Reason and Leadership

Making good decisions requires a reality based approach and that requires good reasoning skills. Here’s why.

Say you are trying to solve a problem. Doesn't matter what the problem is.  All problems have a cause and influencing factors. If you are going to solve your problem, you have to know what is causing it and what can influence it.  And finding out what is really causing our problems isn't always all that easy.

Most people guess and hope for the best.  If you want to improve your chances above – hope, then it’s worth taking a bit of time to question whether your guess as to what is causing your problem is actually based in reality.

Here’s the secret to successful problem solving. The more your understanding of the problem reflects the actual reality of the problem, the more effective your problem solving will be.

To figure out whether what you think is causing your problem is what is really causing your problem, you have to think. And that process of thinking through problems in a logical sensible way is called reasoning.

Once you have figuring out what is really causing your problem, you then need to figure out how to solve it. And again, most people guess and hope for the best.  But if you think about it a little bit and consider what other factors may be influencing your problem, you can usually come up with a strategy to fix it.

Coming up with a well-reasoned strategy may not solve your problem, but it’s going to give you a better chance at it than guessing and hoping for the best.

How to reason well?  Mostly it involves seeking the truth and not allowing your passions and biases to derail you from the search for the truth. (Here is a cool graphic from wikihow on how to reason well: http://www.wikihow.com/Reason)

To reason well you need to learn how to ask yourself questions. Why – why is that my problem? Is there a problem that is causing my problem? What might solve this? What other things might solve this?

When you consider alternatives, you give yourself options. And then all you have to do is reason through them to figure out which of your options give you the best chance of success – and that’s your plan.

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