What I Learned About Thinking — and Myself — While Teaching Critical Thinking in the 21st Century

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Last week, I launched a new skills workshop at Nova SBE – Critical Thinking in the 21st Century. The experience was more than I hoped for: students were deeply engaged, and I was proud and positive about the final outcome. An idea that started developing 2 years ago turned into a key milestone for me. As I absorb all that comes along, I take time to reflect on what I re-learned about myself in this journey.

I love learning

The idea for the workshop emerged from my own journey of learning. It started with a simple book — Think Again — that was gifted to me on my departure from corporate life. More than an invitation to think again, the gift was a celebration of how I had approached my professional life: asking questions and seeking new understanding. I read through it slowly, with starts and stops along the way and allowed myself to think through the implications of what I was reading.

As time went by, I kept adding related readings — Thinking Fast and Slow, Blink, Clear Thinking. By the time I got to May Contain Lies, I knew this was where I wanted to go deeper. For years, I had worked with business leaders and had my own thoughts on what the differentiating traits were. As I kept going through my studies, patterns emerged. With the help of the work on the Foundation for Critical Thinking, I found the commonalities behind a critical mind: humility, autonomy, integrity, courage, perseverance, empathy, fairness, and confidence in reasoning. Looking back, I could see that these traits fitted the best leaders I worked with (and yes, this is using a narrative to make it look like a fact — but my only goal is reflection, not deduction).

The more I read, the more I realised that critical thinking could and should be taught. It’s not something we are necessarily born with, but it is certainly one of those things we can develop with awareness and a build-up of small daily habits. It was not only important to share with others, but it also allowed me to have the perfect excuse to continue diving deeper and learning further. That is, after all, one of the key elements of a critical thinker — the belief that we are all works in progress and we can always continue to learn about ourselves, the world, those around us, or pretty much anything we want.

I love creating

As I was reading, the hard part was to stop myself from drafting notes and creating slides straight away. I was no longer only trying to learn; I was also developing in my mind what the best way was to convey what these concepts would mean. I was keen to absorb examples and experiments, and I knew I wanted the workshop to be highly practical and actionable.

I also knew I wanted an interactive class filled with case studies and group work, and lots of “aha” moments. When I finally allowed myself to pin down the details of what I wanted to go through, I realised that each hour of the course meant a good 10 hours of preparation between readings, slides, examples, sourcing, and speaker notes. That did mean I panicked slightly at my ability to get it across the finish line, especially as a recovering perfectionist. I scheduled myself large blocks of prep work and hoped that I would find the ability to focus to be stronger than my tendency to worry.

As I went through it, I realised how much I enjoyed translating and synthesising all this knowledge into applicable business scenarios. Progressing through each section, a small voice in my head patted me on the back for what I was creating. On the night before, I thought to myself, “I think I would like to attend this workshop”. I could not have asked for more.

A big part of the creation process for me is to take a step back and connect the main points. There were many great authors and researchers who guided me through my own learning process, and many were, at times, even contradictory.

So, I enjoyed looking through them to find connections and apply an overall flow that allowed students to make their first steps on this topic after this one-day workshop.

I love making people think

I thought one of the reflections would be “I love teaching.” In fact, that was one of the first ideas that came to mind. But really, teaching is one of the avenues through which I love to make people think. As is my work as CEO advisor.

We forget to think — and even more importantly, we forget to think about our own beliefs and our own assumptions.

As I went through the day with the students, I drew energy from the various “aha” moments, from the interactions, from the incredulous faces, and from the questions asked. There was no better reason for me to be forced to adjust timings throughout the day than the fact that they were engaged and wanted to challenge or question some points. My fear was to lecture too much on a topic that is precisely riddled with the need for action. In fact, had I had more time in the day, the more discussion and engagement there would have been.

In case I had any doubts, here are some quotes I got from them in their end-of-day reflection:

• “I am more affected by biases than I thought.”
• “How easy it is to get duped despite thinking that you are an informed user.”
• “Today I changed my mind about research and decisions in general.”

I knew that if I got people to think, then I would get them to take action and decide on small steps they could take after a packed day of learning. Each participant filled in a reflection sheet at the end and all identified actions they could do differently. With that, mission accomplished.

I learnt a final lesson about myself. About how much joy one can feel when doing something they are passionate about.

I tend to worry and problem-solve, but this teaching experience allowed me to stay present and enjoy learning, creating, and making people think. There was no time for worrying — only time for being.