Chapter 2. A New Way of Thinking

Jonathan Malloch made numerous calls and sat down several times with the extraction team of Glenn Susskind and Gary White as they scrutinized lists, charts, and cost sheets to determine the feasibility and best ways of transporting Amenah to Nashville. As Gary put it, “You don’t just hop on a plane and run over to Iraq and bring a girl back.” There were a lot of moving parts to consider, so they went to work, identifying the most crucial questions: Could the child fly, did they have the logistic ability to get from the Iraq border to Amman, what type of air transportation was needed (e.g., air ambulance), what type of transportation was possible given the costs, how would they transport their medical equipment through international airport security, and how would they secure an interpreter?

They didn’t waste time with irrelevant questions, and they didn’t overlook a single crucial detail or possibility as they assessed risks, probabilities, and options. They were expert thinkers in this arena, all having served professionally as part of the Disaster Medical Assistance Team, which is now housed under the Department of Health and Human Services. Their experience and expertise came from working together in crisis situations, such as the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Some of their expertise had to do with their medical background and training, but their experience also came from having to think through emergency situations; to work effectively with ambiguous, inconsistent, and incomplete information; to make the best possible judgments given the circumstances; and to plan effectively under time pressures.

An expert in any field learns to organize and group information around principles. That allows the expert to quickly draw information when he or she needs it. Doctors see a symptom, scan through a database in their heads, and ask a series of questions to quickly winnow down the possible causes. Peyton Manning can scan a football field, see opportunities and risks, and make snap decisions with great success. A novice organizes information in a more random and error-prone fashion. By putting a thinking model in your head, you are organizing important steps and information, which helps you learn more quickly and efficiently. A model, like a recipe, helps you see the ingredients and steps for success. So, let’s look at five steps of a model that can become a valuable part of your own thinking.

Five Steps to New Thinking

1. Stop and Think

After David Bellon listened to Kevin Jarrard’s proposal, he walked back to the base, which took about an hour. He thought about Kevin—was he on his game? He thought about Dr. Nadeau and the expertise he brought to the situation, their mission in Haditha, and his and Mark’s dream of moral certainty for their soldiers. He processed and he reflected in the solitude of the night. By the time he arrived at the base, he had sized up the situation, knew what his next steps would be, and anticipated that his role would be one of strategy and influence with higher command.

Janet Jarrard, Kevin’s aunt back in Tennessee, was a PR specialist. But she was faced with an unusual conundrum. She needed to solicit funds to finance the transportation of Amenah, her mother, an extraction team, as well as a female escort. But she couldn’t use any of the best tools of public relations. She couldn’t initiate a media event able to garner attention and funds, nor could she use any of the latest social media tools, all of which could make her task far easier. If word got out too soon, Amenah and her mother might never make it out of Iraq. Their lives would be at risk. She’d also been asked to organize the medical extraction team and help find a female escort for the mother and sick child. So Janet had to pause and consider possibilities. It was all daunting, and some of it was a little over her head. What could she do? How could she go about all of this, yet do it in the quietest and most effective way possible?

When faced with the impossible, it’s often best to start with the small steps of what is possible. Once she weighed her options, a quiet e-mail flurry to all her friends and acquaintances seemed the only real way to start a grassroots fire able to sweep in funds and solicit help with the harder parts of the mission. In time, the pieces began to fall into place. Her friend Lisa Van Wye, a nurse from Bowling Green, Kentucky, offered to be the female escort from Jordan to the states. Deanna Dolan, of World Relief, rounded up an interpreter and led Janet to the Bergers, who offered their home as a place to stay, while the Grace Chapel Church in Lieper’s Fork, Tennessee, started to help gather funds. And, pivotal to the most daunting task of all, Jonathan Malloch got in touch with her and said, “What can I do?” That completed the missing parts of the puzzle as the impossible, in the way of such miracles, started to look pretty darn doable.

