In our next episode of Your Brain at Work Live, we are continuing our discussion around the leadership development trends of 2025 – this time focusing on the increased demand for critical thinking in the workplace. NLI’s Vice President of Consulting, Practices & Product, Rachel Cardero and Senior Director of Research, Dr Emma Sarro will discuss what’s behind the growing call by organizations for more critical thinking and other analytical skills in both their employees and leaders. In addition, they’ll discuss the ways that critical thinking enables organizations to thrive, from strategic decisions to its use of AI, and importantly, the underpinning neuroscience – the essential cognitive skills and mindsets that can increase critical thinking in others.
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Erin Wickham: Hello! Hello! I'll give us all a minute to get out of the waiting room and into the session before we get kicked off. But thank you all for being here happy. Friday.
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Erin Wickham: It is a beautiful, sunny, cold day in New York City today. That's where I'm calling in from as you join if you want to share where you're calling in from in the chat. That would be great. It helps us build some relatedness as we go through today's session. It's always nice to know where people are calling in from kind of
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Erin Wickham: it helps change the conversation. Emma is also in New York. We have some Albuquerque New Mexico. Oh, I would love to be in the desert right now. Tennessee. Excellent!
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Erin Wickham: All right. We see more people popping in, so I will go ahead and get us kicked off. Thank you. And for being here and welcome back to another week of your brain at work, live! I'll be your host today. I'm Erin Wickham, Senior Director of Insight design at the Neuro Leadership Institute
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Erin Wickham: for our regulars. We're happy to have you back, and for our newcomers welcome. We're excited to have you here today. For the 1st time in today's episode, we are continuing our discussion around the leadership development trends of 2025. This time. We're focusing on the increased demand for critical thinking in the workplace. We'll discuss what's behind the growing call, the barriers to thinking critically, and the essential cognitive skills and mindsets that help us overcome these barriers.
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Erin Wickham: Now, as I quickly share some housekeeping notes, please feel free to continue dropping in the chat or comments box on social media to let us know where you're calling in from today.
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Erin Wickham: We suggest you put your phone on. Do not disturb and quit any of your email or messaging apps so that you can get the most out of today's show. It helps the quality of the audio and video, and we love the interaction. So feel free as we go through to add your questions, your insights, your comments. As we go in. We'll pause every once in a while to address what's going on in the chat. So feel free to keep that active.
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Erin Wickham: to introduce our today's speakers. We will start with Rachel Cardero, who is the vice president of consulting at the Neuro Leadership Institute. Rachel specializes in partnering with executives on transformational human capital initiatives specifically global culture and leadership transformations. Rachel, we're happy to have you with us.
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Rachel Cardero: Hi Erin and big Hello! To everybody on the line.
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Erin Wickham: Thank you, Rachel, and our moderator, for today holds a Phd. In neuroscience from New York University. She leads the research team at Nli, where she focuses on translating cognitive and social neuroscience into actionable solutions for organizations. A warm welcome to our senior Director of Research. Dro.
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Erin Wickham: Thank you for being here, Emma.
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Emma Sarro: Thanks, Erin. Rachel, I think this is. It's been a while since we've been on one of these together.
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Rachel Cardero: I know it's the 1st one in the New Year, and anytime we get a chance to chat whether it be at a y ball, or whether we're brainstorming. I'm always excited, so I'm very happy to be here.
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Emma Sarro: Yeah, yeah, same. And today's episode is a bit of a brainstorm. We're kind of brainstorming with all of you. So we really hope that everyone throws their thoughts in the chat as we go through. You know what we're thinking about next. And this episode really is kind of jumping back onto. As Erin said, our leadership trends leadership development trends, episodes. We're really talking about things that are coming up for leadership or leadership development.
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Emma Sarro: And super. Lucky to have Rachel, because she is the Vice president of consulting and practices as well as solutions. But
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Emma Sarro: here, really pulling on her expertise around the pain points of leaders and organizations. She knows how to make things actionable, tangible. And so she can really speak to what's coming up and how to apply these thoughts. It's not just science. It's how to apply them
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Emma Sarro: for people and make it work at work. And so this time around, we're really thinking about this latest signal that we're sensing. And it's coming up a lot. And for the last few years it's kind of topped the charts in. You know what skills are in demand.
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Emma Sarro: And so yeah, so we've been seeing this. And you know I'll throw to you in a second, Rachel, to talk about this 50 50 challenge that, I think, has been coming up a lot for us. If anybody hears David talk. He talks about this a lot, but the last few years we've been noticing this trend for thinking in a different way. Critical thinking, analytical thinking, reflective thinking, data, analytics.
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Emma Sarro: things like that all around the same idea.
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Rachel Cardero: Yeah, yeah, I'm nodding vigorously here. Cause I mean, across the globe, all of the clients that we're working with right now
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Rachel Cardero: issues with leadership, the difficulty of leadership that 50 50 challenge that you mentioned, and for those of you that if you don't haven't heard the 50 50 challenge yet, it's that 50% of the skills that we're asking leaders to. Honestly, it's master, they're new. They're just new skills that we're asking them to engage in to practice.
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Rachel Cardero: and then the other 50%. While they might not be new, they're more difficult than ever. And so you're seeing greater rates of change, more burnout, more fatigue that really hinder people, whether they are trying to adopt those new skills or whether they're just trying to get a handle of those existing skills. And I think any organization that we're talking to now across the globe, whether we're
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Rachel Cardero: talking about leadership directly. Sometimes we're talking about employee engagement. Sometimes we're talking about learning. Sometimes we're talking about restructures or redesign. It really doesn't matter the topic. What I'm seeing is over and over again it comes back to.
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Rachel Cardero: and you all will know this. Anybody listening leaders and leader behavior as a linchpin to any plan, any type of strategic transformation.
