Today, “thinking” has become a necessary skill in the job market. But it has been split into creative thinking, critical thinking, design thinking, analytical thinking, logical thinking, strategic thinking, and holistic thinking. These are then further pigeonholed into higher-order thinking skills (HOTs) and lower-order thinking skills (LOTs). Not to forget Edward de Bono’s classification of lateral thinking and vertical thinking. All of which only intensifies one’s confusion instead of providing clarification.

While “thinking” is a highly desired skill, it eludes many because it is highly demanding until one is habituated. Then there is the inundation by print and social media and the fact that thinkers are often misunderstood and condemned.

Vital two

To engage learners in the cognitive process, we need to consider models and texts. Of the former, two have proven to be impactful: Hegelian dialectical thinking and Bono’s Six Thinking Hats. Dialectical thinking, although traced back to the Socratic method, is attributed to Hegel, the 19th century German philosopher who advocated seeking true meaning in two apparently contradictory positions. Instead of extremes such as “right” or “wrong”, he postulated moving away from “either-or” to “both-and”. In other words, right is not totally correct, and wrong is not totally wrong. An interesting metaphor illustrative of this model is “having an elephant in the room with two blindfolded people on its opposite ends”.

Bono’s Six Thinking Hats ideally comprises a group of six, each wearing a different hat. But it can also involve one individual wearing six hats one after another. Each hat has a colour that symbolises a different kind of thinking: white for facts, red for emotions, black for negatives, yellow for positives, green for new ideas and blue for summarising and decision-making. This helps learners tackle an issue from multiple perspectives and overcome the usual mono-dimensional thinking.

The problem confronting teachers is integrating this skill into prescribed textbooks, which may often be unyielding. This then compels them to browse through a high volume of texts available online in a variety of formats but how many are willing to do this?

Applications

The current Russia-Ukraine war is an apt context to apply dialectical thinking. While Russian president Vladimir Putin defends the war as an attempt to retrieve lost land and Russian pride; Ukraine and the west blame it on his autocratic behaviour and warmongering. Where does the truth lie? Achieving a dialectical balance is vital. The Six Thinking Hats would bring into focus aspects such as facts on both sides (white); the emotional turmoil of civilians and soldiers (red); sufferings of both nations and the world at large (black); positives if any for the two countries and globally (yellow); probable solutions to the problem (green); a standpoint based on critical engagement with the ideas put forth (blue).

We live in a tumultuous world of issues at local, national, regional and global levels. Tapping into them will be effortless, but narrowing them down to thought-provoking material for the classroom will be a challenge. Will our teachers think out of the box?

The writer is National Secretary, English Language Teachers’ Association of India (ELTAI), and a former professor of English at Anna University.

The Education Week Spotlight on Mathematical Thinking is a collection of articles hand-picked by our editors for their insights on current math learning gaps, strategies for empowering students with mathematical thought, how to start students on the path of fluency, how teachers are giving learners the tools to solve the world’s puzzles, how early math supports can help vulnerable students, and more.

My friend Mike is on the road most of each week, eating all of his meals in restaurants. His wife Darlene is at home, cooking every meal for herself and the kids. When Mike returns to home on Friday, he finds Darlene tired of cooking and eager for a break. Naturally, the last thing Mike wants is another restaurant meal.

For some couples, this situation would be ripe with potential conflict. But Mike and Darlene figured this one out years ago.

While Mike is out of town, Darlene does the meal planning and grocery shopping for the weekend. Then on Friday night and through the weekend, Mike (while teaming up with the couple’s teenagers) prepares all the meals. Not only has he developed some culinary skills, he and Darlene have learned how to manage other false dilemmas.

What’s a false dilemma? It’s a logical fallacy involving a situation in which only two alternatives are considered, when in fact there are additional options (sometimes shades of gray between extremes).

As someone once said, “When life gives you a dilemma, make dilemma-nade.”

False dilemmas are everywhere we look—not just in personal relationships, but in every facet of our lives, including the daily navigation of our careers.

An insightful guide in making “dilemma-nade” can be found in Both/And Thinking: Embracing Creative Tensions to Solve Your Toughest Problems by Wendy K. Smith and Marianne W. Lewis.

