Learn To Think
A Thoughtful Thanksgiving Tuesday Tidbit
The Thanksgiving holiday break is normally when I do my best thinking, and I "got to thinking" that thinking is an excellent subject for a Tidbit Tuesday.
First, a question...
"A bat and a ball cost $1.10 in total. The bat costs $1.00 more than the ball. How much does the ball cost?”
Emily, my fellow Kanban Coach at Ramsey Solutions, asked me this riddle and, after probably fifteen seconds of thought, I blurted out my answer. Normally I am excellent at riddles, but here I just relied on my gut and some assumptions I'd learned in grade school. When I asked my wife the same question later that day, she tossed the question around a few times, looked for some clues, then gave the correct answer. So what was the difference? She challenged her assumptions. It requires a different type of thinking, sometimes referred to as "slow thinking" or "system 2 thinking," where you stop, think of what you heard, and challenge the assumptions those things create in your mind. My wife also mentioned "if there wasn't some kind of trick, you wouldn't have asked me." She knows me so well.
I know what you're thinking; "Tristan, this is a tidbit and you asked us to do math." Maybe so, but I really wanted to open the conversation about Critical Thinking by giving you something to chew on. A great place to start is a quick article on Thinking Fast and Slow. The article discuses both System 1 and System 2 and lists the benefits of each. While neither system is wrong, knowing how and when to engage the proper one could make all the difference.
Last question...
How could you start challenging your assumptions today?
Until next week,
Tristan
P.S. Shoot me an email or comment below if you figured out the answer to the math problem.