Being able to stop and think is a reflective skill; it is the ability to stop and figure out what type of thinking skill you need at this point in time. When you do this, you are actively taking control of your thinking. The situation might be life changing, an unproductive debate with your teenager, a problem at work, or an entrepreneurial opportunity. The situation does not matter—the process remains the same. You stop and think about your thinking so that you can apply the correct strategy for the situation. Here are a few simple, but essential reflective questions to ask yourself:

• What is going on here (or with me)? Stop and define the situation and gauge your feelings. Notice that the first step for both Lieutenant Colonel Bellon and Gary White was to “size up the situation.”

• What am I (are we) trying to accomplish? Stop and define your purpose or goal. Keeping your purpose, goal, or dream at the forefront prevents derailment and keeps feelings in check.

• What type of situation is this? Stop and figure out if it is urgent or important. Most situations are not urgent or extremely important. When they are, you want to be ready to apply your thinking skills. When they aren’t, you don’t want to waste energy by treating them like they are.

• Do I need to know more? Determine if you need more information to answer what (facts), when, why (the context), or how (process) questions. Do you need more information to determine if there is a need to plan, to monitor, or to evaluate?

By thinking reflectively, you put yourself in a position to identify the real problem, or put small problems in perspective so that you don’t waste valuable time and energy. Asking yourself reflective questions improves your awareness and focuses your thinking. It allows you to apply what you already know to the situation at hand.

Learn to Stop and Think

The best way to become better at stopping and thinking is to pick one activity, for example, meetings at work or the times when you review your finances. Choose any situation where you want to think more deeply. As you approach the situation, stop and ask a few reflective questions. (For example: What am I trying to accomplish? Which thinking style would be most helpful here? What is my emotional temperature right now?) Don’t rush your answers; give yourself time to process a thoughtful response.

It is more challenging to stop and think when the stakes are high. When a big decision is on the table or a conflict is in play, feelings often come to the forefront and exert too much influence. One way to prepare for these high-pressure moments is to set aside time to think about a significant or emotional moment that occurred previously in your life. Run instant replay; play that moment in your head like a motion picture. Mentally pause the picture and ask yourself reflective questions. You are not trying to change the past, but instead you want to rehearse and practice new thinking at the right moment. Using a past event is a safe way to practice so that you can prepare to do it successfully when the next big situation arises. You are cueing and rehearsing so that you will be ready.

2. Recognize Assumptions¹

If you go to the Ritz Carlton, you’ll get great customer service and if you buy a Honda, it will be a reliable car. These are common assumptions based on the reputation of the companies. Assumptions, statements, or beliefs that you assume to be true operate almost automatically, so you take them for granted without checking the facts. They are useful because they save you time. If you didn’t make assumptions, you would be forever checking every single fact in every single instance. In essence, you would be repeatedly and forever saying, “How do I know that to be true?” Your life would grind to a halt.

The problem with assumptions is that sometimes they are wrong. Not too long ago, leading fashion retailer Gap Inc. decided to launch a new logo to refresh its brand. The old logo had been in place for decades and the company assumed a more contemporary image was needed. Unfortunately, it didn’t check its assumption and the online community condemned the move. After only one week, Gap Inc. recalled the new logo and brought back the old one. When assumptions are wrong, they send you down a dead-end track, and you don’t even know you are heading in the wrong direction, which can be a costly mistake. The ability to recognize assumptions will help you avoid pitfalls, and the best place to start is to understand where assumptions come from.

Personal experience is the most common source of an assumption and it is the most difficult to recognize. We hold beliefs and make assumptions based on our culture, background, and experience. Do you favor health-care reform? Do you know why you hold this belief? We see through the eyes of our own experience, and we don’t know what we don’t know.

Gary White, Glenn Susskind, and Lisa Van Wye prepared for their trip to the Iraq border by reviewing a culture brief that was prepared by the Department of Navy Intelligence. They reviewed proper protocol related to religious and cultural practices in the region and specifically within Amenah’s tribe. They received an additional briefing, courtesy of Blackwater Worldwide, on how to prepare for the trip from the Iraq border to Amman, including how to dress, how to comb their hair, and how to avoid unexpected behaviors. Any assumption based on their American experience might cause a problem in a situation that had no room for error. They were American civilians and this was dangerous terrain for them. Furthermore, they would be dealing with a sick toddler who did not speak English, and they didn’t want to do anything that might unnecessarily upset her. A fear-based tantrum or agitation would drain precious oxygen that she couldn’t afford to waste.