Wendy Smith is a professor of management at the University of Delaware, and Marianne Lewis is dean of the College of Business at the University of Cincinnati.

The authors combine more than 25 years of experience and research on navigating paradoxes to offer leaders, policymakers, and individual contributors a practical approach for dealing with everyday challenges.

Rodger Dean Duncan: You say developing both/and thinking begins by noticing “the paradoxes that lurk beneath our presenting dilemmas.” Please deliver us a couple of examples of such paradoxes.

Wendy K. Smith: Underlying our personal and societal dilemmas are interdependent opposites like today-tomorrow, self-other, give-take, global-local. These yin-yangs define and inform one another, while also pulling in opposing directions.

For example, consider a career dilemma of whether to stay at a current job or take a new position. Underlying this dilemma are paradoxes between loyalty and opportunity, personal and company needs. Similarly, organizations face dilemmas when deciding whether to invest in current products or innovation. Beneath these challenges lie paradoxes of short-term and long-term, stability and change.

Duncan: From your years of research, you’ve developed what you call “the paradox system” for helping people shift how they think and feel when navigating a paradox. Tell us how that system works.

Smith: Imagine navigating the paradoxes of a career dilemma. Doing so is not just about how you make a decision. You also have to manage your emotions. You have to think about the context that informs the decision, and how you will continue learning about the decision. That is, you need a variety of tools to navigate paradox. We bring these together into what we call The Paradox System. Two big ideas highlight how it works.

First, the Paradox System contains tools labeled ABCD for ease of memory:

Assumptions – change your mindset and questions from either/or to both/and

Boundaries – create structures that can contain the tensions

Comfort – find comfort in the discomfort of navigating paradoxes

Dynamics – engage change and experimentation for ongoing learning.

Second, navigating paradoxes is paradoxical. The tools that help us navigate paradoxes are themselves paradoxical. The Paradox System involves assumptions and comfort, engaging our head and hearts, as cognition and emotions reinforce each other. The system also involves boundaries and dynamism. Stable boundaries can unleash creative improvisation, while change can enhance and clarify boundaries.

For example, Paul Polman built a paradox system as CEO of Unilever to achieve the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan (USLP). Viewing financial and social responsibilities as a paradox, he helped employees value tensions between growing profit while reducing their environmental impact (assumptions). He created structure that sharpened focus on these competing demands, specifying roles, metrics and goals for both profit and sustainability (boundaries). He also fostered a culture where employees could discuss concerns and uncertainties (comfort). Finally, Unilever leaders constantly experimented, innovating with new practices and stakeholder partnerships to Excellerate how they managed both social and financial demands (dynamics).

We can apply these same tools to our personal decisions as well.

Duncan: Why do people allow themselves to be bullied by “either/or” thinking?

Marianne W. Lewis: As a dean, I often hear people grappling with career dilemmas. “Should I focus on excelling in my current job, strengthening my expertise and organizational potential? Or should I take a leap, learning new skills and exploring possibilities?” This kind of dilemma creates anxiety and uncertainty. Either/or thinking offers a sense of control. We weigh the pros and cons of opposing demands and make a decision. A or B? In the short-term, clear, consistent answers reduce the discomfort of tensions. In the longer-term, however, they create limitations.

For example, in response to career dilemmas, some people get stuck, waiting for a clear sign that tips the scales, or pushing so hard for successive promotions that they burn out and neglect wider opportunities. Others get in a jumping habit, always seeking a better opportunity. Moves can be exciting, but they miss means to deepen learning, impact, and community. Why limit our options? Talent is treasured and loyalty scarce, and technologies enable learning and work in many modes.

Duncan: What sort of cognitive traps seem to be the most common impediments to problem-solving?

Lewis: Paradoxes create cognitive dissonance, the discomfort of inconsistencies. We might face inconsistencies between current experience and our past understanding.

For example, you might find that a political foe has long volunteered for a cause you champion. We can experience inconsistencies between what is said and what is done. Your supervisor stresses greater innovation, but closely monitors your productivity. Or you might face inconsistencies between plans and outcomes. The more globally coordinated your organization becomes, the more local managers stress their regional differences.

