to decide how best to use your resources and divide work among employees when completing a project.
RELATIONSHIPS: we make connections between and among things and can explore cause and effect. A very interesting way to explore cause and effect relationships is to start with yourself. At home we tend to be a little more authentic in the way we express ourselves and may not regulate our affect as much as we do at work. Notice how your different mood states affect the people around you, for example, is there a relationship between your levels of stress or anxiety and your partner’s relative playfulness or your children’s relative calmness? Start by noticing how your behaviour affects other people, then watch how other people’s behaviour affects you, and very soon you’ll start being aware of cause and effect relationships as a network of interdependence around you.
PERSPECTIVES: we take different perspectives on and from things and can isolate the point and the view – this process is about being able to take multiple ‘points of view’ on an object or event. This is a vital skill for evidence-based managers in assessing different types and sources of information, for example comparing business data with stakeholder feedback. It is also necessary for effective negotiation, conflict resolution, stakeholder communication and so on.
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.
~ Aristotle
Halter, J. (2014). Metacognition. http://www.etc.edu.cn/eet/Articles/metacognition/start.htm
Schraw, G. (1998). Promoting general metacognitive awareness. Instructional Science, 26, 113-125. Available online at: http://wiki.biologyscholars.org/@api/deki/files/87/=schraw1998-meta.pdf
Metacognitive regulation
The metacognitive skill of cognitive regulation, the ability to ‘think on purpose’, involves monitoring your internal thinking processes when you are planning, problem solving, observing, interpreting and evaluating. In EBM terms, it is about being able to deliberately engage in the processes of asking, acquiring, appraising, aggregating, applying and assessing – knowing which of these competencies to employ and when, with a clear understanding of the purpose of doing so and the relationships between the type of information you privilege (give priority to) and the likely outcome of this (i.e. cause and effect).
Metacognitive regulation describes how learners monitor and control their cognitive processes. For example, realising that the strategy you are using to solve a maths problem is not working and trying another approach (Nelson and Narens, 1990).
A theory of metacognitive regulation that is widely cited in the research literature is Nelson and Narens’ (1990) Model of Metacognition. This consists of two levels: the object level and the meta level (see Figure 1).
- The object level is where cognitive processes or ‘one’s thinking’ occurs. One example is decoding text when reading. At the object level, cognitive strategies (e.g., decoding) are used to help the learner achieve a particular goal (understanding the meaning of the text).
- The meta level is where your ‘thinking about thinking’ takes place. At this higher-order level, metacognitive strategies are used to ensure the learner reaches the goal they have set. To continue with the reading example, this would begin with the learner thinking about how well they have understood the paragraph they have just read. This is termed monitoring. If they are happy with their comprehension level they will continue reading. If not, they will perhaps re-read the paragraph, or decide to use a dictionary to help their understanding. These actions are called control processes, as they are changing the learner’s cognitive processes or related behaviours, based on the monitoring feedback (Cambridge International Examinations Education Brief, 2015).
Figure 1. Nelson and Narens’ (1990) Model of Metacognition
Like any model or framework for understanding a complex process or system, Nelson and Naren’s (1990) model of metacognition doesn’t tell us everything we might need to know about regulating our thinking. While this model is very effective in helping us understand processes in a learning context, as managers, we also need to be monitoring and controlling aspects of our external environment, this requires being able to choose, on purpose, how to focus your attention. Continuing the example about reading, as a manager you might decide that the report you are reading isn’t actually on the right topic for what you are looking for, you might comprehend it, go back and read parts to be sure, skim ahead to scan for relevant information, but in the end you have to deliberately make a choice to stop reading and use your time and energy for something more relevant to achieving your goals. Even if something you are reading is really very interesting to you, if it is not helping you achieve your goals you may have to choose to set it aside for leisure rather than continuing with it in work time.
When the mind is thinking it is talking to itself ~ Plato
Costa, A. (2015). Habits of Mind. Available online at: http://www.improvewithmetacognition.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Habits_of_Mind_by_Costa.pdf
Livingston, J. (2014). Metacognition: An Overview. http://gse.buffalo.edu/fas/shuell/cep564/metacog.htm
Conclusions
Cabrera and his fellow researchers suggest that the metacognitive practices of being aware of and utilising the DSRP processes of cognition, have significant psychosocial implications, such as increasing self-awareness, empathy, and a sense of belonging, while decreasing stereotyping and other-harmful orientations (towards both self and others) (Cabrera, Cabrera and Powers, 2015). As such, the development of metacognitive awareness and regulation has the potential to create advanced analytical thinkers with pro-social orientations, exactly the type of thinkers we need in management positions in organisations around the world if we are ever to address wicked problems such as climate change and poverty.
