Ch. 5 Summary: Metathinking: Thinking about your thinking.


Contrary to Yogi Berra, today’s worker has to “hit and think at the same time,” a practice that demands flexibility and domain expertise. In today’s fast-paced environment, it’s largely impossible to avoid dead-ends without knowing how to step back and consider one’s reasoning, acknowledge limitations, be ready to give up on one strategy and switch gears to another. Indeed, a skilled metathinker is like a really superb communicator carrying on a conversation with his audience, and making his own adjustments as he receives multiple messages from them. It’s as though he’s running on four or five tracks at the same time: a talk track, a listen track, an observe track, an emotions track, and a message adjustment track. When old approaches to complexities are inadequate, readily learn from that experience, reshape their perspective, work through ambiguity, and morph obstacles into opportunities. They can walk and chew gum at the same time.

 

So how do they do it?

 

Fewer than twenty-five years ago, many cognitive scientists thought that metathinking was impossible. The research argued that persons are unaware of the stimulus that influenced a decision, unaware of the existence of the stimulus, and even unaware that a stimulus has affected the decision. Research dating from 2003 indicates that it is very difficult for individuals to think about their problem solving while carrying it out, unless there is deep knowledge of the issues relevant to the problem. Today, I coach not only experts, but entry-level workers, in the use of metathinking skills for higher order problem-solving aptitude. Metathinking skills can be made a viable part of the problem solving process.

 

The beginning place in the development of these 21st century skills is with the practice of what I call WHY before HOW, a test of one’s thinking before execution. Faced with a problem, most of us move to resolution immediately. But before you set out to implement that resolution, check your thinking, not only with yourself, but with others. WHY before HOW both describes one’s process of problem solving, and analyzes and justifies the reasoning behind that process. In other words, “here’s what I think we should do, and here’s why I think that. What do you think?” Here’s why statements make it much easier to reason differently and find other options. To clarify the success of this uniquely effective model, I present the experience of Mara Edgar, a publicity manager at a well-known charity for early-childhood education, who has responsibility for an annual silent-auction fund-raiser at her organization. In a conversation with a major supporter, she explains that the purpose of the auction is to broaden their support base. By explaining why they use the auction, she circumvents what, like many organizational tasks, had become mindless activity, bringing issues to the fore that needed serious rethinking. Admittedly, the process seems generic, but I have found that without coaching, it is an approach to clarity rarely seen in most organizations. WHY before HOW recognizes the viability of multiple options, and that ideas come from everywhere—a truism so significant that Google makes it one of the key steps to innovation.

 

A second approach to metathinking focuses on the importance of returning to the available pool of data when facing complex decisions. Going for the facts protects employees from the power of conventional wisdom—which can be wrong. Although dead-ends are inevitable, beginning anew with data can present different ways of reframing issues, and provide more viable solution options. When managers allude to “not being on the same page,” or “thinking outside the box,” those are issues of framing, but very real issues just the same. Higher achievers regularly spend more time understanding and encoding information—the facts as well as the methods of problem solving—than lower achievers. To fully clarify this principle, I present the case of a controller, who, faced with the complexity of her small firm’s first acquisition, returns again and again to basic data to understand the true picture of its historical earnings, as well as the assets and liabilities for which her company would be responsible. With her job on the line, Tracey Altschuler resolves several strategic complexities growing out of a corporate acquisition—much to the surprise and delight of the CEO.

 

One of the more gutsy scenarios in my repertoire is that of a conflicted performance review of a senior technology manager, brought on by a new executive who completely failed to seek or evaluate disconfirming evidence. Sticking to his guns in a very conflict-averse organization, the manager challenged the newcomer with overpowering disconfirming evidence. He kept his job in spite of the biased information.

 

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