Acclaimed psychologist, Paul Watzlawick, explained: “Paradox is the Achilles heel of our logical, analytical, rational world view. It is the point at which the seemingly all-embracing division of reality into pairs of opposites, especially the Aristotelian dichotomy of true and false, breaks down and reveals itself as inadequate.”

To reduce dissonance, we seek clear, consistent answers. Yet either/or thinking limits our options. In contrast, navigating paradoxes takes curiosity and openness. Allowing oneself to doubt, such as by questioning assumed cause-effect relationships, also enables wisdom. Surprising observations can build when understanding the paradox of knowledge: the more we know, the more we know we don’t know.

Duncan: What role do emotional and behavioral traps play in people’s struggles with everyday challenges in the workplace and in family life?

Smith: Emotions play a powerful role in responding to paradox, as the discomfort of co-existing contradictions sparks anxiety. As Freud and subsequent psychologists stressed, anxiety threatens the ego. Because paradoxes surprise and confuse us, they challenge us, throwing into question our existing mindsets, identities, skills, and behaviors. Yet our behaviors create habits that reinforce our existing approach, preventing change.

Career growth is a good example. Successful job performance is often rewarded with more challenging opportunities. Yet greater responsibilities require learning and changes that initially diminish performance. Performing and learning work in tandem, ebbing and flowing throughout our careers. Navigating the paradox starts with embracing the tensions.

Duncan: For many people, trying to navigate a paradox simply leads to cycles of counter-productivity. What patterns seem to be the most common, what’s your advice for avoiding them?

Lewis: We identify three patterns of vicious cycles stemming from either/or thinking. The first is intensification. People make a choice, then continually reinforce that choice. This might be fine for a while, but when situations change, it’s hard to pull out of the rabbit hole. Firms like Blackberry and Blockbuster fell into this trap. Singularly focused on their market-leading products, they avoided innovation despite shifting technology.

Second is the pattern of over-correction. Anyone who has been on diets knows the swings between excessive discipline and excessive indulgence. We describe over-correction as a wrecking ball, swinging to extremes and creating all kinds of destruction.

The final pattern is polarization. Groups reinforce their own side while diminishing and ultimately dehumanizing the other. Polarization defines our current political landscape, while seeping into our family dinners and harming friendships. We depict polarization as trench warfare—each side digs in, reinforces their perspective and shoots at the opposition. Instead of creative problem solving, both sides end up with lots of casualties.

Duncan: “Balancing” professional life with personal life is a constant juggling act for most people. How can both/and thinking help?

Smith: As a mom of three kids, I constantly feel the tug-of-war between work and home. When my twins were first born, my conversations with friends and colleagues reinforced either/or thinking. I remember thinking that there must be a better way.

Understanding two patterns of both/and thinking can help navigate work/life tensions. The first is a win/win solution. We describe this creative integration as a mule—a hybrid stronger than a horse, smarter than a donkey. When people think “both/and” they typically envision a win/win. Yet these are relatively rare. In the work/life tension, our work might become our life—we open a daycare so our work involves taking care of our kids, or we charter a fishing boat so that our life’s passion is our work.

More often, navigating paradox happens through what we call tightrope walking—or being consistently inconsistent. Tightrope walkers look out to a point in the distance, then get there by making microshifts between left and right. They never achieve a static balance but are consistently balancing. They also don’t veer too far left or right, or else they fall. Work/life tensions often require consistent inconsistency—arriving home for dinner some nights and working late others. Being too focused on work can foster burnout and harm personal relationships. Being too focused on home can lead to lost productivity and career opportunities. Oscillating between the two allows us to find ways that our energy from work can enhance our time at home and vice versa.

Duncan: You say both/and thinking begins with shifting our underlying assumptions in three areas. Please tell us about those.