Learn to Recognize Assumptions

Distinguish fact from opinion. That isn’t as easy as it looks. When you hear someone say, “Macs are easier to use than PCs,” do you nod in agreement? Most of us do, but that statement is an opinion that needs to be tested (e.g., by asking for whom and in which applications). Popular opinions are the tricky ones, so see how good you can become at distinguishing facts and opinions as you listen to people, watch the news, and surf the Internet. The ability to distinguish facts from opinions will help you recognize assumptions.

Identify stated versus unstated assumptions. Stated assumptions are explicit and you see them all of the time in project plans and contracts: “Josh can complete the project in two weeks, assuming he works full-time on the project.” By stating the assumption, everyone knows what is required (he won’t be able to work on anything else). Stating assumptions increases clarity, quantifies risk, and is a good way to manage your workload.

Unstated assumptions are where trouble usually begins. In dating relationships, couples sometimes hold very different assumptions about what it means to “be together” or to “take a break.” Romantic comedies bank on this type of misunderstanding and miscommunication. Unstated assumptions run rampant in projects and financial deals gone awry and their consequences can be serious.

Most of the volunteers in “Amenah’s Story,” with the exception of Jonathan Malloch, did not really understand the complexity associated with one very short portion of the trip—the 280 miles between Amman, Jordan, and the Iraq border. They assumed it would be difficult, but they had no idea how difficult. For example, there were numerous checkpoints along the road between Amman and the border, each with long lines of vehicles waiting to pass through the checkpoint. Glenn noted that they hadn’t anticipated this event because it is not something you see in America. They had assumed a more expedient route, and, thankfully, their Blackwater escort was able to bypass the lines. Glenn acknowledged that extra hours going through checkpoints would have made it virtually impossible for them to keep Amenah stable without depleting their medical supplies on the first part of the journey.

The Marines weren’t anticipating near-blizzard conditions as Kevin and the family flew from Haditha to the Iraqi border. It was an extremely unusual event, and military people serving in the region at that time often refer to this January day in 2008 as “the day it snowed in the desert.” Understandably, the Marines had assumed that weather conditions would be within a normal range for the region, and had not planned for delays that extreme weather can cause. Fortunately, this unstated assumption did not derail the project, but weather did come close to shutting down their transportation plans.

It is not easy to recognize unstated assumptions, so we invite you to practice. Can you identify the unstated assumption in this statement? “We need a better recycling program at work. It is important to increase awareness of green initiatives in our company.” Think about what is being implied. The unstated assumption is that a better recycling program will increase awareness. Once you recognize an assumption, you can evaluate it. Maybe a better recycling program will increase awareness, maybe it won’t, or maybe something else would be more effective. If you state the assumption (I assume that a better recycling program will increase awareness of green initiatives at work), you are more likely to evaluate it correctly.

3. Evaluate Information

Before you can jump on an opportunity, you need to evaluate its merits. When you are trying to choose between alternatives, you need to sort through their relative strengths and weaknesses. To make a good choice, you need to evaluate information. The good news is that information is far more accessible than it used to be. The bad news is that our society is now swimming in a sea of information and misinformation. It can feel overwhelming, and to cope effectively, you need a systematic approach.

Before evaluating information, be sure you clarify the situation (stop and think) so that you know what’s going on, what you are trying to accomplish, and what type of situation it is. This helps you determine how much and what type of information to gather and evaluate. Try to root out vague and ambiguous language. When you hear phrases like, “I just want to be happy” or “we want a win-win outcome,” you’ve got vague and ambiguous goals. Clarify before you move forward. It takes time to gather information, so know what you need to look for (and what you don’t) before you start.

Is It Relevant and Accurate?