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Rachel Cardero: And it just seems I mean anecdotally
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Rachel Cardero: those that have those really robust critical thinking skills definitely, those on my team, at least in my teams like those that have them and have that muscle. Well, practice, because it's definitely a muscle, right? It's not just something innate.
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Rachel Cardero: I feel like they experience less burnout. I feel like they experience a better management of stress, more of that eustress instead of distress, like when we talk about growth mindset. But I'm wondering what you've been seeing. Also, Emma.
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Emma Sarro: Yeah, such a great point. And I love that thinking about leadership and leader behaviors as the linchpin. Because we are, I mean, we we role model those behaviors, we drive culture like, what is the culture really stems back to what leaders are doing and and their mindsets. And and yeah, I mean everything that you're saying aligns with what we've been seeing and in the list of demands for skills. And sometimes the wording changes
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Emma Sarro: a little bit. But over the last 5 years, I'd say it's I'm seeing things like, we need more analytical thinking. We need more critical thinking. We need people to solve problems better and the problems are harder. So we need people to be able to solve these tougher problems and think more strategically. And despite all of that, it just seems counterintuitive in a way, because of the challenges that we're facing
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Emma Sarro: the burnout, the overwhelm, the rate of change. It seems like those kinds of skills just are harder to come by and harder to do in the moment. I mean, if we're and you know, as we just talk about the
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Emma Sarro: the skills. And maybe the mindsets needed to build this muscle, as you call it, because it really, truly is a muscle. I mean, we're not born with. Oh, you're going to be a better critical thinker. You can build it, you can teach it, you can train. It. Is this need to pause and look at everything in front of you, and that takes
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Emma Sarro: it. Takes intention.
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Rachel Cardero: Yeah, yeah, it's so true. And something interesting. That I've seen, too, is that there is this
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Rachel Cardero: intuition, if you will, where people are like, I need critical thinking. I need analytical thinking. My people need it. This will help us kind of reach that next level. But then, when you ask them to define it or teach it.
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Rachel Cardero: You know, for some of my consulting folks like, and my team like we think about that, how to operationalize that, how to teach it a lot how to break it down.
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Rachel Cardero: But it's not necessarily second nature for people. And so I see, like there are other terms and topics that I've seen come up this way across the years where it's you know. Sometimes executive presence gets thrown around that way where it's like, I know I want something, but I don't know how to name it. I don't know what it is. I don't know how to break it down and teach it to you. But I think this is very important, and how we define it, helping people understand.
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Rachel Cardero: What is it that we're talking about here. How is it gonna help you like? Really, that's that 1st step cause a critical thinker like, what is that really? And I know you. You think about that from a research perspective all the time?
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Emma Sarro: Yeah. Yeah. And and so, as we were kind of thinking, you know, we should really kind of understand this. As you say, we want to help organizations build this skill. They're looking for it. But what? What is it really? And and as we said, this is not new. This is something that you know it should be taught in schools. Right? We think about that. And in schools and high schools are they thinking critically, are they teaching that. But it's really this like purposeful.
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Emma Sarro: self-regulatory, reflective judgment. And it's not just in everyday thinking, it's it's for a purpose. It's for solving a problem. And so there's this drive to, you know, analyze the information, to learn from it and to solve problems. So to find some kind of valid conclusion. So we think about that and applying that to the workplace. Think about all of those
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Emma Sarro: problems, those goals you're trying to reach, and where you need to pause and reflectively. Think about the information. Are you looking through enough sources? Are you trying to use the data and observations from enough sources, or are you rushing to judgment. And so you think about those individuals on your team that are those individuals that think critically, that
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Emma Sarro: use data often to answer questions that reflect, that make decisions intentionally. How many are you seeing on your team that you can truly see are critical thinkers.
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Emma Sarro: and we'd love to hear from you all.
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Rachel Cardero: Yeah, very curious. It would be great to see you all put it in the chat like, how are you seeing critical thinking come up as a skill.
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Emma Sarro: Yeah, Donnie, really interesting. I mean, yeah, you're absolutely right. I'm not being able to define it or describe it is a weak link. So that's that's kind of what what we do right is we? We think about that. What does it really mean to think critically.
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Rachel Cardero: Yeah.
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Emma Sarro: Yeah, Kathleen, it has. It seems like it has diminished. And that's the the question. Then, that you know, we'll probably jump into a bit is, why? Why has it diminished? What are the what are the pain points for that? What's what's challenging it.
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Rachel Cardero: Yeah.
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Emma Sarro: That's interesting.
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Rachel Cardero: Time people want to be spoon fed.
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Rachel Cardero: Focus, yes.
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Emma Sarro: Yeah, absolutely.
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Emma Sarro: Oh, John is. Yeah. Do you want to speak to that?
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Rachel Cardero: It's well, what I saw is like, it's definitely not taught in school. And it's funny, because I think this has come up in our conversation a bit. And I am. I'm very curious to the answer to the question that Emma posed earlier, like, how many people on your team, your direct team.
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Rachel Cardero: think critically right now, like, if you think about your direct reports, if you're a people manager, you could put a percentage in, you know, is it 50%? Is it 70%, 80, 90 a hundred? I'm I'm wishing a hundred percent for all of you. If we could all be so lucky.
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Rachel Cardero: but I think like so my eldest is 18 just started college, and I've been thinking a lot about this like, you know. What has he been taught throughout the years about critical thinking and juxtaposing that to the things that I teach my own teams? And Em and I, we spoke about this like I usually in even just trying to
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Rachel Cardero: think about this as a topic for Nli, like 3 different types of analytical thinking came up for me that I think I try and impart, and I teach my children, you know. Help my teams with one is being able to find the signal in the noise so like when you are drowning in data and swimming in it, and getting, you know, feedback in lots of different directions, or from different directions or feedback that is dissonant, dissonant with itself.