Jesse Richardson: How not what to think: https://youtu.be/6dluwVks444
EBM Spotlight: Reflecting on your EBM competencies
One of the key steps in developing your EBM competencies is to stop and reflect on the how and why of the steps you have taken in collecting information and using it to make a decision.
Please take time now to reflect on what you have just learnt about metacognition and how this new information might change the way you collect and use information and make decisions.
Activity: Lesson 2
Activity: Find your flaws
We would like you to visit a website called your logical fallacy is : https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com . This website helps us to develop awareness about the various errors in thinking (or flaws in our reasoning) that we, as humans, are prone to making.
We would like you to pick 3 of the logical fallacy types and describe below an example of a logical fallacy that you have made and how you corrected your flaw in reasoning.
Example #1: Which logical fallacy did you make and how did you correct it?
Example #2: Which logical fallacy did you make and how did you correct it?
Example #3: Which logical fallacy did you make and how did you correct it?
a)
Introduction: Lesson 3
Let’s get started!
Critical thinking has been identified as a core competency in Evidence-Based Practice (Rousseau & Gunia, 2016). Critical thinking is a series of cognitive processes, consisting of the skills of analysis, evaluation, and inference; and integrated with purposeful, reflective judgment it increases the chances of drawing a logical conclusion (free of fallacy) or developing a novel solution to a problem (Dwyer et al., 2015). In this lesson we will seek to develop a deeper understanding of critical thinking, how to develop our critical thinking skills and why the ability to think critically is so important.
Lior Ben-Zvi: Critical thinking – https://youtu.be/huglyB6emDg
Embed: <iframe width=”560″ height=”315″ src=”https://www.youtube.com/embed/huglyB6emDg” frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen></iframe>
Mini-case: Every piece of news is just someone’s version of the truth
High school student, Lior Ben-Zvi suggests that the essence of critical thinking is to question everything and everyone around you and that it is important to have an open mind about what you are learning, and that if we are able to see the opportunities in the world around us, we can change the world, just by thinking critically.
Paul, R. and Elder, L. (2006). The miniature guide to critical thinking: concepts and tools. Available online at: https://www.criticalthinking.org/files/Concepts_Tools.pdf
Case Question
You could argue that the message conveyed in Lior Ben-Zvi’s TEDx talk is simply: think for yourself. It is interesting to notice how hard it seems for people to do this, including ourselves.
>>Describe a time when you did not think for yourself and instead followed the idea or advice of someone else and it resulted in a negative outcome.
Remember what you write will be posted in a public forum. Please do not include any information that might identify individuals or organisations. Please also read and comment on the posts of some of your fellow students.
Theory: Critical thinking
Introduction
Managers need to be able to think well. Critical thinking is the ability to think clearly and rationally about what to do or what to believe. The point of thinking critically is to analyse and evaluate the information you have, including your own thoughts and beliefs, with a view to improving how you think.
Critical thinking is a multi-step process that never truly ends. In some ways, it might be better to think of yourself as having (or developing) a critical and analytical mindset, whereby you undertake an ongoing intellectual process of observing, analysing and reflecting on new knowledge and integrating this with your existing understanding of the way things are – much like the process of active sensemaking which we learnt about in the first topic of this course. Where active sensemaking is about making sense of ambiguous or novel stimuli, critical thinking is a more general process leading to the constant refinement of your knowledge and beliefs.
You can probably think of someone who you would describe as a critical thinker. These people can generally be described by the following characteristics:
- open-minded
- questioning
- empathic
- honest
- analytical
- objective
Critical thinking enables managers to make informed assessments of information that they or their subordinates gather. As managers develop critical thinking skills they will gradually decrease their reliance on other resources such as senior managers, internet searches and simply falling back on what has always been done. Critical thinking, when integrated with current knowledge can lead to creation of new knowledge, particularly when people learn how to use critical thinking and creative thinking simultaneously (as described by Jesse Richardson in the TEDx talk linked in the previous lesson).
Developing critical thinking
Critical thinking is a process that can be broken down into steps. Dr Elizabeth Thyer, from Deakin University, developed a framework outlining 6 steps to critical thinking: observing, analysing, evaluating, contextualising, questioning and reflecting. These 6 steps are shown in the following illustration.
