Introduction: Why Critical Thinking?
Humanism is not just about ethics. It is also a dedication to effective problem-solving. The reason we rely so heavily on science and reject supernaturalism is because we are dedicated to finding solutions that actually work and that are ethically sound at the same time.
Without dedicating ourselves to finding out what is really real, we cannot solve our problems, and our ethical reasoning will be flawed. For this reason, Humanists are committed to critical thinking.
This part of the book will help you learn how to answer the three most important questions for any strategy. What is your real problem? What is really causing it, and what will really work to solve it?
Discussion and Topics Covered
It does not matter what you want to do—a good strategy is important. Strategies help us know what we are working on, why we are working on it, and most importantly, how. Not all strategies are effective. To give yourself the best chance of success, it is important to take several steps to ensure that your strategy is reality based.
The following are topics that I will discuss in this section:
- One simple technique to ensure you focus on your real problem and not a proxy problem
- Six critical thinking skills necessary to ensure your strategy is reality based
- How to evaluate your alternatives scientifically
Keep in mind that this part of the book is meant to be a quick overview of reality-based processes and techniques used by Humanists. There are concepts I will only introduce, but not get into their detail. Learning how to think critically is a life-long endeavor.
Let us start by defining what we are talking about. A strategy is not a goal, it is the way you plan to get to your goal.
If you are going to the supermarket, there are probably many ways you can get there. You choose a route, and you go. The route is the strategy. Where you are going is the goal. But, there is something else you need and that is a reason to go. No one just wants to go to the store. They go to the store for a reason. Do not develop a strategy without knowing the reason (the real reason) you are doing it. This is the most important part of any strategy and it is amazing how many people get this part wrong. The reason they get it wrong is because it seems obvious, but it is not. They do not know why they are doing it, they just think they need to. People go to the supermarket all the time and forget what they went there to get. Do not make this mistake in business.
Let us assume you have a goal and you know why you want to achieve that goal. Now you want to create a strategy to get there. To succeed, you need a healthy dose of reality! It does not matter if you know why you want to go to the supermarket; if you do not take into account reality, you probably will not make it there. It may seem silly when discussing going to the supermarket, but things happen, such as accidents, that block the road that can prevent you from getting to your destination.
If you think you can just go straight there—in a straight line, A to B—you might find that there are houses in your way. Understanding what is in your way and what you need to do to get around them to get to your destination is very important if you are actually going to get there. Reality really does matter even for simple strategies. The more complex the strategy, the more important it is to base it in reality.
Reality-Based Decision-Making
There are several aspects of problem-solving that can benefit from taking a reality-based approach. One question that we should ask is, what is your real problem? The main way people go wrong in strategy development is they try to solve the wrong problem, or worse, a problem that they do not actually have! I call these proxy problems. These are problems that stand in for your real problem but are not your real problem. Any time you spend time, energy, and money on proxy problems is time, energy, and money not spent on fixing your real problem.
Assuming that you know what your real problem is, the next place people go off course is they do not know what is really causing their problem. They guess, and guess wrong. Instead of fixing the underlying cause, they work on something that will have zero impact on their problem. This happens quite frequently. Again, if you are spending time, energy, and money on things that are not going to solve your real problem, you are wasting time, energy, and money.
Finally, it is not enough to know what your real problem is and what is really causing it, if you do not know what will really work to solve it. As I mentioned earlier, there are a lot of ways to go from A to B. Some routes will get you to your destination and some will not. You need to put effort into finding out which ones will really work and which ones really do not if you want to be successful.
Six Necessary Critical Thinking Skills
To develop a realistic strategy, find out what is real and what is not. The best way to do that is to get in the habit of thinking critically.
There are six basic critical thinking skills that will help you learn what is real and what is not. Here is a list of the necessary skills so that you can start learning them.
First, analyze your problem! Ask yourself why! Just being willing to question your assumptions will go a long way toward making sure your strategy is reality based. In fact, the question why, is the single most important question you can ask. What is your real problem and what is really causing it? And, why do you want to solve it? That is two-thirds of a successful strategy right there. The remaining critical thinking skills will help you figure out what will really work to solve it. Get in the habit of asking yourself why. I am going to go into a lot more detail on exactly how why works in the next chapter.
The next skill you need to learn is freethought. Freethought is to think critically, yet freely. It is a form of brainstorming. The easiest way to do this is by considering at least three options.
We all tend to think in terms of black or white. But, if you remember that sometimes things are gray, you will be way ahead of the game. Again, I am going to discuss exactly how to apply this skill in another chapter, once we start talking about how to figure out the root cause of your problem.