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Rachel Cardero: Sometimes from the same person, from different like, how do you make sense of that? So like sense making
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Rachel Cardero: error, detection. How can you look at something and decide if it's true or false.
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Rachel Cardero: categorizing things? So finding understanding, the relationship between different objects and topics. So all of that really important with my
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Rachel Cardero: child, I realized.
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Rachel Cardero: like, you really don't start engaging in some of that work until you're pretty far in your educational journey, like we. We expect college students to kind of really understand some of those things, but it really doesn't come up until the end of high school early in high school, if you're lucky. But I mean, you know, we get these folks. We get these young kids. We get young professionals on our teams, and they are still on that learning journey. And I think it's a pretty like
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Rachel Cardero: it's an important skill to teach early.
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Emma Sarro: Yeah, you're saying so many things that I would love to respond to. And I think, yeah, that the early education piece is coming up, too. I taught in college for a few years, and I saw that, and I remember there was a bit of you know. We could encourage them to start thinking that way, but there was also the need for them to absorb as much information as possible. So you know, there's also with teachers kind of.
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Emma Sarro: Not that we're talking about teaching here, but there is a bit of a decision to be made. Do I give them all the information they need to know or help them to build this skill. But the skill is sometimes even more important than that.
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Emma Sarro: That basic book information that you're getting, because with everything changing all around us. The data that we're being given is different. It's, you know, it's more than ever before we do need to think about it. And even in thinking about using AI and the information that the answers that it's given you when we're in a rush, we just want to copy and paste that information. We don't want to actually look and test
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Emma Sarro: against our own knowledge or test against some other source. So a lot of people are saying things like time not having enough time. So even if you were trained and you have that muscle, the.
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Emma Sarro: you know, there's actually some recent data showing that using AI does actually impede that skill. So even if you have a muscle there, you're probably losing its strength a little bit because you're offloading onto AI. So it's something that we need to keep practicing. And for those those early career individuals, it's kind of an opportunity to kind of build those skills.
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Rachel Cardero: Yeah, it's so interesting to see what you all are sharing in the chat at. Like, you know, 50% have the ability.
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Rachel Cardero: But none of them have the time, or somebody shared with us that you know many people, you know they it's like they're running around with their hair on fire, running with scissors and their hair on fire. And it's you know, at an Li when we help organizations either increase. You know that leadership, skill around critical thinking, or any type of behavior? One of our
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Rachel Cardero: markers of success is, can people actually use this behavior? Will they recall it under pressure. So not just under kind of, you know the best circumstances. But how do you get somebody to do something when their hair is on fire, and they're running with scissors. Nobody should run with scissors.
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Rachel Cardero: But I think that that more and more that has to be the test of some of our learning programs and some of our skill-based work.
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Rachel Cardero: How do we help people do this under pressure under duress, under fire, so to speak.
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Emma Sarro: Yeah, absolutely, I think. And that's kind of the process that we go through is like, can we distill the most essential behaviors and then make it so sticky that you can. You continue to do the critical thinking and colleen? The idea of using the muscle while using AI absolutely, I think it would be. How can you build that skill? So you're not offloading your resources. You're still critically thinking. And you can use AI
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Emma Sarro: because it's an amazing tool. So we should find ways to use it to increase our efficiency. And that's kind of the goal
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Emma Sarro: right.
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Rachel Cardero: And I'm wondering, Emma, from a research perspective, what are the barriers that you've seen to critical thinking that we should know about we? It sounds like we all know the time and the pressure. But is there something else that maybe we're missing?
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Emma Sarro: Yeah. So it's interesting. We have this conversation about barriers. And I think there's the research perspective of what what they found kind of can get in the way unless you can kind of overcome it. And one of them is just the skills right? Do people know? Are they trained at thinking critically if they don't, that's obviously a barrier. But also, if you're defaulting to your intuitive thinking, your gut
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Emma Sarro: as opposed to pausing like, are you defaulting to your cognitive biases? Or are you letting your emotions dictate your decisions? And you can imagine, whenever we're in a state of like higher emotion, especially a sense of threat. For instance, we're defaulting to whatever is the quickest and the safest. And then also, if you're motivated, so are you driven to find an answer.
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Emma Sarro: Are you driven to answer? Solve that problem? And if you're not engaged, if you know if this is an engagement issue, then why would you continue to search for the right answer.
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Emma Sarro: So I think those are. Those are what research suggests. But what would you think like? Does anything speak to you in terms of what you're seeing in organizations. Now.
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Rachel Cardero: I think definitely the lack of
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Rachel Cardero: skill, like specifically knowing. And we see this with many things. But knowing what to do behaviorally, I think we see a lot of organizations, especially when it comes to leaders and leadership development.
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Rachel Cardero: You know, a couple of years ago we did this like inventory of different leadership programs and leadership models and approaches to leadership. And what we found was there were like categories that this work could fit into many approaches taught you who to lead. So they emphasize more like lead. The team lead the organization, and the behavioral piece is hidden.
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Rachel Cardero: You know, you remember, who to lead, but not what to do, and other things tell you who to be trustworthy, inclusive. But again, people are trying their best, often at work, and if they knew how to close some of these gaps they would do it. Another popular thing was using acronyms and the acronym sticks more than the behavior itself. And so I think, like as we think about how we build skill in our leaders and how we help them do that.
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Rachel Cardero: actually outlining what is the behavior, the actionable, measurable, observable thing. What is the thing you can practice on a day to day basis? And when you mix that with this
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Rachel Cardero: overload or this overwhelm in priorities that I see across so many businesses where people are saying I have to prioritize everything. This is the message I'm getting from my leaders. Everything is of utmost importance. You have to. They just keep piling on work, and nothing really gets taken away. If anything, they just keep asking me to do more with less.
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Rachel Cardero: And they in that environment where you have to do more with less, you have less time, and everything is this of utmost importance. Everything is on fire.
