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What are the conditions to meet in order to produce a serious reasoning?
Problem solving.
Dealing with a problem involves following the following process:
1. Recognizing the problem.
2. Conducting a thorough analysis.
3. Developing a solution, often partial.
4. Implementing it.
The conditions to correctly follow such a process, that is, to produce a serious reasoning are:
1. The person conducting the decision-making process must have the necessary skills.
2. They must provide the amount of work required by the complexity of the subject.
3. They must be sincere in their conclusions, as opposed to letting them be guided by a particular interest.
4. They must not fall victim to beliefs that could lead them to bias their conclusions in good faith.
Steps in the problem-solving process
As soon as one of the steps is omitted, the final result is rendered null, even if other steps have been handled very seriously.
Moreover, it is important to obtain the explicit agreement of all participants that everything has been considered regarding one step before moving on to the next. In this sense, problem-solving is a form of respectful coexistence with others.
Recognizing the problem
The main difficulties related to recognizing the problem are:
1. Having the courage to face the problem directly, and even more so to take the risk of confronting the social group that wants to maintain the current functioning, that is, to remain in denial,
2. Tracing back to the origin of the problem, and not just contenting oneself with the observation of more visible negative consequences.
Conducting an analysis
The analysis answers the questions: Why, and how?
The main difficulties related to the analysis are:
1. Producing an exhaustive analysis of the situation, and not just following certain preferred tracks,
2. Using reasoning that is consistent with logic, and relying on established knowledge according to the scientific method, and not on personal beliefs or collective dogmas.
3. The temptation to skip the analysis and go directly to 'the solution'.
At the beginning of the analysis, everyone has their own view of the subject, shaped by their personal history, skills, and beliefs, and different individuals do not necessarily give the same meaning to words. At the end of the analysis, participants must have a shared view of the subject, which requires sharing their individual experiences, knowledge, and agreeing on the precise meaning of words.
Developing a solution
Often, the solution is only partial. This should not be a pretext for giving up.
Beware of the temptation to rely on good practices. The best solution often involves a share of creativity.
Implementing it
Implementation answers the questions: Who does what, when?
This requires having the courage to confront the social group that wants to maintain the current functioning.
The conditions to be able to produce a serious reasoning
It is the fourth question, 'Not being a victim of beliefs leading to biased conclusions in good faith,' that is the most difficult to satisfy. The 'in good faith' is the result of cognitive dissonance. To face this, the book From Capital to Reason introduces the concept of strategic rating.
Workarounds
To avoid making the cognitive effort of reasoning, and to make arbitrary decisions, there are different strategies:
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Statutory decision-making. It consists in basing the validity of the solution on the status of the person who makes it (parent, teacher, hierarchical superior), rather than on the quality of the analysis leading to it.
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Normative or dogmatic decision-making. It consists in basing the validity of the solution on the fact that it is the rule, the law, the norm, the standard procedure, the state of the art. See the question 'What do best practices represent in the world of work?'
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Empathetic listening. It consists in creating a climate of trust that hides and compensates for the arbitrariness of the solution. See the question 'The myth of listening'.
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Dogma
The other major way of circumventing the analysis is to skip it altogether, using a religious dogma or the state of the art at the professional level, to directly go from problem recognition to solution.
Go deeper
A more advanced version of the problem-solving method, taking into account different personality structures, is proposed in the question 'Tell me how you make decisions, and I will tell you who you are'.
See the question 'Why do humans reason so wrong?' which details the methodological flaws of human reasoning.
See the question 'What do best practices represent in the world of work?' to understand well why best practices are often an obstacle to the production of a serious reasoning.
See the question 'The myth of listening and good atmosphere' to understand well how empathy can be diverted.
For a more detailed description of the difficulty of conducting a serious reasoning, refer to chapter 4 'The decision-making process, or the reign of the irrational' of the book From Capital to Reason.
For a more detailed explanation of the concept of strategic rating, refer to chapters 7 'Going beyond the philosophical vision of the Enlightenment', 10 'The journal of strategic reflections' and 11 'Operational control'.
Finally, and especially, for a more detailed description of the application of the problem-solving method in a group of people, refer to chapter 9 'The journal of problems' of the book From Capital to Reason.
Explore on the Internet the concept of 'Scale of Behaviors', which details the upstream processing of problems, i.e., making an inventory of avoidance techniques to avoid recognizing the problem (ignoring, denying, blaming, justifying), then taking up the processing steps (analyzing, imagining), forgetting the last one (implementing).