Another skill is doing research. Research will help you learn what is really causing your problem and what might really work to solve it. You need to research what does not work in addition to what will. If you think you have a solution that might work, look for evidence that it does not work. It is necessary to see both sides. Do not just look at the evidence that a vendor gives you and say, “Wow, that looks like it works.” Find out if it really does work before spending money on it!
This is why doubt and skepticism are such important critical thinking skills and why scientists and skeptics are always debunking things. A lot of people think of doubt and skepticism as negative thinking habits. They are actually really optimistic habits to have. People who doubt, believe they can solve their problems; they just do not want to be duped into spending money, time, and resources on things that do not work.
Doubt and skepticism are not enough. In order to know what is true or not, we must be able to evaluate the evidence. This requires a skill called scientific literacy. People who are scientifically literate know how to read and understand research papers. They do not have to take someone’s word for it; they can evaluate the evidence presented and make a determination on whether the research is valid or not. This skill can be taught, and it is probably the most important skill to have in the modern age.
There are all sorts of claims about what is good and what is bad for you. Knowing what is fake and what is scientifically valid can save your life. People die all of the time from preventable diseases because they put their faith in alternative medicine, which is medicine that has no scientific evidence to support it.
The final critical thinking skill everyone should learn is how to identify logical fallacies.
Just because one thing is true does not mean what comes next is also true. Learning what fallacies are and how to identify them will help you determine whether what follows is valid and true, or not. What I recommend is that you go online and type in fallacy and start reading the lists that people have posted online to begin understanding more.
Proxy Problems and How to Avoid Them
Let us focus on our first task, which is making sure that we are at least focused on solving our real problem, and not a proxy problem.
Albert Einstein, a member of the First Humanist Society of NY, once said that, if he had one hour to solve a problem, he would spend 50 minutes defining the problem. I cannot stress enough how important it is that you make sure you are solving your real problem and not a proxy problem. The way to avoid proxy problems is to ask yourself why. Why do I want to solve this problem?
For example, let us say I am a farmer, and that my plants are not growing due to a drought and I would really like it to rain. To solve my problem, I need to ask myself some questions. Why do I want it to rain? Answer? So I can get water on my field. Why do I want to get water on my field? So my plants will grow. Why do I want my plants to grow? So I have something to eat in order to not die of starvation.
As soon as you get to the bad thing that will happen if you do not do whatever it is, you have found your real problem. In this example, our real problem is that we want our plants to grow. To grow, they need water and sunlight. Sunlight happens without much worry. Water is more problematic? That is our real problem. How do we get water on our field?
Where people go wrong is that they lose sight of the real problem because they are instead focusing on a potential solution to the problem to the exclusion of all other possible solutions. They start thinking, I need it to rain so I can get water on my field. How do I make it rain? Do not turn a potential solution into a proxy problem. In other words, a problem that you think will solve your real problem, but that is not your real problem.
Understanding not only what it is you ultimately are trying to accomplish, and what happens if you do not, is very motivating! In this case, I need my plants to grow or I will die.
Make sure you consider all of the different ways you might solve the problem. If you are focused on only one of your potential solutions, you are ignoring and not exploring your other possible options, which might be better. Consider all your options so that you do not end up missing opportunities that are almost always easier and more effective.
Finally, proxy problems are often not solvable. You cannot make it rain. Civilizations have literally collapsed trying to make it rain. Avoid making this mistake. Figure out what your real problem is and focus on solving it.
Let us assume you did your work and you asked yourself why, and you are pretty sure that you are focusing on your real problem, and not on a proxy problem that you think is important. Now you need to find out what is really causing your problem. To do this, you need to ask a lot of questions.
Why is this happening? How does it happen? Am I sure this information is correct?
To succeed, you need to be willing to ask questions, do some research, and evaluate the science behind it. Do not assume that you know why something is happening.
To help, I am going to introduce you to a critical thinking trick I like to call “The Rule of Threes.” This is a mental shortcut that I use to help me make sure I am engaging in freethought, and that I consider all of the possibilities.
I was taught this by my boss at a tower company I used to work at. It turned out that everything we did could be broken down into three options. For instance, if you need access to land in order to put a tower on it, you could purchase the land, lease it, or get an easement onto it. You have at least three options. Most people think you can just purchase land or lease/rent land. There is actually a third option. The people who take the time to think of the third scenario are usually the ones that figure out how to creatively, effectively, and economically solve their problems.
Notice that I said my problem is that I need access to use land, not that I need land. Needing land is a proxy problem. Needing to access the land was the real problem we had. The difference is minor, but it is the difference between a successful strategy and a more costly strategy. Any money we did not spend on acquiring access to land was money we could spend on something else.