Smith: Paradox mindsets enable both/and thinking. Such mindsets shift our understandings of:

Knowledge—from one truth to multiple truths

Resources—from scarcity to abundance

Problem solving—from controlling to coping

First, paradox mindsets assume that there are multiple truths. Conflicts often happen when each person believes they have the truth. Therefore, the other person must be wrong. The other day, my husband and I were discussing a parenting issue. We both believed that we had the right—and only—answer. We got stuck in a rut, each defending our perspective. We didn’t get any further until we were both able to come back to the issue and do a better job of listening to each other.

Second, paradox mindsets involve shifting our thinking about resources from a scarcity to an abundance perspective. For a project manager, either/or thinking means that allocating team time to one project means taking it from another. Both/and thinking starts with asking how we can expand the value of resources. While there might be 24 hours in a day, some hours are more productive for some than others. Can we leverage team members’ differing personal biorhythms or time zones? Likewise, time management experts recommend starting with big projects, because little projects can get done in smaller time chunks. Expanding the value of resources, we can explore more creative alternatives.

Finally, paradox mindsets invite us to let go of control. Opposing ideas and demands raise anxiety. Making a clear choice offers us comfort. But our toughest problems are messy and complicated. Consider the pandemic. Trying to minimize fear, lots of people tried to assert clear decisions in an uncertain, complex, ever-changing space. Both/and thinking approaches problem solving as coping. Navigating paradoxes through listening, experimenting, and adapting as we learn more. Letting go of control recognizes that there are many possible paths, and options appear as we move forward.

Duncan: How can both/and thinking help people deal productively with the discomforts and anxieties associated with organizational change?

Lewis: Organizational change surfaces paradoxes of stability-change, tradition-innovation, short-term-long-term. Both/and thinking helps people tap into their positive potential. Stability provides a foundation for change, while change enables more resilient stability. Holding onto core values, traditions, and partnerships can support change, making the process less chaotic and uncertain. For example, when LEGO makes bold strategic changes, they do so while staying true to their core technology (the interlocking brick) and mission (to inspire builders of tomorrow).

Duncan: In what ways can leaders model both/and thinking as a bedrock practice in their organizational cultures?

Smith: As we noted earlier, Paul Polman offered a great example when turning around Unilever.

He did two things. First, he embedded both/and thinking into the organizational culture and structures. He identified a higher purpose—making sustainable living commonplace. This vision motivated leaders to embrace opposing demands. Adding to traditional business roles, he elevated guardians of the social and environmental mission. He also diversified his senior leadership and board to encourage opposing views. And (most controversially), he stopped offering quarterly guidance to investors to empower longer-term decision making. We describe these moves as guardrails—structures, metrics, people, and goals that prevent the organization from focusing too much on one pole or another.

Second, Polman invited people into both/and thinking. He constantly asked individuals to name their tensions so that all could learn and work through them. He taught leaders skills for managing conflicts. And he asked everyone to align their annual goals to the sustainable living plan, helping personalize its paradoxes for each employee. Good leaders both create the organizational conditions and support individuals to embrace paradoxes.

In 2019 the animal behaviorist Temple Grandin was admiring the gleaming new equipment at an American meat-processing plant when she discovered the intricate metal structure had been sent from the Netherlands in more than a hundred containers. “I stood on an overhead catwalk and looked at all the complicated conveyors and exclaimed to no one, ‘We don’t make it anymore!,’ ” Ms. Grandin recalls in “Visual Thinking: The Hidden Gifts of People Who Think in Pictures, Patterns, and Abstractions.” The “it” in her exclamation refers to various kinds of engineered products. The realization partly inspired her to write this book.

In other hands, a book of this title might have comprised cutesy pop-psych pronouncements on how to tap into the hidden powers of mental imagery, in yourself and others. That’s certainly an element here, but Ms. Grandin has also written an indictment of America for its witting or unwitting dismissal of those hidden gifts.

Former President Donald Trump is defending his handling of sensitive government records, telling Fox News host Sean Hannity that the president can declassify materials with just a thought.

Trump made the remarks Wednesday evening in response to litigation that's increasingly centering on whether Trump properly declassified thousands of documents seized by FBI agents from his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida. Speaking to Hannity at Mar-a-Lago, Trump reiterated his claim that he declassified the documents in addition to declaring a sweeping new ability for the president to do so.

