Critical Thinking

by Seth Sinclair

Critical thinking is the ability to conduct disciplined thinking that is clear, rational, open-minded, and informed by evidence.  In today’s environment, where leaders are confronted with rapid change, evolving technologies, information overload, political uncertainty, financial risk, and many other challenges, critical thinking is an essential skill.  Fortunately, the ability to think critically as well as strategically (see my previous post on strategic thinking), can be practiced and mastered.   Some techniques to improve critical thinking include:

Reframe problems to get to the bottom of things.  Every situation can be looked at from different angles. By shifting frames of reference, and by looking at situations from different points of view, leaders get new, and different, kinds of insights that enable them to find the true causes of issues and ultimately result in better decisions.

Challenge current beliefs and mindsets, including your own.   John F. Kennedy once said, “Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.”  Critical thinking requires a willingness to revisit our opinions, to assess how they were formed, and to look for prejudices and biases.  Having an open or “growth” mindset will allow you to consider new perspectives and theories, including those that may challenge your current position. 

In her book “Mindset, the new psychology of success,” psychologist Carol Dweck writes “the passion for stretching yourself and sticking to it, even (or especially) when it’s not going well, is the hallmark of the growth mindset. This is the mindset that allows people to thrive during some of the most challenging times in their lives.”

Explore analogies and metaphors.  Metaphors and analogies help us make sense of the world in which we live.  Analogies are comparisons between two different things in order to highlight some point of similarity. Metaphors are words or phrases for one thing that is used to refer to another thing in order to suggest that they are similar.

Using analogies and metaphors allows us to tap into our knowledge and understanding of something familiar to explore or express an unfamiliar concept.  When faced with a need to understand and make decisions about an ambiguous problem, a powerful technique is to explore parallels with some other experience.  If the purpose of critical thinking is to decide what to believe or do, an important approach is to use another circumstance to structure thinking about the problem. This facilitates analytical thinking, and supports both reflection and communication.

Ask powerful questions. In a previous post, we wrote about the importance of powerful questions in coaching.  Used at the right point in a coaching conversation, such questions have the power to reveal new perspectives and to find new ways to move forward and take action. 

Leaders find value in powerful questions as well.  A leader might ask herself or himself the following questions:

·      What might be possible?

·      What would I do with a blank slate if there were no limitations?

·      Who else has faced these challenges and what can I learn from those experiences?

·      What have we not yet explored?

·      What is holding us back?

By asking powerful questions, leaders can change their understanding about the way things are, look at things in a new light, and find different ways to solve both personal and professional problems.

Be prepared to practice.  Building the discipline needed to think critically takes commitment and hard work.  As with any skill, you will need to practice, first by becoming more conscious of your current thinking processes and then by identifying and exploring opportunities to instill structured checkpoints in your approach.  As you become more proficient, you will expand your capacity and increase the overall quality and effectiveness of your thinking.    

Ultimately, a good critical thinker not only questions everything, but also analyzes everything, and places everything in context. Critical thinkers are aware of their assumptions and prejudices, and understand how they affect their thought processes.  They look past the surface of things to get the whole picture.  And they come up with effective solutions, because they are able to address the real issues involved.  

Results of the 2011 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey

by Stan Sinclair, Managing Member

Last week, the Office of Personnel Management published its annual Federal Employment Viewpoint Survey.  More than 500,000 Federal employees were asked to participate in the survey, and more than 266,000 provided responses.  The survey, which you can read in its entirety here, provides a “comprehensive and valuable picture of the opinions of the Federal workforce,” according to OPM.

Among the survey’s findings were that nearly 7 of 10 Federal employees recommend their organizations as good places to work, and 92 percent believe that the work they themselves do is important.   More than 80 percent like the work they do; know how their work relates to agency goals and priorities; believe they are held accountable for achieving results; think their units do high quality work; and feel their supervisor treats them with respect.

On the negative side of the ledger, less than 50 percent of employees felt that their leaders generated high levels of motivation and commitment in the workforce and were satisfied with the policies and practices of their senior leaders.  And although 84 percent of employees feel they are personally held accountable for achieving results, 47 percent believe pay raises do not depend on performance; 41 percent believe poor performers in their organization are not dealt with, and 35 percent believe promotions are not based on merit.