Breaking down these stages in the process of thinking critically, we can see what is involved in each step of Thyer’s model:
Observe:
- determine what information is available
- gather information from a variety of sources
- ascertain what information currently exists
- explore different perspectives
- identify similarities and contradictions
Analyse:
- break down the information into the main themes or arguments
Evaluate:
- categorise the value of the information (by relevance and quality)
- prioritise the most important (high value) information
- differentiate opinion from fact
Question:
- consider possible alternatives
- develop new hypotheses (predictions about cause and effect relationships, or a starting point for further investigation)
Contextualise:
- historical considerations
- ethical considerations
- political considerations
- social considerations
- cultural considerations
- environmental considerations
- factors specific to the current circumstances
Reflection:
- question and test conclusions
- reflect on possible outcomes
You will notice that many of the steps and processes involved in thinking critically are the same or at least similar to the processes of evidence-based management and are reflective of the key competencies that you would have developed in the Evidence-Based Practice of Management Course.
Once managers are capable of critically analysing the information that they have, they will then start formulating their own way of seeing things and be able to develop innovative and adaptive ways for solving organisational problems.
Reichenbach (2000). An Introduction to Critical Thinking. Chapter 2 Study Guide: Available online at: http://www.mhhe.com/socscience/philosophy/reichenbach/m1_chap02studyguide.html
The Critical Thinking Community: Defining Critical Thinking. Available online at: http://www.criticalthinking.org/pages/defining-critical-thinking/766
EBM Spotlight: Critically appraising the skills of managing
Over the past two topics in this course we have looked at different approaches to management, some of the capabilities managers require and the skills and competencies most often needed by managers.
Drawing upon the EBM capabilities that you developed in the Evidence-Based Practice in Management course, we would like you to reflect on what you believe to be a comprehensive list of the skills and capabilities that someone needs in order to manage effectively.
Activity: Lesson 3
Activity: Change your thinking, change the world?
In the mini-case at the beginning of this lesson we heard high school student, Lior Ben-Zvi talking about the benefits of critical thinking. She, and many others like her, suggest that if we are able to see the opportunities in the world around us, we can change the world, just by thinking critically. Indeed, Einstein once said “The world as you know it is a product of your thinking. It cannot be change without changing your thinking”. However, Karl Weick, (the organisational theorist who introduced the concept of sensemaking to management studies) said “how can I know what I think until I see what I say?” Together these two quotes highlight the importance of developing your thinking skills; the ability to be aware of your thoughts and change what and how you think to align with your values and goals. The following activity is designed to help with this process.
Prompted journaling
- Give yourself 3 minutes writing time for each prompt provided below.
- Start writing in response to the prompt, continue writing for the entire 3 minutes, do not stop writing, just write whatever you are thinking. Write in your native language. Write down whatever comes to mind, regardless of whether it is on topic or not.
- Start by finishing the sentence and then just write what you think …keep writing whatever you are thinking for 3 minutes, don’t stop!
Prompt #1: When I am uncertain of what to do next I….
Prompt #2: When I have a really important decision to make I…
Question #1: What did you notice as you were writing?
Question #2: How did you feel as you were writing?
Question #3: Read back over what you wrote, is there evidence of metacognition? Is there evidence of critical thinking?
Question #4: What was your reaction to reading what you wrote?
Quiz: Lesson 3
Critical thinking is:
- a) a multi-step process that never truly ends
- b) a 6 step process that can be completed quite quickly
- c) a process of choosing between two alternative course of action
- d) looking at what is wrong with a subordinates work
- e) all of the stated answers are correct
People with good critical thinking skills are often described as:
- a) open-minded
- b) questioning
- c) empathic
- d) honest
- e) all of the stated answers are correct
Critical thinking, when integrated with current knowledge can lead to the creation of:
- a) New knowledge
- b) Promotion pathways
- c) Bigger problems
- d) Mental health issues
- e) Secondary knowledge
Being able to take into account historical, ethical, social and cultural considerations is a stage of the critical thinking process referred to as:
- a) Observing
- b) Reflecting
- c) Contextualising
- d) Operationalising
- e) Evaluating
Evaluating information involves being able to assess it in terms of:
- a) Its value, determined by relevance and quality
- b) Its value, determined by author and year of publication
- c) The extent to which it supports your current thinking
- d) The extent to which it offers an alternate perspective
- e) How interesting it is
Additional readings and resources:
Open-source readings:
Metacognition: An Overview : http://gse.buffalo.edu/fas/shuell/cep564/metacog.htm
Metacognition: The Skill Every Global Leader Needs: https://hbr.org/2012/10/collaborating-across-cultures
Should you always play to your strengths?: http://www.lead2xl.com/should-you-always-play-to-your-strengths.html
Critical Thinking Skills: http://www.rasmussen.edu/student-life/blogs/main/critical-thinking-skills-you-need-to-master-now/
Top of Form
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RUBRIC
