Critical Thinking Leading Innovation and Value Creation

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Critical ThinkingLeading Innovation and Value
Creation

• Andrew Urich, J.D.
• Legal Studies in Business
• Oklahoma State University
• aurich_at_okstate.edu

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Critical Thinker?

• I am a hypocrite.
• I play favorites.
• I interpret rules in a way that benefits me.
• I have been known to ignore rules that get in my
  way.
• I like people better if they like me.

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Critical Thinker?

• I like my ideas better just because theyre
  mine.
• I think its fun to say no when I have the
  power to do so.
• You cannot change how I see the world.
• I say I like change but I like things the way
  they are.
• I dont even know 1/10th of 1 about anything,
  but I think I know everything.

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Critical Thinker?

• I like to be right.
• I love to say I told you so.
• I hate to admit Im wrong even in those rare
  situations when it looks like I might be.
• Heres how I make decisions I decide what I
  want the answer to be and then make up the
  logical reasons to support my decision.

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Why is Decision Making So Difficult?
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What Happened to GM?
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What is Art?
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Déjà vu All Over Again?

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Why is Charlie Sheen an Actor?
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What is the Secret to Happiness?
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What Does It Mean To Think?
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The Corvette Case
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Critical Thinking

• Keys to parenting
• Oil prices
• Is college the key to success?

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What is Critical Thinking?

1. Making decisions and taking action based on
   reason, evidence and analysis.
2. Detect and avoid thinking traps.
3. Reflect on the justification of one's own beliefs
   and values.
4. Understand the logical connections between ideas.
   
5. Metacognition thinking about thinking.

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What is Critical Thinking?

• Using your brain to create value for yourself and
  your organization!

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Critical Thinking

• There is no reason anyone would want a computer
  in their home.
• President of worlds second largest computer
  company (DEC) arguing against the PC in 1977

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Critical Thinking

• The world potential market for copying machines
  is 5000.
• IBM turning down the eventual creators of Xerox

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Critical Thinking

• I think there is a world market of about five
  computers.
• Founder of IBM in 1943

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Critical Thinking

• Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?
• Warner of Warner Brothers arguing against the
  need to add sound to silent movies

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Critical Thinking

• Obama and McCain spent 1 Billion on their 2008
  campaigns Absurd?
• Coca-Cola spent almost 2 billion trying to get
  us to drink sugar water in 2008.

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Critical Thinking

• Sensible and responsible women do not want to
  vote.
• President Grover Cleveland, 1905

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Critical Thinking

• We dont like their music and guitar music is on
  the way out anyway.
• Decca record executive turning down the Beatles,
  1962

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Critical Thinking

• Television wont last because eventually people
  will get tired of staring at a plywood box every
  night.
• Daryl Zanuck, 20th Century Fox Movie Producer,
  1946

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Critical Thinking

• Everything that can be invented has been
  invented.
• Commissioner of US Patent Office arguing to
  President McKinley to close down the Patent
  Office in 1899

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Why Dont They Give Us an Owners Manual For Our
Brain?
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The Brains Inner WorkingsThe Wiring

• 100,000,000,000 neurons (brain cells)
• 15,000 synaptic connections each
• By age 15 half are gone and the superhighways are
  up and running.
• These mental pathways become the filterproducing
  recurring patterns of thinking, feeling and
  behavior.
• Examples Empathyconfrontationauthoritariandogm
  aticemotionstolerance for uncertainty.

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The Brains Inner WorkingsThe Parts

• The brain is full of zero sum games
• Ever find yourself feeling conflicted?
• Competing modules
• MRI research on picturing yourself as old
• Stanford study
• No payments until 2010
• Railway switch
• Parts of the brain
• Amygdale-fear responses
• Fleeing the stock market like you are fleeing a
  lion
• Prefrontal cortex recently evolved controls
  voluntary actions
• Logical and analytical
• Limbic system - oldest physical part of the brain
• The rat brain Impulses gut reactions

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Amygdale Fear Responses

• Total US Stock Market
• 1982 value 1.2 Trillion
• Return 1982 to 2007 13.3
• Theoretical 2007 value 28.2 Trillion
• Actual value 18.7 Trillion
• Lost to market timing 9.5 Trillion
• NASDAQ
• 9.6 Return 1973 2002
• 4.3 Actual average return to NASDAQ investor
• Zweig, Jason, Money Magazine, December 2007, page
  76

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Your Talent

• Talent is a recurring pattern of thought,
  feeling, or behavior that can be productively
  applied.
• Talent is more important than experience,
  brainpower, and willpower.
• You cannot teach talent.

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Your Talent

• What to notice, what to ignore
• What to love, what to hate
• Your motivations, ego, altruism
• How you think - practical or strategic
• Your attitude - optimistic or cynical
• Your filter is your talent

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The Talent of Great Accountants

• Innate love of precision
• Happiest moment is when the books balance
• Gallup survey

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Using Your BrainYour Unique Talent Critical
Thinking Success

• Your value and ability to prosper and reach your
  goals come from
• sensing, judging, creating, and building
  relationships.
• Thomas Stewart, Intellectual Capital
• We all have the same information its what you
  do with it that counts.

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Punch-line

• Early in life we get theories of the world the
  theories make sense but making sense is not the
  same as being correct.
• Beware of your Brains wiring!
• Your brain is programmed

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Right Brain RisingDaniel Pink

• Challenges
• Cheaper overseas?
• Computer faster?
• Is what I am offering in demand in the age of
  abundance?
• Create value in the future
• Design-- Artistic or emotional beauty (IPod)
• Story
• Synthesize (GM)
• Relationships
• Play Humor
• Meaning

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Using Your BrainApplications

• Exploit your talent!
• Dont correct weaknesses, work around them.
• Skills and knowledge can be taught, talent
  cannot.
• Heres what we can change!
• Core beliefs
• New skills and knowledge
• Your values
• Self-awareness
• Capacity for self-regulation
• Hidden talents

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• Our minds are like inmates, captive to our
  biology, unless we manage a cunning escape.
• Nassim Taleb
• The Black Swan