The end of thinking ?

One of my favorite books is How Doctors Think, Jerome Groopman, M.D., 2007.

Dr. Groopman is a good writer and an engaging storyteller. More than that, he pulls advice from the stories so that we can become thoughtful patients and apply his observations to our world.

The story

One of the chapters is the story of Dr. Groopman’s wrist injury and the multi-year journey to get it resolved. He and his wife are both doctors and he was seen by four specialists before he found one in which he felt confident.

His story about the first specialist, “Dr. A,” had a conclusion that applies well beyond the medical field. It applies to all knowledge work: “Dr. A had come to the end of his thinking. But instead of returning to the honesty of ‘I really don’t know,’ he invented something to respond to my plaintive questioning.” His ego overruled his sense of honesty.

Dr. Groopman knew it was time to seek another opinion.

I spent decades in the consulting business and clients always liked a truthful “I don’t know, but I’ll find out” answer to a question that I couldn’t answer outright. All of us know “smoke-and-mirrors” when we see it.

The story and ChatGPT

“Chat” has taken the business / education / software worlds by storm. All of us are either afraid of what it might mean for our jobs or simply hopeful that we’ll learn to use it in time.

Here’s the point – Chat is like “Dr. A.” in that it may give bad information with confidence. It just spits out “the answer.” There is no moral issue to be resolved – it’s just the algorithmic answer based on its data sources.

(Side note: I’ve been playing with the 3.0 version of Chat for the past few weeks and have been both amazed and disappointed. It’s a great app, but it does not think. It’s a tool and like any tool it can hurt you.)

The story, ChatGPT, and MindPrep

I shifted from consulting to business education back in the early 2000s when I came across the quote attributed to Louis Pasteur that “chance favors a prepared mind.” The question of what constitutes a prepared mind captured me then and still does. And I’m a bit worried.

Are we slipping in our collective ability to “think?”

Thinking is a mental process, a skill, of using knowledge and information to form new ideas, make decisions, and solve problems.

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But where do we get the knowledge and information that are part of this process and how do they relate to one another? Are they the same thing? No, they are not.

• Information is stand-alone. Knowledge is contextual.
• Information is raw data or unprocessed fact. Knowledge processes data and facts into patterns, structures, and relationships.
• Information is objective. Knowledge is subjective.

Suppose a high school physics teacher wants to test student knowledge about various laws of physics. He asks the students to comment on a law of thermodynamics.

Chat can spit out 300 informative words on the meaning of the 2nd Law of thermodynamics that a student can submit to her teacher. Unfortunately, the student has not developed knowledge and may not think about the subject matter beyond submitting “her” paper.

Chat is information rich but some of the users will become knowledge poor. The more we rely on technology for information, the more we might degrade our own knowledge. The more we degrade our knowledge, the weaker our thinking becomes.

So, what about the MindPrep newsletter?

For about the past twenty years we have addressed specific business topics such as strategy, business renewal, problem solving, and consulting skills. We are going to shift a bit and focus on improving thinking skills for business professionals and leaders.

Next time

The late Richard Paul was a prominent scholar in the field of critical thinking. He identified eight characteristics of good thinking, and we will review them in the next issue.

A favor?

I’d like to grow the readership of (new name) MindPrep: Improving Business Thinking.

Please pass this on to friends and colleagues. They can get on the list HERE. We don’t share our email list and they can unsubscribe if they don’t find value (and maybe a bit of entertainment) in our issues.

Cheers,

Bill

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