QUALITY OF RESPONSE NO RESPONSE POOR / UNSATISFACTORY SATISFACTORY GOOD EXCELLENT Content (worth a maximum of 50% of the total points) Zero points: Student failed to submit the final paper. 20 points out of 50: The essay illustrates poor understanding of the relevant material by failing to address or incorrectly addressing the relevant content; failing to identify or inaccurately explaining/defining key concepts/ideas; ignoring or incorrectly explaining key points/claims and the reasoning behind them; and/or incorrectly or inappropriately using terminology; and elements of the response are lacking. 30 points out of 50: The essay illustrates a rudimentary understanding of the relevant material by mentioning but not full explaining the relevant content; identifying some of the key concepts/ideas though failing to fully or accurately explain many of them; using terminology, though sometimes inaccurately or inappropriately; and/or incorporating some key claims/points but failing to explain the reasoning behind them or doing so inaccurately. Elements of the required response may also be lacking. 40 points out of 50: The essay illustrates solid understanding of the relevant material by correctly addressing most of the relevant content; identifying and explaining most of the key concepts/ideas; using correct terminology; explaining the reasoning behind most of the key points/claims; and/or where necessary or useful, substantiating some points with accurate examples. The answer is complete. 50 points: The essay illustrates exemplary understanding of the relevant material by thoroughly and correctly addressing the relevant content; identifying and explaining all of the key concepts/ideas; using correct terminology explaining the reasoning behind key points/claims and substantiating, as necessary/useful, points with several accurate and illuminating examples. No aspects of the required answer are missing. Use of Sources (worth a maximum of 20% of the total points). Zero points: Student failed to include citations and/or references. Or the student failed to submit a final paper. 5 out 20 points: Sources are seldom cited to support statements and/or format of citations are not recognizable as APA 6th Edition format. There are major errors in the formation of the references and citations. And/or there is a major reliance on highly questionable. The Student fails to provide an adequate synthesis of research collected for the paper. 10 out 20 points: References to scholarly sources are occasionally given; many statements seem unsubstantiated. Frequent errors in APA 6th Edition format, leaving the reader confused about the source of the information. There are significant errors of the formation in the references and citations. And/or there is a significant use of highly questionable sources. 15 out 20 points: Credible Scholarly sources are used effectively support claims and are, for the most part, clear and fairly represented. APA 6th Edition is used with only a few minor errors. There are minor errors in reference and/or citations. And/or there is some use of questionable sources. 20 points: Credible scholarly sources are used to give compelling evidence to support claims and are clearly and fairly represented. APA 6th Edition format is used accurately and consistently. The student uses above the maximum required references in the development of the assignment. Grammar (worth maximum of 20% of total points) Zero points: Student failed to submit the final paper. 5 points out of 20: The paper does not communicate ideas/points clearly due to inappropriate use of terminology and vague language; thoughts and sentences are disjointed or incomprehensible; organization lacking; and/or numerous grammatical, spelling/punctuation errors 10 points out 20: The paper is often unclear and difficult to follow due to some inappropriate terminology and/or vague language; ideas may be fragmented, wandering and/or repetitive; poor organization; and/or some grammatical, spelling, punctuation errors 15 points out of 20: The paper is mostly clear as a result of appropriate use of terminology and minimal vagueness; no tangents and no repetition; fairly good organization; almost perfect grammar, spelling, punctuation, and word usage. 20 points: The paper is clear, concise, and a pleasure to read as a result of appropriate and precise use of terminology; total coherence of thoughts and presentation and logical organization; and the essay is error free. Structure of the Paper (worth 10% of total points) Zero points: Student failed to submit the final paper. 3 points out of 10: Student needs to develop better formatting skills. The paper omits significant structural elements required for and APA 6th edition paper. Formatting of the paper has major flaws. The paper does not conform to APA 6th edition requirements whatsoever. 5 points out of 10: Appearance of final paper demonstrates the student’s limited ability to format the paper. There are significant errors in formatting and/or the total omission of major components of an APA 6th edition paper. They can include the omission of the cover page, abstract, and page numbers. Additionally the page has major formatting issues with spacing or paragraph formation. Font size might not conform to size requirements. The student also significantly writes too large or too short of and paper 7 points out of 10: Research paper presents an above-average use of formatting skills. The paper has slight errors within the paper. This can include small errors or omissions with the cover page, abstract, page number, and headers. There could be also slight formatting issues with the document spacing or the font Additionally the paper might slightly exceed or undershoot the specific number of required written pages for the assignment. 10 points: Student provides a high-caliber, formatted paper. This includes an APA 6th edition cover page, abstract, page number, headers and is double spaced in 12’ Times Roman Font. Additionally, the paper conforms to the specific number of required written pages and neither goes over or under the specified length of the paper. GET THIS PROJECT NOW BY CLICKING ON THIS LINK TO PLACE THE ORDER
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