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Rachel Cardero: not having a really crisp set of behaviors where it's like, okay, if critical thinking is, I pause and reflect for 5 min. I don't necessarily think that that's what it is. But you know, like, if it's that like people are just like, tell me, just please tell me, tell me what to do, and I will try it. And so I think the lack of skill is not only people not knowing definitely, but also organizations, not knowing how to break that down. Necessarily.
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Rachel Cardero: And when the pressure goes up we just we do let our biases kick in. And it's like, you know what whatever. Let's go with this. It worked last time. Let's just get it done.
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Emma Sarro: Yeah, right? And prioritizing that that satisfaction of checking it off. And you know, reaching that goal. But not necessarily the caring of whether it's necessarily the absolute best answer or not, because you're able to take the next step forward and check that next box off of your priority list.
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Emma Sarro: But yeah. And I also, I see the idea around the emotions and the intuition. I mean, we're we're so driven by those right now that it makes it even more difficult to think in a critical way or analytical way. And I think in now.
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Emma Sarro: given all of the emotion, all of the change, that, even like the sense of threat that's coming with all of the change. I think it's even more important now, right? So it's even more of a priority. So you're right, having some simple behaviors, just a few steps that you can kind of put into place, even if it's, you know, like, even if it is pausing to reflect which could be part of it. Right? And we often bring that in
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Emma Sarro: when we think about how to mitigate certain biases is the pause button, and you can add in a 5 second pause, button to to actually be able to accept a couple of more pieces of information, make a better decision.
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Rachel Cardero: Yeah. Yeah. Another thing, as you were saying, that that comes up for me is just
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Rachel Cardero: like we can't really ignore the rate and pace of
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Rachel Cardero: change to technology, and like the tools that we're asking people to learn and engage with. And so I think oftentimes at least one of the things that I see there, there is this propensity to jump to. This idea that, like we are
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Rachel Cardero: as a society unable to think critically anymore.
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Rachel Cardero: I've seen it through waves I like. I'm sure you all have to like, even with handwriting, you know. So before AI was big or before every teenager had a cell phone in their hand 24 HA day. But, you know, like.
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Rachel Cardero: we're not using cursive anymore, we're not like, if you look back, there are newspaper articles from from I mean, a long time ago, 100 years ago, people talking about people like reading newspapers too much or using chalk and slate. And so it's kind of interesting how, as we get these new technological developments.
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Rachel Cardero: people are worried about losing like that what they feel makes them so human. This ability to think critically in this almost like philosophical way.
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Rachel Cardero: and some of what I see is it's not necessarily people or humanity losing its critical thinking skill.
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Rachel Cardero: Necessarily, some of that is, could be true. But, like with our people at work in particular, when you have new tools, and you do not know how to use them.
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Rachel Cardero: People don't use them well, and you do the copy paste. I see this a lot with AI, you like. If you have not been taught how to use AI. Well, like our kids, our employees, our colleagues, are going to do the copy paste without adding the critical thinking.
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Rachel Cardero: And this happened also, like even when the Internet was introduced, where people have, I made this joke to you? But, like, you know, people previously were copying out of encyclopedias when they had their book reports, and then now had access to a lot more information, and so that like knowing how to use a tool, knowing how to engage with it, with change happening constantly, I think, is another thing that we have to understand
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Rachel Cardero: and help our people through.
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Emma Sarro: Yeah, yeah, and what's coming up is actually, as you were talking through this
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Emma Sarro: something that we talked about when we were building our accountability solution, which is similar, is, how do you drive people to want to do the thing you're getting them to do? So we all want people to want to get to the goal, but not everyone's engaged to do it. And just because you tell them to, it doesn't mean they'll do it same thing with this. I mean, you want people to solve the problem.
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Emma Sarro: but not everyone is driven to really search for the right answer and the best answer. They'll just show up with some answer or some product, but I think one of the pillars and I know people are asking for these, you know, 3 kind of pillars or behaviors which we're still working on, and we'd love your feedback on. But is is the drive to get the answer?
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Emma Sarro: So how do you have that that curiosity, that learning mindset to kind of reach? The answer, the best logical answer.
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Rachel Cardero: I love that. And I think that that's so hard for people. I think that's extremely hard for people. So at least, when I am working with individuals and trying to help build that critical thinking skill or working with organizations that are trying to teach or emphasize that critical thinking. One of the biggest barriers. One of the biggest things that gets in the way is people's fear.
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Rachel Cardero: you know. And the you know, if I'm asking myself, could this be wrong? I might be wrong. I have to go tell somebody I might be wrong, or how often should I question what I'm saying? And and it can be a it can be quite difficult, and I think the way that you framed it Emo, is is really beautiful, because I think if people can nurture their own curiosity, and just ask themselves like.
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Rachel Cardero: what's going on here? What could I learn here? Just a little bit? So, instead of doubting themselves if we can teach people to be more curious about what they see, and just with everything, add that lens of
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Rachel Cardero: what's happening here. Do I really understand this, could I understand this more seems like such an important 1st step.
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Emma Sarro: Yeah. And and something that's coming up for me is is, you know, what kind of culture do you need to be able to do that. I mean. So some other ways that people describe critical thinking is playing devil's advocate, or asking why and how many organizations can you really do that. I mean, if you're able to do that, and that's kind of reinforced and encouraged in meetings in teams, then you probably have, like good levels of psychological safety.
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Emma Sarro: Right? You can take that risk of asking the question, why? Or, you know, disagreeing or playing devil's advocate in a meeting which is with your leader, which is always difficult, right.
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Rachel Cardero: Yeah. And I see some great comments in the the chat. Colleen asked, you know what? If there's no right answer? In some ways, I think critical thinking is about making decisions and learning from them. And Danny emphasizes about like the right answer. And I'm wondering how you see that playing out like. To me critical thinking is more important than ever. If there's no right answer, right? Because how do you like? How do you nail down anything really.
