Thinking Skills for Professionals
This book gives professionals and business people the essential tools to become better thinkers and decision-makers. It sets out simple methods and techniques to avoid poor decision making by developing our conceptual, creative and critical thinking skill
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Thinking Skills for Professionals Bryan Greetham
© Bryan Greetham 2010 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6–10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2010 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN 978-1-4039-1708-9 ISBN 978-0-230-28155-4 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-0-230-28155-4
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Greetham, Bryan, 1946– Thinking skills for professionals / Bryan Greetham. p. cm. 1. Thought and thinking. I. Title. BF441.G746 2010 153.4'2—dc22 2010010499 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10
Transferred to Digital Printing in 2014
To Pat for so enriching my life and to two of the finest professionals for saving it: Dr John Piper, FRCS, and Dra. Maria de Lurdes Batarda
Contents Acknowledgements
xv
Introduction
1
The explanation
2
1
Natural adaptation
2
2
Social adaptation
3
The consequences
5
The solution
5
This book
6
Part 1 Original Ideas
7
1 Reprogramming our Thinking Designing solutions, not finding them Patterns and pattern recognition
9 9 10
Making mistakes
14
Four rules
16
1 Tolerate uncertainty
16
2 Suspend your judgement
16
3 Think naïvely
18
4 Make room for reflection
18
Simple systems
21
Conclusion
22
2 Asking the Right Questions
23
What type of question is it?
23
1 Facts and values
25
2 Concepts
26
Is there a better question?
27
Whistleblowing
27
Bribery
29
vii
viii
Contents
1 Questions of fact, value and concept
30
2 Levels
31
Conclusion
32
3 Generating Ideas
33
Questioning: a structured approach
34
Routine questions
35
Compiling a trigger list
36
The power of questions
39
Exploring different perspectives on different levels
40
1 Differ
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