Think Smarter: Critical Thinking to Improve Problem-Solving and Decision-Making Skills

30 Summary of Conclusions

Creating Solutions

We started this section by discussing inductive reasoning, critical thinking that leverages what we do thousands of times a day. We learned that it's all about the premise—the facts, observations, experiences, beliefs, and assumptions that we combine to come up with conclusions. We looked at ways to ensure a strong premise through credibility, consistency, and triangular thinking. We learned influencing and persuading is about having a strong premise and weakening others' premises, why change is hard, and how to address that difficulty. We moved on to innovative solutions with outside-the-box, abductive, and impossible thinking. These latter techniques produce solutions the ordinary premise-to-conclusion critical thinking process won't.

Getting Started

Problem solving and accomplishing things is the purpose of finding conclusions. Ask these questions when you're looking for a solution:

• What assumptions can I make? (Or, what assumptions am I making?)
• Why am I making those assumptions?
• Can I validate those assumptions?
• What conclusions can I reach based on those assumptions derived from facts, observations, and experiences?
• Are my premise components credible?
• Are my premise components consistent with each other and other things I know?
• Can I indirectly triangulate on a solution? (Or, do I get conflicting answers if I look at this situation from multiple perspectives?)
• Given my conclusion, how can I persuade others to endorse this solution? ...