Critical Thinking

It was six men of Indostan
To learning much inclined,
Who went to see the Elephant
(Though all of them were blind),
That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind. The Third approached the animal,
And happening to take
The squirming trunk within his hands,
Thus boldly up he spake:
"I see," quoth he,
"the Elephant Is very like a snake!" The Sixth no sooner had begun
About the beast to grope,
Than, seizing on the swinging tail
That fell within his scope.
"I see," quoth he,
"the Elephant Is very like a rope!"

The First approached the Elephant,
And happening to fall
Against his broad and sturdy side,
At once began to bawl:
"God bless me! but the Elephant
Is very like a wall!"
The Fourth reached out an eager hand,
And felt about the knee:
"What most this wondrous beast is like
Is mighty plain," quoth he;
"'Tis clear enough the Elephant
Is very like a tree!"
And so these men of Indostan
Disputed loud and long,
Each in his own opinion
Exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right,
And all were in the wrong!

The Second, feeling of the tusk
Cried, "Ho! what have we here,
So very round and smooth and sharp?
To me `tis mighty clear
This wonder of an Elephant
Is very like a spear!" The Fifth, who chanced to touch the ear,
Said: "E'en the blindest man
Can tell what this resembles most;
Deny the fact who can,
This marvel of an Elephant
Is very like a fan!"
The Blind Men and the Elephant,

An Ancient Indian Tale

A course in management can seem to be like blind men constructing a picture of an elephant. It is even more complicated, we have no one who has a clearer, overall picture to be amused by our ignorance as the reader is when reading "The Blind Men and the Elephant". The intent of those that do research in management is to construct that clearer picture. The process involves an "expanding, exploratory process", which is critical thinking, to identify facts and a logic that might tie the facts together, and a "progressively narrowing process", or problem solving, which reduces the explanations to an acceptable one. This is theory building.

Formally, a theory in science is a set of statements (hypotheses) that together represent an explanation for a larger problem that is testable by experience. Theory is desired because it condenses knowledge to a general rule. A strong theory permits prediction. There can be several theories to explain a problem. Theories are the result of research programs and are subject to change given new information. A theory is accepted when it explains more facts in a problem than other theories and, if possible, provides better predictions than alternative theories.

A model is developed when there is insufficient information to construct a good theory. Therefore, models are often constructed when the problem is complex: we may not understand what the important facts are or how they relate to one another. Models are constructed on the basis of partial information. Models are based on experience, that is they are constructed on facts that can be tested for their truthfulness. Since models are a researcher's best guess of what the important facts are and how the facts interrelate, models are "normative". Normative means prescriptive, rather than descriptive: the problem ought to work like this, although we can't be sure that the model really describes or explains it. A model is testable only to the extent that a good model can explain what happens and., sometimes, how it happens. A model, unlike a theory, cannot be tested to determine if it is a true representation of the problem it attempts to represent.

An example of a model: I have a model of how students learn that influence the way I teach. This model is not shared by all teachers. Different teachers have different models of education. Teaching and learning is a very complicated problem. Every teacher's model is based on personal experience. When I first started teaching I used the traditional lecture model only because it was what I knew. I believed it to be the best fit for transmission of information. I expanded this model to include case studies because I believed that students should be engaged in problem solving to learn how to solve problems - a key management skill, I think. I later experimented with other devices, learning tom improve my model of teaching as I did it. I now include this module in a belief that students need to learn how to reason to solve problems, as well as engage in case problem solving. This is all just my model of how teaching-learning works. If it is a good model, students will learn what I have set out to teach. Even if my students do learn I cannot say this is the way that teaching learning works. It is one model.

An analogy is comparing one thing that we understand to something that we do not understand to gain insight into the unknown. Therefore, analogies are used to explain or clarify. For example: I want to explain industry growth. This is a complicated issue, but I observe that often a product, like the cassette tape recorder, appears in the market, demand catches on, sales increase, then stabilize, and finally decline when a new product, like the CD player, is introduced. This growth seems to me to be similar to what happen with certain biological species who have a "life cycle" - like the pupae, cocoon, butterfly. I have an analogy: industries have a life cycle. I now can " see" what is happening to industries across time.

A good analogy will:

I doubt that all industries really operate like the life cycle of bugs. Bicycles, for example, are a product that seems to have periodic demand growth and decline because of the ability to "reinvent" the product. Moreover, bicycle producers take advantage of popular culture: a few years ago interest in fitness increased sales, tomorrow maybe interest in the environment will influence demand. Still, the analogy is good enough to appreciate the similarities of growth with many industries.