Pragmatic Reflecting

Step 1: Identify and define the problem

Step 2: Analyze the problem

Step 3: generate several possible solutions to the problem

Step 4: evaluate the solutions and select potentially the most effective

Step 5: Implement the chosen solution

(Drawn from Dewey, 2003)

As Dewey observed, reflection seems to mostly take place when we encounter a problem, and then we must solve it, it is not proactive. As the study of cognition as increased, we have become aware of biases in our thinking. A bias results in jumping to conclusions which are not full attuned to reality. The confirmation bias for example, means that when we jump to a conclusion, we automatically search for data to prove ourselves right, whilst explaining away information which may contradict our conclusion (Kahneman, 2011).

The problem is intensified when we have so much information available to us, it becomes far easier to find support for our conclusions and beliefs, and correspondingly easy to ignore and explain away alternatives (Taleb, 2007). Therefore, we may only begin engaging with Dewey’s reflective cycle when the problem has become far bigger than it needed to be or developed into a full-blown crisis.

With an increasing number of contemporary problems being Wicked Problems (Rosenhead, 2013), problems are not easily solved and can quickly become catastrophes. We need to be engaging with Dewey’s reflective cycle pro-actively more and re-actively less. Klein (1998) provides a method of achieving this through Prospective Hindsight.

The method can be applied at personal and organizational level, but we’ll provide an everyday example to illustrate. Imagine yourself and a group of friends are going to take a month-long trip. You plan a route, method of transport and accommodation. Now before the trip has begun, and you are only at the planning stage, imagine that your trip has been a complete disaster.  Each person takes five minutes to write down what could have happened during your month-long trip to produce such an outcome. Now each person shares their imagined history one at a time. Evidence suggests that this method greatly increases the accuracy of forecasts and plans, identifies previously hidden risks, and vitally, identifies strategies to overcome potential problems, making the plan more resilient to change (Kahneman, 2011).

The Prospective Hindsight method pushes people off the confirmation bias by directing thinking in the opposite direction (Turoff et al, 2006), and then distributes cognition, thus increasing perspectival knowledge (Vervaeke, Ferraro, 2013), making the group collectively wiser. The Dewey model is now functioning proactively.

Reading

Dewey, J (2003) How We Think. Dover Publications Inc.; New edition

Kahneman, D (2011) Thinking Fast and Slow. Penguin.

Taleb, N.N (2007) On Robustness and Fragility, Deeper Philosophical and Empirical Reflections. Penguin.

Rosenhead, J (2013). “Problem structuring methods”. In Gass, Saul I.; Fu, Michael C. (eds.). Encyclopedia of operations research and management science (3rd ed.). New York; London

Klein, G. (1998). Sources of power: How people make decisions. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press

Turoff, M., Chumer, M., & Hiltz, S. R. (2006). Emergency planning as a continuous game. Paper presented at the 3rd International ISCRAM Conference, Newark, NJ.

Vervaeke, J., & Ferraro, L. (2013). Relevance, meaning and the cognitive science of wisdom. In M. Ferrari & N. M. Weststrate (Eds.), The Scientific Study of Personal Wisdom (pp. 325–341). Dordrecht, Netherlands: Springer Netherlands