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Emma Sarro: Right. And there might. I mean, it's so many things and problems that we're solving right now. There isn't a right answer. There's just maybe a best direction right now and then. That kind of brings in the need to be to be able to continue to experiment, to test that answer. So it's, you know, looking at looking at the data being analytical when you're looking at the data and making a decision
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Emma Sarro: that's based on your best estimate, your best evaluation of the data, so that then you need then to choose your diverse sources of information so that you know you've made the best decision given.
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Emma Sarro: What's out there.
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Rachel Cardero: Yeah. And I see we heard a couple of things. But I'm wondering. You know, it sounds like
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Rachel Cardero: sometimes feeling vulnerable or not having a single right answer
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Rachel Cardero: can get in the way of critical thinking. I'm wondering for those listening. What are you seeing we mentioned time, but what else are what gets in the way of critical thinking. For you all
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Rachel Cardero: seem more willingness and vulnerable to be transparent, willingness to be vulnerable and transparent empowerment. Very interesting, Jessica.
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Emma Sarro: I think that makes a lot of sense.
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Rachel Cardero: Yeah.
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Emma Sarro: It speaks to the kind of culture that you have psychological safety.
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Rachel Cardero: Yeah, an awareness of cognitive biases stopping thinking at the 1st answer, yeah. Moving too fast.
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Emma Sarro: Full answer, right.
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Rachel Cardero: Exhaustion. Oh, definitely.
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Rachel Cardero: yeah, the speed at which we're expected to deliver fear. It's so interesting, the fear and the psych safety, because it's, you know, in some ways it's very straightforward, but it does
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Rachel Cardero: as with all things, your ability to really
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Rachel Cardero: allow people that breathing room, even if you do have to deliver quickly is such a a bottleneck?
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Rachel Cardero: Oh, yeah.
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Emma Sarro: Makes sense. I yeah, I think that maybe the need then to kind of speaks to that need for systems in place. Right? So you might need to make decisions really fast. But if there's a process in place that allows you to quickly go through that decision making step so that you don't forget those those important, you know, mitigation steps along the way so you can still be quick. But you're you're allowing you're allowing your team to go through the same steps.
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Emma Sarro: and so it seems like.
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Rachel Cardero: Trust. I see divergent thinking, lack of motivation moving away from perfection.
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Rachel Cardero: You know cognitive dissonance. I think the cognitive dissonance is another. You mentioned that. But it's in the chat, and it's very interesting as well, because I do see, like as we teach
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Rachel Cardero: critical thinking. And when people haven't had the chance to really work that muscle. Some people that I do see like really try and dig deeper, ask questions sometimes get lost.
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Rachel Cardero: and then this, like downward spiral. Of what if? What if? And they're not sure how to anchor themselves? And so I'm wondering like. So we know that one of the 1st steps to critical thinking from the research you mentioned is that curiosity that focus on learning what else. So the curiosity can open Pandora's box. And you might be in that downward spiral like, what else do people need.
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Emma Sarro: Oh, I love this. Yeah. And I like the comments are really helping us here. Because, yes, the learning mindset's critical right being able to be flexible, curious kind of explore the boundaries, try new things, but then you also have to be analytical, right? You have to then make a decision. And so it's kind of this like exploration. But then be able to evaluate and logically look at the data.
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Emma Sarro: So there is kind of like a a searching and then decisiveness in it, so that can kind of like which will speak to those individuals who could continue. And it's it's not overthinking. It's just continuing to assess and assess and assess, and
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Emma Sarro: that you know, maybe, that the fear of being, you know, being considered incorrect, or, you know the worry of not getting the right answer.
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Rachel Cardero: Yeah, I love that, though that interplay. So you have to. So the 1st skill is that learning mindset? You have to be open enough to stop
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Rachel Cardero: while you're running around and question. And then, so you don't get lost and waste a bunch of time. You do need some skills around analyzing what the data is
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Rachel Cardero: rationalizing. Okay? Well, and maybe rationalizing is the word wrong word. But like the real like, what is the relationship between these 2 objects. What are the categories I'm seeing emerge here. What's the bias that I might be subject to? And then, knowing what to taking that and doing something with them.
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Emma Sarro: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I, I can see some really nice kind of like processes or models that you could use to like help to make decisions. So we have that we have a create model which helps teams make decisions. And that was kind of coming up for me. Which is, how can you get your team to make decisions? And you know, make sure you're looking at all the data. But then make it a decision on that data based on, you know, almost like a rubric that you know I used to use in grading.
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Rachel Cardero: Yeah.
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Rachel Cardero: So then, so you you're learning, you're open. And then you're analyzing. And then you act on those decisions.
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Emma Sarro: Yeah. And you also have a bit of it. Kind of allows you to have a bit of accountability there, too. Right? Because you're making a decision based on all these factors. And if if you have that built in, then you can always answer, Oh, I made the decision based on these things. There's that piece of accountability there, too.
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Rachel Cardero: I love that. I love that so much because I think that
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Rachel Cardero: for a lot of people that they're the accountability element in critical thinking is missing for them. And it's like it's the accountability to act.
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Rachel Cardero: We get stuck in analysis, paralysis. And I see this across so many organizations across industry regions, different personality types. If you do not have that accountability to act or that drive to act, then you will get stuck just looking at more and more data, and analyzing more and more, and going deeper and deeper and deeper, and never
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Rachel Cardero: lifting your head up. And that's not critical thinking, right? Like that's not critical thinking. It's not good critical thinking. It might be the 1st part or some part of it, but it's not really the full spectrum of things that we need.