The reason I want you to think of at least three options is because, all humans, myself included, tend to think in terms of dichotomies. We can either eat-in or go out. You are either with us or against us. People who work in marketing use this tendency of ours, all the time, to trick us into thinking we need their product. Either you buy that cord-organizing piece of plastic or you cannot possibly use anything else to wire up your television and sound system. They intentionally leave out alternatives. Do not fall into this trap.
The Rule of Three: Possible Causes
The first way to use the rule of three is to think of at least three possible causes for our problem. Once you can think of three, you can think of four or five. The reason to do this is to make sure that you do not default to your assumptions about root causes. Once you have a bunch of possible causes, figure out which ones are actually real and are actually impacting your real problem.
Once I have done my brainstorming, I narrow down my list to the three that I think are most likely true. I then do my research and ask myself, what do I know about this and what do I not know? What does the science say?
For example, let us talk about the subject of bullying. We know we want to stop bullying because it causes so much long-term harm to kids. What causes bullying? Do you know? Or, do you just think you know? One of the reasons the bullying problem has been so difficult to solve is because people make a lot of assumptions about root causes. Is it bad parents? Mental illness? Sociopath? Enabled? Inherently evil?
One of the ways to tell that people are either working on a proxy problem or that they do not really know what is causing their problem is that they fail to solve the problem.
In the case of bullying, science tells us that it is a learned behavior, meaning it is rewarded. Good parents can produce bullying children because parenting has very little to do with it. Shocking, I know. The point is, until we start focusing on the real root cause of our problem, we will not solve it!
Be skeptical about what you think the causes of your problems are. Think of at least three possible causes, or more, then use research and science to figure out which of your possible causes are real and which ones are just assumptions. Do not spend time on proxy problems or proxy causes.
Real Solutions to Real Problems
Let us assume that you are working on creating a solution to your real problem, and that you understand what is really causing it. Now what? You now need a solution that will positively impact the real root cause of your real problem so that you can fix it.
We are going to use the rule of three again. We are going to consider at least three possible solutions to our problem. We are not going to go with the first person who comes along and offers us a solution. We are going to look for solutions that really do work to impact the real root cause of our problem. Once we have researched potential solutions, we are going to narrow our focus down to the three solutions that are most likely to work. Spend time properly defining your problem, and the rest becomes much easier.
We know what our real problem is, so we will not get side-tracked on interesting, but pointless, proxy problems. We know what we need to do to solve our problem because we figured out what is really causing it. This helps us narrow down potential solutions to things that will actually have a decent chance of working. We are not looking for solutions that solve proxy problems, and we are also not looking for solutions to assumed causes. We are looking for real solutions to the real causes of our real problems.
I always like to narrow down my possible solutions to three and then do a side-by-side comparison to choose the best one. Sticking to my rule of three, I have three criteria by which I judge potential solutions:
- It is focused on solving the root cause of my real problem.
- It has real science to back it up, meaning it actually works and is not just a placebo solution.
- Is it cost effective and easy to implement, given the real resources at my disposal.
This last bit is important because, if it costs more than I can afford, or it takes more resources than I have at my disposal, it will not work because I will not be able to implement it.
Example
I run an online business selling online courses. I have several problems running my company. I need to have a way for people to register for courses. I need to accept payment; otherwise, I will not get paid. And, I need to make sure people who sign up are registered into my online course system.
One potential solution is to do it manually. Have people write me or call me and send me a check, at which point I manually place them in the course. That would work, but it is time consuming and slow, and not an ideal solution.
A second option is I can automate things. I can use online forms to capture the information and online payment systems to allow people to pay online when they register. I can use scripts to automatically transfer that information into a format that I can use to upload the weekly registrations into my course system. This will work, and it will save time and is fairly cost effective.
A third option is I can pay someone to do it for me. In fact, there is an online system that I can purchase that would do all of this for me and would integrate into my website quite well. That system costs more than 10,000 U.S. dollars. Not exactly easy money to find when you are a startup. But, it is certainly an option.
If I wanted, I could add a 4th or 5th option like hiring someone. But, to make a choice on which is best, I take my three best options based on my three main criteria and make a decision from there.
In this case, all three of my options will solve my real problem and all three will really work. The deciding factor is: Can I really implement it?
I chose option two, to set up automations to make it work. It is a little more time consuming than having someone else do it, but it is way more cost effective. The time it takes is about three hours per week. I now have a solution that really solves my problem, is cost effective, and makes good use of the real resources at my disposal. A reality-based strategy that really works. Success!
In this chapter, I will provide examples of these techniques in order to give a little bit more perspective on how this really works when developing a strategy.