As in every survey, some agencies did very well, while others did less well.  The highest rated agency in the categories of leadership and knowledge management; results-oriented performance culture; talent management and job satisfaction was the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which got the highest rating in each of the four areas.  Other “winners” included the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission; the State Department; OPM itself; and the National Credit Union Administration.

OPM concluded that “despite potentially adverse scenarios (such as) shutdowns, pay freezes, furloughs, benefit reductions, budget cuts and negative public perceptions, Federal employees’ dedication and commitment remain high.”  This agrees with what we at SAG are seeing in our work with a number of federal agencies—with this caveat: there are places, probably in every agency, where morale is nowhere near what it could, or should be. 

We strongly believe that our training and leadership development programs have significantly improved both morale and performance everywhere they have been given, and that such training is essential for every federal agency if it is to adapt to the needs of the American people in the 21^st century.  As OPM writes, “competent, ethical and dedicated senior leaders who foster the confidence and the respect of the workforce are critical to agency success.”

Interestingly enough, however, while 65 percent of survey respondents feel they have opportunities to improve their skills at work, only 54 percent believe their training needs are properly assessed. If, as OPM also concludes, “leadership is getting better, but still has a ways to go,” the best way to travel this path is through rigorous and intensive leadership training.

We at SAG are curious, though: this survey is the product of 266,000 responses out of nearly 4.5 million federal employees.  If you are a federal employee and were not surveyed, what do you think?  What would you have told the surveyors about your level of job satisfaction, your thoughts about your workplace, and the quality of your organizations leaders?  We promise we’ll maintain your anonymity, unless you’d prefer not to remain anonymous.  Thanks!

SAG to help VA Become More Data-Driven

by Everett A. Chasen, Associate

When Eric K. Shinseki became Secretary of Veterans Affairs in 2009, he brought President Obama’s vision to transform VA into a 21^st century organization with him.  The Secretary established sixteen ‘transformational initiatives,” designed to create a Department that is people-centric, forward thinking, and results-oriented.  One of those initiatives is to “use evidence and data in decision making on a more regular basis.”  At the request of VA Under Secretary for Health Randy Petzel, Sinclair Associate Albert (Al) Washko is helping to realize this initiative throughout the Veterans Health Administration.

Washko, who was the Director of the VA Nebraska-Western Iowa Health Care System from 2003 until his retirement last March, has a long track record of successfully using data to improve performance at the health care facilities both within and outside of government and VHA region he has managed.  Among those facilities were VA’s Northeast Region, which he directed from 1985 to 1989; VA’s Albany Medical Center, which he also directed; and the New England Deaconess hospital in Boston, where he was both the Chief Operating Officer and Chief Executive Officer.  At Nebraska, Al and his staff developed a field analytics model designed to increase the use of data at every level throughout the facility.

Among the staff’s initiatives was creating a series of five University-based courses to improve the analytic capabilities of higher-level staff.  More than 150 VA employees throughout the nation have already signed up for one or more of these courses, which are Internet-based and ten weeks in duration.  Front-line staff was also trained in data analysis by being paired with a higher-level advisor who provided advice, support and guidance on the subject on a regular basis. 

As CEO of the health care system, Washko met regularly with each of the system’s many management teams.  At those meetings, he made it clear that good data was an essential component of the facility’s decision-making processes, and that data was regularly reported from teams (which included employees from all segments of the medical center) to senior managers. Now, as a Sinclair Associate, Al will work with senior managers at other VA hospitals to institute evidence-based decision-making at their facilities, based on the Nebraska model.

VA has just awarded a contract to SAG to provide coaching and leadership support to help make other VHA facilities more data-driven.  Under the terms of the contract, Al will help senior managers at twelve VA facilities throughout the nation to implement the Omaha model for approximately one year.  If this proves successful, VA and SAG hope to roll out the project to the entire nation.

Washko will make a presentation on this project at VHA’s next Senior Management Conference in August, and will work with VHA to select the “early adopter” pilot sites following that discussion. “Because this project is attached to the Secretary’s Transformation Initiatives, it already has a lot of visibility and enjoys a lot of support,” he says.  “I think we’re filling an important need for the organization.”