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Emma Sarro: Right? Yeah, there has to be some kind of end in sight. And I and I think that brings us to maybe the the last kind of piece here, where you have to have kind of an intentional mindset about it, or driven like purpose driven to to reach an answer. But along the way be open minded to accept different
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Emma Sarro: directions. Right? There's that I want to seek perspectives. I'm open minded to things that I've never thought of before, and I have enough self regulation to not be driven by my emotion, so that it helps you to kind of curb those emotion driven decisions.
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Rachel Cardero: Yeah.
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Rachel Cardero: And I like, there's a lot of great feedback coming up in the chat. I agree somebody shared like accountability. Shouldn't be a bad word. And we definitely, we're building a solution now to help people with accountability and build cultures of accountability. And so I think it's been so interesting to see
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Rachel Cardero: how just how bad of a word it's become. And that's another interesting theme. I think, that you see in parallel with this need across organizations to have stronger leaders and leaders that are critical thinkers. It's accountable leaders as well. And Emma, what you said really brought up the tie between those 2 things like, there's this interplay between the accountability and their ability to think critically and be critical thinkers.
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Emma Sarro: Yeah, I know. I think that we just kind of came to this. We've been working on deliver together a lot and thinking through, you know, how do we get people to really want to go after their goals and complete them, follow through, own their own what they do and whether it's like whether they've they've won or they've made mistakes. But a part of that is also the curiosity piece, and the making decisions is kind of integrated into that, too. And we need both of those things.
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Rachel Cardero: Yeah. Yeah. And so it sounds like, if I could recap a bit what you said, curiosity.
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Rachel Cardero: that analytical, those analytical steps, and then that intention to act.
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Rachel Cardero: And it is
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Rachel Cardero: that triad of things that helps us be really strong critical thinkers and helps us not just be curious, but get lost, or look at a ton of data and get lost, or be overly sure of what we want to do. But the mix of curiosity and the analytical thinking. And then the intention to act is what makes strong leaders that can critic that are good critical thinkers. Is that right?
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Emma Sarro: I think so. Yeah, I think that's I think those are. I think that makes a lot of sense. And you know, it was coming up in the chat a little bit. This this piece around humility, too, and I think that's, you know, just as important for leaders as for anyone else but that humility of knowing. You know where where your knowledge sits and where where it's kind of outside helps a bit when we use AI, too, is to kind of think about like, where is our current knowledge set? And where do I need to?
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Emma Sarro: Where? Where do I need to learn within and kind of separating that, and that, I think, is helpful as a leader, too, is to is to share that humility piece as well, and that might kind of help to role model others. And being curious, right.
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Rachel Cardero: Yeah, absolutely. And you know what you're mentioning is making me think of this
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Rachel Cardero: trend, unfortunately, that I've been seeing across many different organizations. But I'm seeing a lot of people want more transparency. So it's not necessarily that situational humility. It's not the curiosity. It's the want of certainty of clarity, more so, and
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Rachel Cardero: in that, with the rate and pace of change
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Rachel Cardero: many times leaders are worried about making people's heads spin because they're asking for clarity versus, let's say, having curiosity, which is many times very appropriate. But at least I'm seeing this dynamic in organizations where, let's say, higher level leaders or more senior leaders are scared to share information because it is changing so rapidly.
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Rachel Cardero: and they're waiting for things to be just like anchored, nailed down, totally set in stone, while people are asking for more and more transparency, and it creates this vacuum of information while priorities and work are building and building, and people have more and more work.
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Rachel Cardero: and I think that what you are bringing up as like this skill for critical thinking, I think, would help everybody, especially those experiencing this type of dynamic of, you know, change happening faster than they can manage it, and at the same time people wanting more clarity and transparency faster than they can get it.
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Rachel Cardero: because with your own set of priorities, when you are told, everything is a priority, and you haven't received the right message yet
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Rachel Cardero: that critical thinking will help you. Look for the signals across your organization of like, who might I? Who should I be collaborating with? Where should I be looking for additional information to help guide me in my day to day work. You're better able to reason with the data that you have, or maybe find holes or gaps in the data, so that this way you can add to your plan or look for collaborators, and then that intention to act keeps you
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Rachel Cardero: moving and helping like people kind of check things, check for you, honestly check things off of your to do list rather than what is happening in so many organizations that state of I said it. Analysis, paralysis, or people just kind of drowning and work kind of putting your head down and kind of thinking more myopically, instead of lifting up.
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Emma Sarro: Yeah, yeah, and that. Yeah, the the idea that and people are kind of speaking to this in in the chat, to this.
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Emma Sarro: it's the rate of change is probably just exponentially increased again. And we keep talking about it for the last few months. We've talked about it, and and we can all feel it again. And so what do we do with all of the change? I mean, if we're looking to think critically, it's you know what kinds of decisions can we make in this moment? And maybe the, you know, allowing ourselves to understand or expect that our decision might be different tomorrow.
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Emma Sarro: and that it provides us with a bit of certainty, too. So being able to look at the data in front of us, what information can we get make a decision based on it, and then understand that we might have to do it again tomorrow. But it gives us this level of certainty if we're not able to get enough of it from our leaders, let's say, and I think our leaders are probably going through the same. The struggle is, you know, what
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Emma Sarro: information do I have? And what can I share? And maybe it's it's and we say this a lot. Maybe it's that we share that we don't know all of the answers to you know this and this, but
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Emma Sarro: we share what we can. It is definitely a difficult challenge.
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Rachel Cardero: Yeah.
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Rachel Cardero: And I'm wondering for those that are listening for those in the chat. You know, we mentioned a couple of critical behaviors we mentioned. Emma mentioned the curiosity, the analytical thinking, that intention to act as you think about your own organizations and the challenges that people face.
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Rachel Cardero: What else might be needed for them as they round out their critical thinking skills. What else are you seeing as really important for that mastery of their practice of critical thinking.
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Emma Sarro: Yeah, psych safety. It does seem to come up a lot as kind of like the necessary soil right? For a lot of outcomes.
