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? ...
Get Think Smarter: Critical Thinking to Improve Problem-Solving and Decision-Making Skills now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.