What did Janet Jarrard, Jonathan Malloch, and Mark Lamelza have in common, besides their shared goal to help Amenah? They each needed to clearly describe what success would look like so they could gather and evaluate the right information. For Janet, the keys to success were related to adequate funding and resources (e.g., to pay for airline tickets, to secure housing, to get a female escort, to locate a female interpreter in Nashville). For Jonathan, it was the safety of the civilian medical team and their patient. For Mark Lamelza, it was maintaining security and governance operations in the region without disruption. To evaluate information, you need to have a framework around which you can organize the information. Janet, Jonathan, and Mark each started with criteria that allowed them to efficiently evaluate information related to their part of the operation.

As soon as you have criteria or a “keys for success” checklist in place, you can use two simple questions to evaluate information. The first question centers on the relevance of the information. Sometimes people get off track sorting through irrelevant information, and the common consequence is to feel overwhelmed or confused. As you review information, you will want to ask yourself, over and over again, “Is it relevant based on my keys for success?”

Kevin and his colleagues needed to get tribal permission for Amenah and her mother to travel to America and there were several different groups in Haditha trying to influence the outcome. Rumors floated around and Kevin and his colleagues certainly needed to be aware of political influences, but they couldn’t keep tabs on all of the information that was bubbling up. They needed to determine which information was relevant and which wasn’t, so they focused on the person who would ultimately make the decision, the tribal sheik. They evaluated information related to the al-Jughayfi tribe’s Sheik Said Flayah Othman’s viewpoint, trying to be fully aware of what the sheik knew and what he considered important because he could give the go-ahead. They directed their precious time and attention toward evaluating the information that mattered most.

Now let’s go to the second simple question: Is it accurate? Be on the lookout for information that sounds accurate, but is vague. Notice the difference between “Doctors recommend Zymbia.” and “A survey of the American Medical Association showed that 87 percent of the doctors surveyed recommended Zymbia.” It is easier to evaluate the accuracy of the second example. Watch out for popular opinions (e.g., Macs are easier to use than PCs). They might be accurate, but also be vague regarding for whom and when the conditions are true.

Consider the medical information on Amenah that the extraction planning team was receiving from Iraq. As they prepared for their trip overseas, they would get snippets of information, often through second- and thirdhand sources. The initial reports indicated that she was in reasonably good shape. However, they needed to prepare for arduous travel and they could not confirm the accuracy of the medical information they were receiving. They contacted Dr. Doyle, a pediatric cardiologist at Vanderbilt, several times to go over the information they were receiving, and to collectively work through possible implications. But in the end, they knew that it would be dangerous to take the information they had at face value. Instead, they prepared for medical scenarios that ranged from a relatively healthy child with a hole in her heart to a worst-case scenario. Not accepting information at face value proved to be a wise decision because they were prepared when they met a very sick little girl.

It is also important to look at the source of the information when evaluating accuracy. For example, do you think Wikipedia is a credible source? How do you know? To gauge the credibility of a source, ask questions: Does the source have expertise in this area? Is his or her expertise up to date? Is he or she impartial and trustworthy? It is important to check your sources.

Jonathan Malloch was getting ready to call off the mission because he had received information from several sources that the operation couldn’t be done. He needed to make a decision, but before he did, he called Gary White and asked for his thoughts. He hesitated for the safety of his colleagues uppermost, even though Blackwater had assured him they could help orchestrate the extraction. Gary told him that he needed to listen to the people who had frontline experience. He said, “Jonathan, you need to listen to the people in the trenches, those are the ones who know it more than someone who is four or five hundred miles away sitting behind a desk. I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but it’s just the truth.” Gary and Glenn thought the mission could be accomplished, and Jonathan respected and trusted their input.

Am I Being Persuaded?

Sometimes when you are evaluating information, others will try to actively shape your evaluation. Persuasion is used successfully by leaders, salespeople, marketing specialists, and even our children to influence and motivate. Being aware of persuasion techniques helps you sort out relevant and accurate information from fluff and spin.

Some persuasion techniques are fairly obvious, such as using a respected person as a spokesperson or using emotionally charged language and appealing to human dreams and desires. Others are more subtle, as evidenced in drug company commercials. Some drug commercials leverage the fact that most people can only remember six to eight pieces of information at a time, and information that is presented first and last is remembered best. The commercials present a long list of benefits, followed by risks and side effects, and then benefits again. Research² has shown that benefits are sometimes presented using words that are easier to understand and are presented at a slower speed than the risks and side effects, and sometimes visual distraction is added to the mix. The end result of this careful orchestration is that people remember the benefits, but have difficulty remembering the risks and side effects. Training (such as learning to ask questions about relevancy and accuracy) helps you counteract persuasion techniques and improves your ability to evaluate information.