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Rachel Cardero: Yeah.
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Emma Sarro: Solving pattern recognition. Interesting? Yeah.
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Emma Sarro: definitely, the support. I think that speaks a lot. To what kind of you know? How can you create the culture of critical thinkers right. It requires the reinforcement of those kinds of behaviors in the space to think critically.
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Rachel Cardero: Yeah, it's so interesting, so much about the psych safety. Someone listed willingness for leaders to appreciate critical thinking.
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Rachel Cardero: flexibility. I think like there is just as much something that you all are helping me see is just like just as much as we are asking people to think critically.
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Rachel Cardero: We as leaders, our leaders need to create the space for people to do so and appreciate it and nurture it and encourage it.
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Emma Sarro: Right as you can imagine. You know, in in a meeting, critical thinkers could also be the ones that argue right and disagree. And so leaders have to be okay to explore those ideas.
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Emma Sarro: Yeah, and encourage that. Because, as we know when we talk about often, it doesn't feel good to be to be in disagreement. It's not. We're not naturally inclined to feel good in those moments.
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Rachel Cardero: Yeah. And it's so interesting as working with an organization. Where this came up. Because I think that there is something about like just as much as people need psych safety in order to think critically, I think that there are a number of skills that help people communicate
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Rachel Cardero: and kind of be received properly when they are thinking critically. But, you know, working with an organization, something that came up was like.
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Rachel Cardero: We we want the like naysayers. So you brought up a bunch of different ways where you could think critically like playing devil's advocate, but knowing how and when to do that like.
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Rachel Cardero: Don't wait for this, you know. Enormous public forum where you want to sit and talk for too long, potentially, or it's like the person you're asking cannot actually answer your question. They can't give you the detail like, save those conversations for a place. If you need the detail.
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Rachel Cardero: do it in a way where you can get it, or state your intention at the beginning. So I think that there's some interesting
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Rachel Cardero: I don't know the critical thinking faux pas, or mistakes that people make like hotspots, critical thinking hotspots.
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Emma Sarro: Yeah, I mean asking for it on demand, I I think, is probably a you know. A don't do right setting up the space, so that so people enter with the mindset of being able to, and obviously the reinforcement right on the leaders.
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Rachel Cardero: Yeah. And what I love about the 3 habits or behaviors that you mentioned, or like the categories of behaviors that you mentioned, is that actually, most of the time when I see somebody feeling dissonance or pushing back on critical thinking, somebody is stuck in one of those places, but they haven't done all 3.
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Rachel Cardero: And so you get sometimes somebody who's trying to think critically. But again, they don't have that full, well-rounded set of critical thinking skills. They might just be in that curiosity where every time you talk to them, they're just like asking like, well, what about this? And what about this? And what about that? And I think that that is wonderful.
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Rachel Cardero: But even for myself, like sometimes it's I would love to talk to you about this, but we also have to work. We have to get this done. We have to write this. We have to build this
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Rachel Cardero: and so, or even the like.
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Rachel Cardero: Can I look at more data, can I see more data? Can I see more data without the curiosity, without that intention to act like? I also see that, as sometimes people are like. We can't keep talking about the the data, you know, like, and not knowing that you have to talk about what to do likewise. You see, people that just want to go act. And it's like.
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Rachel Cardero: No, let's ask, you know. So I think it's actually about balancing these things. And someone asked about what those are, Emma mentioned like curiosity, real analytical reasoning skills, and then a strong intention to act being this, the 3 faces of the critical thinking
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Rachel Cardero: pyramid. I don't wanna don't visualize it that way.
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Emma Sarro: I know we will have a visual at some point
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Emma Sarro: role of logic. Yeah, yeah, there is. The logic is, I see, logic as part of that. You know the analytical piece. Right? So when are you? You know, looking at all the data in front of you and weighing it against other information and really doing that evaluation? Is it evaluation, logic, analytical? It's all of those steps that sometimes just seem as Rachel is kind of pointing out so well is. It's
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Emma Sarro: kind of counterintuitive to the let's dive into the rabbit hole and let's just get stuck in that rabbit hole of learning and asking. It's
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Emma Sarro: it's both of those which is is tough, right? And maybe that's maybe that's the maybe one of the challenges is that we either get stuck in one or the other, and we need kind of bit of both.
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Rachel Cardero: Yeah. And I can tell you about the work. That we do with clients like one of the ways that we help balance. This is that we have processes where we'll move through that thinking intentionally, or we create spaces for it
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Rachel Cardero: and capture that energy and that level of thinking. And then we move on.
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Rachel Cardero: And so we do. For anybody that's done any type of strategy work with us, or any type of consulting work. Or if we've helped you deploy a program. There is space where we start with, you know.
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Rachel Cardero: Let's examine all the possibilities. Let's like, look, let's be curious together. No idea is bad, right? And let's like, really engage. Let's learn from one another. Let's gather information and just think about it. And then there is the you know, what are the relationships? What are the groups? What's the logic we can imply from this or infer?
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Rachel Cardero: And but then that like
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Rachel Cardero: moves to what decisions do we make on our findings? How do we actually do something about it? And so, whether we're helping build a leadership program or revamping different talent practices or bringing training and learning or behavior change solutions to people like you can actually really create the right
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Rachel Cardero: time and space for those types of habits. And I think that that's a nice way to teach people how to enroll model how you know, on a smaller scale. You could do that on a call as well.
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Emma Sarro: Yeah, absolutely. And I know that we do have a poll that we'd love to drop now, just because Rachel was really nicely introducing how we work with organizations. It's something that I know. There are a few different things that people can can answer here. If you'd like, we'd love to learn more. I know we're almost out of time, but I know that we're just starting this work. And you know, we're thinking through the different
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Emma Sarro: ways that we can kind of build those like really solid behaviors
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Emma Sarro: with organizations. And you know there are different ways that we could imagine it being integrated into organizations. So if you, if you'd like to, you know, work with us as we build this out. We love working with others in building this. Can you speak to that a little bit.