Effective reality-based strategies take into account the following:
- The real problem that really needs to be solved
- The real root causes of that problem
- Real solutions that will have a real impact on the root causes
- Really achievable, that is, I have the resources required to create that impact
Example of a Proxy Problem
An example of a proxy problem comes from the climate change debate. While I was teaching a course in Socratic Jujutsu, otherwise known as how to win arguments without arguing, one of my students wanted to know how to convince people climate change is human-caused. I asked her, why do you want to do that? Why does it matter whether people think it is caused by humans or not? I used why questions to help her identify her real problem.
She said she wanted people to agree that climate change is caused by humans, so they would adopt the policy changes she thinks are needed. Asking her why helped her understand that getting people to agree that climate change is caused by humans was not her real problem. It was a proxy problem. It is one of many possible solutions to her real problem. Her real problem was the getting the policy changes she wanted adopted. There are a multitude of ways to get policies enacted. But, as long as she was focused on getting consensus on it being human-caused, she was not working on getting policy enacted at all. She was focused on a proxy problem and was not understanding why her efforts were not bearing legislative fruit.
It does not matter what problem you want to solve; if you do not take the time to question your assumptions about that problem, you will probably end up wasting time, energy, and money trying to fix a proxy problem. Stripping away extraneous and irrelevant information helps you focus on what really matters. Whether you are trying to get into a new market, figuring out your hiring needs, or entering into some sort of contract, being super clear about what you really need to accomplish will help you not get distracted by extraneous proxy problems that do not impact anything.
Example of a Real Root Cause Problem
An example of a root cause problem is bullying. What causes bullying? We know that we want bullying to stop, and it is easy to articulate why. But, what causes the bully to bully? Bad parents? Mental illness? General levels of evilness?
Those are all assumptions. Choose one without finding out if it is true and you will fail to stop bullying. If you have not read my work on bullying, I am about to blow your mind.
It does not matter why a bully is bullying. It is irrelevant to getting them to stop.
Wanting to know why they bully is a proxy problem. I realize that the question of why does a bully bully, has the word why in it. But, we need to ask the question, “Why do we want to know why a bully bullies?” The answer is because we want them to stop! We think that, if we know why they bully, we can get them to stop. Our real problem is we want them to stop. That is the problem we should be focusing our energies on.
Always ask yourself why you are focusing on something to get to your real root problem.
Once we focus on the fact that we want them to stop, we can focus on how to get them to stop. Knowing why they bully is in service to that goal of getting them to stop. It is one possible way to approach this problem—but not the only way. Focusing on it—to the exclusion of other possible approaches—has caused us as a society to fail. I am not going to get into the science here because I have written about it elsewhere. But, science tells us that people bully because they are rewarded for it. If we want it to stop, we need to stop rewarding it. A strategy to make a bully stop must focus on removing their reward to be successful. Now that we know that, we are in a position to look for solutions that will help us stop rewarding bullies.
A realistic assessment of your real problem and the real root causes of your problem are the foundation upon which a realistic and effective strategy is built.
And again, this technique of questioning your assumptions will help you regardless of the problem you have. Why aren’t your customers re-enrolling? Why are you paying so much overtime? Why did your energy costs triple? Do not assume you know the answer. Question your assumption and find out.
Example of a Real Solution That Has a Real Impact
An example of a real solution problem comes from change management.
There are several possible reasons why attempts to create change fail:
- The proposed solution does not work.
- The proposed solution is a fix for a proxy problem that does not really exist. In other words, we succeed at changing behavior, but it does not impact anything. The original problem is still there because the strategy was designed to fix a proxy problem.
- The proposed solution does work, but the people pushing for adoption do not know how to effectively create behavioral change so that the solution is adopted.
There are more possible reasons why change management strategies fail, but I will leave this at three for now.
I actually teach change management using a behavioral science perspective. Most of the change management failures I witness are because the person in charge of the process does not actually know how to change a person’s behavior using behavioral science.
There really is a science to behavioral change, and it is directly applicable to all change management attempts. Knowing this science will help you manage the change processes more successfully. But if you do not even know you need to know this, you may just bumble along hoping for the best. That is not a good strategy.
To be effective at creating change, we should make sure that our attempted changes are focused on our real problem, and not a proxy problem. We should make sure that the change will actually fix things and have a real impact on outcomes. And, we should make sure that we know how to help our staff adjust to that change. Real problems. Real solutions. Real science. Real implementation.
Summary
To create a strategy that will work:
- Focus on real problems, not proxy problems.
- Find the real root cause of your problem using skepticism and science.
- Research to find out what really works to solve the problem.
- Make sure your strategy is really doable using the resources at your disposal.