"You can declassify just by saying it's declassified, even by thinking about it. Because you're sending it to Mar-a-Lago or to wherever you're sending," said Trump. "And it doesn't have to be a process. There can be a process, but there doesn't have to be. You're the president. You make that decision. So when you send it, it's declassified. Because I declassified everything."

FBI agents carried out a court-approved search of Trump's home in August as part of a Department of Justice (DOJ) investigation into whether the former president was hoarding classified and other sensitive documents. Trump responded with a civil lawsuit that successfully sought the appointment of a special master, an independent arbiter to sort out private materials hauled away by FBI agents.

DOJ lawyers have argued in court filings that Trump has not proven that he declassified the documents. Trump's legal team additionally has not argued that the documents were declassified.

Judge Raymond Dearie, the recently appointed special master in the case, asked Trump's lawyers to provide details on the former president's declassification of documents. Trump's legal team earlier this week objected and suggested that doing so would mean disclosing their defense to a potential future indictment of the former president.

Dearie reportedly told Trump's lawyers during a hearing Tuesday that they cannot "have your cake and eat it too."

Others have disputed Trump's claim that he declassified documents he took to Mar-a-Lago at the end of his presidency—including members of his inner circle.

Mick Mulvaney, who served as Trump's acting chief of staff from January 2019 to March 2020, said during a Newsmax interview in August that there's "a formal structure" to declassifying documents.

"You can't just sort of stand over a box of documents, wave your hand and say these are all declassified," he said. "That's not how the system works."

Other high-ranking members of Trump's administration, including former Chief of Staff John Kelly and former national security adviser John Bolton, said they were unaware of any "standing order" to declassify documents taken to his residence.

Newsweek reached out to the DOJ for comment.

BEIJING -- The Chinese government on Thursday accused Washington of “Cold War thinking” and appealed for efforts to repair strained relations after President Joe Biden released a national security strategy that calls for “out-competing China” and blocking its efforts to reshape global affairs.

The foreign ministry also accused Washington of trade protectionism after Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the United States would reinforce its global supply chains to guard against “geopolitical coercion” by China, Russia and other governments.

Biden’s document Wednesday accused China of trying to “erode U.S. alliances” and “create more permissive conditions for its own authoritarian model.” It called for “out-competing China” in political alliances and “global governance” as well as business, technology and military affairs.

U.S.-Chinese relations are at their lowest level in decades, strained by disputes over technology, security, Taiwan and human rights.

“Cold War thinking and zero-sum games, sensationalizing geopolitical conflicts and great power competition are unpopular and unconstructive,” said Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning. She called on Washington to “meet China halfway and promote China-U.S. relations back to a healthy and stable track.”

The White House document calls for the United States to “maintain a competitive edge” over China, which has antagonized Japan, India and other neighbors with an increasingly assertive foreign policy and growing military.

China's multibillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative to build ports, railways and other infrastructure across Asia and Africa has fed concern in Washington, Moscow and other capitals that Beijing is trying to build its strategic influence and undermine theirs.

China, with the second-largest global economy and military, is the “only competitor with both the intent to reshape the international order and, increasingly, the economic, diplomatic, military and technological power to do it,” the document says.

Mao, speaking at a regular news briefing, said China was a “defender of the world order” and rejected “sensationalizing geopolitical conflicts and great power competition.”

Mao criticized the “weaponization of economic and trade issues” after Yellen said Wednesday the United States was trying to reduce reliance on China and other Asian suppliers of semiconductors, electric vehicle batteries, solar panels and other technology.

President Xi Jinping's government is spending heavily to reduce its need for U.S. and other Western technology by developing its own creators of processor chips, artificial intelligence, aerospace and other know-how. Beijing is pressing Chinese companies to reduce reliance on global supply chains by using domestic vendors whenever possible, even if that increases costs.

“We know the cost of Russia’s weaponization of trade as a tool of geopolitical coercion, and we must mitigate similar vulnerabilities to countries like China,” Yellen said in Washington.

The United States should “abandon unilateralism and protectionism," Mao said, and work with “the international community to maintain the security and smooth flow of the industrial and supply chain."