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Rachel Cardero: Yeah, absolutely so, whether it is like for leadership, development work or a leadership model. One of the things that we love to do is like, really understand your culture. And if we build a leadership model for you, we will, based on science, create the language for leadership for you. So we'll give you the evidence based practices that will help you close the gap
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Rachel Cardero: for your culture transformation or your strategic transformation. And so we give you the 3 most important things for every person to work on across your business and then bringing that into, like your leadership development experiences, we use the science of learning, and we use science to understand what your people need? What, how is their capacity
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Rachel Cardero: to absorb new information? Maybe? Is it open? Is it overwhelmed? What's their sense of motivation. How do we keep them engaged? What biases might they be subject to? And so we're able to do that in a pretty short amount of time. Relatively speaking, I think when we work with organizations, we did a study a while back, and I think most organizations. It takes them
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Rachel Cardero: more than a year, and more than like a large percentage of them don't even finish. And so it's like. And for many of our processes we're looking to create things at scale and a lot of impact as quickly as possible. And so you can get that source code in as little as like that language or those competencies built in 3 months, really.
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Emma Sarro: Yeah, yeah, we I mean, literally have it down to a science, both in what we put into it and how we, how we roll it out, and how we figure out your culture. So it's super well adapted to your individual culture. And and so we're kind of looking to do that with critical thinking, or whatever you know, we end up kind of
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Emma Sarro: calling it later. We'd love to know if if any of you here would like to kind of talk to us about it as we begin our journey of critical thinking or anything else around this skill. So if you want to, you can put your company name in in the chat with critical thinking, and we'll get in touch with you. That's 1 of the things that we'd love to build with you.
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Emma Sarro: And as maybe one more question for you, Rachel, as you think about, you know, critical thinking and the skills of critical thinking, where do you see it kind of applied in organizations like, it's not just for leaders, it's for other things. Organizations are facing.
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Rachel Cardero: Yeah, I mean, I think definitely
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Rachel Cardero: for leaders overall. But I think definitely for talent. And Hr folks, I mean, they are given such incredible challenges to solve around the business, and oftentimes I think that they see
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Rachel Cardero: a lot of flaws, a lot of warts and don't know where to start, because there, I mean, there just is so much to fix. I think your frontline employees could greatly use critical thinking skill. When you, when you start early. Somebody asked about collaboration as a skill and evidence with college graduates. I don't have any evidence based on like the college graduates entering the workforce.
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Rachel Cardero: but I think much like critical thinking. There is a nuance with collaboration and critical thinking. There is a nuance to how it is applied at work. And so, whether you are a product manager or whether you are a software engineer or whether you are, you know, the head of L and D, or you're a leader of a large team, understanding how to be curious about the world around. You.
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Rachel Cardero: Be logical and analytical about the data you receive and then make good decisions based on that is, is just an incredible skill for every person to have.
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Emma Sarro: Yeah, absolutely, both in and outside of work. For sure.
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Rachel Cardero: Yeah.
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Emma Sarro: Anything else coming up for you, as we kind of wrap up for the day.
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Rachel Cardero: I just thank you all for all of your comments. An insight that you gave me was just that I think they're helping people understand in which situations to exercise each one of these skills will be important, and a sense of empowerment is going to be really critical leaders creating space, but also people finding that sense of purpose and bravery within themselves, right.
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Emma Sarro: Yeah, absolutely. I think the yeah. The environment that you create to enable critical thinking, I think, was a big insight for me today, you know, how do we kind of like build the soil for critical thinkers? It's not just this
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Emma Sarro: hard, analytical skill. It's it's enabling it and empowering it.
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Rachel Cardero: Yeah.
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Rachel Cardero: yeah, they may need more time, or they may need separate message or a call or and we each need to know how to do it. Well, so we're not interrupting work conversations.
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Emma Sarro: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Well, thank you, Rachel, this is an amazing conversation. We'll probably have many more like this, because this is a new area. We're diving into rabbit holes. About, and hope you all have a wonderful weekend, and pass it back over to you, Erin.
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Erin Wickham: You. Thank you so much, Emma, and thanks, Rachel. This was a great discussion. We appreciate all the time that you share, and the information you shared with us today.
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Erin Wickham: As for closing, if you haven't already, please take a look at the poll on your screen and let us know how Nli can help you in the future. This poll will stay up for the few minutes that I have some closing announcements
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Erin Wickham: for anyone looking to amplify how they design learning whether it's virtual, live, and in person or asynchronous. Our brain-based design and facilitation workshop will provide you with an inside. Look into how we use a brain-based approach in our own design. The next event will begin on February 12, th so next week, as a virtual workshop over 3 separate sessions, we'll likely host one near you in the future. So stay tuned for more information on our facilitation workshops
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Erin Wickham: for C-level or senior executives looking to get an inside, look into their own brain as they learn critical habits for leaders. We are doing a 3 day brain lab, effective habit Activation seminar with real-time Eeg scanning participants will walk away with insights into their own brain as it faces complex challenges.
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Erin Wickham: and our insider exchanges are specifically for senior executives. If you enjoy your brain network live. You'll enjoy our Nli insider program we invite you to enjoy.
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Erin Wickham: We invite you to join this exclusive opportunity where you can enjoy benefits such as 1st looks at new research and products, roundtable discussions, and much more to apply. You can follow the link in the chat, and if you enjoyed today's conversation, you'll love the podcast, show. So make sure you subscribe anywhere you can find podcasts. Look for your brain at work wherever you listen.
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Erin Wickham: This is where we officially say goodbye. Thank you all for being here today. Have a wonderful weekend, and on behalf of today's guests and Nli, we'll see you next week.