As organizations today we are faced with a major dilemma. We listen to government officials tell us that we really need to concentrate on turning out more individuals grounded in the STEM disciplines. But that push comes fraught with a major discord. Let me try and describe the dilemma in a real time example.

In our two-day seminar, on which this series is based, we used to ask the participants to complete Osterwald’s Business Model Canvas. The problem that arose was that the participant’s could not do the exercise. In part 3 of this series we talked about the parts of the SIPOC that provided us an insight into the stakeholders of the organization. In fact the segments of the SIPOC provided the answer to three-quarters of the blocks of the canvas. So if that is true, why couldn’t the participants accurately respond to the task?

The root cause of this dilemma can be found in separate but integrated directions common in our organizations and institutions of education. From the organizational side, all too often the expectations of the organizations are that our employees are pushed or channeled into a rut. The expectation is that we have a process and employees are expected to remain in that rut with no chance to think out of the box. On the flip side of the coin are our educational institutions where we teach to a test. Everything we present to the student is designed to prepare them to pass that test. In the late 70’s when I was teaching middle schools science I was chastised by both parents and administrators for making the students do too much work. Solve this problem for me 2+2=5. You immediately know that there was an error in the equation. Is that because you know from rote what the answer is or did you think it out?

The problem is that we have either failed to raise a generation of new employees or we have become engrained so much in the standard way of doing things that we have lost the ability to utilize the skills that lead to critical thinking. The “T” part of the TLS Continuum finds its origins within the principles of Goldratt’s Theory of Constraints. It does not ask us to use some fancy statistical data. It does not ask us to use fancy metric diagrams. What it does ask us to do is to use our mental capabilities in order to contemplate the obstacles that confront every organization in the global workplace.

Critical thinking has been around since almost the beginning of time. The modern definition was created by the National Council for Excellence in Critical Thinking in 1987. It defined critical thinking as an intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning or communication. It is based on a set of universal values, which supersede most subject matter divisions. What this means to our organizations is that we need to encourage our human capital assets to look at the organization as a whole rather than the silo prevalent in many organizations. We need to look at the problems facing us with a new set of eyes centered in the full impact of the problem. This means that the “ this is the way we always have done it” must be replaced with the perspective that we are failing to meet the needs of the Voice of the Customer because …… We must replace the narrow frame of mind with a much broader view which considers all possible solutions or alternatives to resolving the obstacles. We need to use the mental capacities we were born with to consider the benefits and conflicts to each solution that we see is potentially the solution to the problem.

In order for us to successfully engage the TLS Continuum in the upcoming parts, we need to begin to use the critical thinking skills that we used to be taught from an early age. It is time for society to change our educational efforts both as children and adults to be embedded in the use of critical thinking skills. While some of the parts to follow have some basis in statistical data, the ground support is based not in statistical data but in the use of our minds to project the potential for solutions to carry the organization towards empowered change.

We can’t bring about the empowered new normal without utilizing the analysis that critical thinking provides for us. We can’t bring about an empowered new culture without looking at what might be. Napoleon Hill once told us that what ever the mind can conceive and believe it will achieve. We can conceive and believe a path only after we have thought through the components of the process with critical thinking skills.