Am I Being Objective?

When you are evaluating information, you can also get sidetracked by common cognitive biases. Human brains tend to use heuristics, simple rules that increase efficiency but introduce systematic error. A number of these mind traps are described in Appendix B, “Cognitive Biases: Common Mental Mind Traps,” but here is a flavor of how they work. If you hear that 92 percent of the patients with a certain disease survive an illness, you will view that information more favorably than if you hear that 8 percent of the patients die. The odds are the same, but you evaluate differently based on the way the information is framed.

Even more pervasive is confirmation bias, the tendency to remember and agree with information that is consistent with your beliefs and values and to not seek out or to critically review information that does match your beliefs. On the morning that Pearl Harbor was bombed, the incoming Japanese planes were spotted on radar and reported, but no action was taken. American planes were due in that day and no one really believed that an attack like that was possible. Confirmation bias happens to all of us, and one way to minimize it, and other cognitive biases, is to add a third question: Am I being objective? Through this question, you are pausing to look more carefully at what you are seeing or hearing.

4. Draw Conclusions

Making the right decision can change your life. It might be making that instantaneous connection in a single moment, or choosing from multiple alternatives after thoughtful contemplation, that forever shifts your life’s course. Either way, the sequence is the same; you accurately evaluate the information and draw a conclusion that logically follows from the information. Unfortunately, mistakes often occur at the intersection between evaluating information and drawing conclusions. Let’s look at two common mistakes:

• Jumping to conclusions often occurs when people are under pressure to move quickly or when they are very results driven. Workplaces across America reward people who take action and get results, and the one downside is a nationwide tendency to jump on the first conclusion without fully vetting other possibilities.

Certainly, the Marines in Operation Amenah were both action oriented and under intense time pressure. However, as a part of their training, they have been taught how to quickly develop and evaluate multiple options before drawing a conclusion. In combat situations, jumping to conclusions can have deadly consequences. In independent interviews, Kevin Jarrard, David Bellon, and Mark Lamelza each consistently described how they canvassed options before drawing a conclusion; this skill is ingrained in these men.

• Overgeneralization is also common, and it occurs when you draw a conclusion that goes well beyond the information at hand. Would you invest all of your savings in the stock market because you read a favorable article in the Financial Times? Of course not. Yet, the economic road over the last few years is scattered with the carcasses of organizations that made a practice of drawing conclusions that extended far beyond a base of solid information.

When Lieutenant Colonel Bellon received permission from higher headquarters for Kevin and colleagues to proceed, he knew the parameters of that approval; there was no room for overgeneralization. He accurately concluded that permission was tenuous at best, and any action that diverted attention from their official mission would result in a quick reversal of the decision.

Inductive and Deductive Reasoning

Let’s look at the process of drawing a conclusion now that we have seen how a couple of common miscues occur. To understand how you draw conclusions, you need to know about deductive and inductive reasoning. To help you, pick a detective from your favorite crime-solving show (e.g., NCIS, The Mentalist, CSI, Sherlock Holmes)—any one will do. Here is the story:

A woman was shot, her body was found in her apartment, and her boyfriend is the primary suspect. At the time of death, he was with some buddies at a local bar two blocks from her apartment. However, he left the bar for ten minutes to get something from his car, and no one noticed him while he was gone. If the woman was murdered in her apartment, the boyfriend had sufficient time to commit the crime. However, your favorite detective (insert name here) thinks she was murdered across town. If so, the boyfriend could not have shot her.

This “if so” logic is deductive reasoning. If something is true (she died on the other side of town), then certain conclusions can be deduced (the boyfriend was not with her when she died). In deductive reasoning, you use a “top down” approach. Principles and laws are applied (e.g., you can’t be in two different places at the same time) to draw a conclusion. Applying proven principles, rules, and laws to move from information to conclusion reduces error and adds rigor to your thinking.

