Critical thinking — start by admitting that you are not up to it

The Neuron Foundation is a partner of the Critical Thinking conference.

On 30 October 1935, at an airfield near Dayton, Ohio, Boeing was to seal its dominance in aviation engineering. But its Model 299, the prototype of a strategic bomber the US Army Air Corps was to order for millions of dollars, crashed a few seconds after take-off instead of making a triumphant flight, and two crew members died. The investigation showed that the aircraft was technically entirely sound and that the crew had made the mistake of failing to unlock the elevator controls before take-off. Boeing lost the lucrative contract even so. But some still saw potential in this outstanding aircraft.

The Model 299 was the pinnacle of the aircraft design of its time, but it was complicated to operate, and the question was whether it was not already too complicated for a human being to fly, if even a crew of experienced experts could easily make a fatal error. Boeing came up with an ingeniously simple solution. Test pilots put together a checklist containing all the steps that had to be watched to prevent another accident. The Model 299 eventually entered history under the designation B-17, or the Flying Fortress. Boeing sold thirteen thousand of these bombers to the US Army Air Corps; they flew almost three million kilometres without a single accident and helped the Allies achieve decisive superiority in the Second World War. Instead of going under, Boeing thus gained a leading position among aircraft manufacturers.

The prototype crash at the airfield near Dayton was the moment when it became clear that operating a new generation of complicated bombers was too complex for a crew without help. Even for the most experienced pilots. There was simply too much of it. But a simple tool in the form of a checklist ultimately made it possible to use the achievements of modern aviation engineering and so gain an advantage over the enemy. The checklist has since become an integral part of commercial aviation too, and is one of the reasons why the aeroplane is today one of the safest means of transport.

Today's globalised world is more interconnected than ever. Take the internet, social media, pandemics, global warming, or even just our health. The problems of the 21st century that we deal with are simply complex. So the question arises again whether we can cope with them using nothing but common sense and intuition. Even if we may refuse to admit it, the answer is that we cannot. We think we are still flying the old, simple aeroplane, while we have long been sitting in a Flying Fortress.

There are tools that help us bring critical thinking into decision-making and demonstrably achieve better results. Managers who use proven methods achieve the expected results in 90% of cases and in 40% even exceed their expectations, compared with others who achieve them only in 30%. Other research shows that these methods lead to six times as many good decisions and prevent about half of all errors. The problem is that only about 2% of managers use them. [1] Most of them feel they do not need them. But that is what the crew of the B-17 prototype thought too on that fateful morning at the airfield near Dayton. If we are to avoid needless and tragic crashes, we first have to admit that we are no longer up to it on our own and start using methods of critical thinking that can significantly improve our judgement and decisions. Only when we are aware of our own fallibility are we on our guard and more likely to spot an error, while those who are unshakeably sure of their abilities may be in for an unpleasant surprise.

Author: Lukáš Hána

A consultant and lecturer in critical thinking, founder of the project Critical Thinking #krimyš and organiser of the online conference Critical Thinking and Objectivity on 3 December, to which you are hereby warmly invited. There you will learn further tips on how to bring critical thinking into various areas of your life — business, health, nutrition and others.

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1. Larson, E. (2016). A checklist for making faster, better decisions. Harvard Business Review, 7.