When Glenn Susskind was trying to determine the oxygen supply required for the trip, he noted that Amenah lived in low country, not the mountains. So, he assumed that she was near sea level and that her blood was only semioxygenated because of her illness. He knew that the type of plane required to make the trip would pressurize at 8,000 feet. Glenn was using deductive reasoning and applying laws of physics to estimate her oxygen needs during the flight.

Inductive reasoning is more of a “bottom up” approach in which observations are made that lead to a conclusion. When your favorite detective arrived on the scene, he or she closely examined the body, then stepped back and said, “She wasn’t killed here. She probably died on the beach.” The detective noticed sand under her fingernails, the scent of seaweed, and no blood on the carpet. Based on these observations, the detective inferred that she died elsewhere, probably at the beach on the other side of town. The detective can’t be sure, but it is an educated guess. In inductive reasoning, you connect a set of observations to make an educated guess about how they are related. Inductive reasoning is useful when you are trying to identify patterns and trends.

Dr. Nadeau observed the current state of the local hospital in Haditha, which had been crippled by war. He reviewed a U.S. government contract that proposed spending $2.5 million on restoring the hospital. He also reviewed the types of resources that the local doctors were requesting, which did not match basic medical needs. He then sat down and reviewed what the local infrastructure could support and the common medical needs of the people in Haditha. When he connected the dots, he knew that the 2.5 million dollars would be wasted. Dr. Nadeau was using inductive reasoning when he drew this conclusion, and also when he proposed rebuilding a basic hospital that would be suited for the needs of the people and supportable with current infrastructure.

Good decision making (or problem solving) is about drawing conclusions that logically follow from accurate and relevant information. You use deductive and inductive reasoning skills to make the connection between information and conclusion. When the connection slips (e.g., jumping to conclusions, overgeneralizing), so does the quality of the decision.

5. Develop a Plan of Action

Once a decision is made, what happens next? A plan of action helps you anticipate consequences and brings your decision to life. The type of planning needed depends, to a certain extent, on the type of decision (e.g., project plan, business plan, wedding plan). However, when you move from decision to action, three questions will get you off to a good start:

• What are the consequences of this decision?

• What plans need to be made to implement this decision?

• What types of resources are needed to implement this decision?

In “Amenah’s Story,” there were multiple action plans, and each was very detailed and specific. That level of detail was necessary to successfully orchestrate a complex life-and-death mission. Of course, most decisions will not require this level of planning, but it is important to remember that a decision is the beginning, not the end point. Leveraging the qualities of a timely style helps to bring a proactive, resourceful approach to bear on a plan of action. Similarly, using an analytical style and looking for inconsistencies or missing pieces of the plan helps avoid gaffes and miscues. A plan of action keeps you focused, helps you avoid unnecessary detours, and leads to more predictable and promising outcomes.

Summary

Every day, you are bombarded with information and you will absorb it differently than you did before. Perhaps you will notice an opinion that looks like a fact, recognize an unstated assumption, or catch yourself agreeing with something just because it matches your beliefs. Maybe you will quickly recognize irrelevant information and save yourself time by moving on to something more relevant. Maybe you will see similarities across pieces of information and connect the dots using inductive reasoning. Regardless of what you learned in this chapter, the end result is that you are thinking differently.

You now have a new model for thinking and a series of relevant questions that allows you to organize your thoughts as you approach opportunities, problems, and decisions. The five-step model helps you approach thinking more like an expert (organizing and grouping information, asking better questions) than a novice. Practice your new skills each day, and you will quickly see positive results.

Endnotes

1. A New of Way Thinking is based on Pearson’s RED model of critical thinking (www.ThinkWatson.com). The RED model (Recognize Assumptions, Evaluate Arguments, and Draw Conclusions) stems from more than 85 years of research on critical thinking. This program of research is based primarily on the Watson-Glaser™ II Critical Thinking Appraisal, a leading assessment of critical thinking ability.

2. Professor Ruth S. Day of Duke University leads a program of cognitive research, including cognitive accessibility of drug benefits and risks. Her research is summarized on her faculty Web page at www.duke.edu.