Category: Blog

Q. As we begin this interview, tell us about yourself and Throttle-Up?

A. Certainly. I began dealing professionally with critical thinking in environments that were overwhelming due to complexity and uncertainty as a young naval aviator selected for the supersonic pipeline. Such situations were new and unusual and after much trial and error, it became obvious that conventional thinking was never going to work. Enter critical thinking, and it proved to be the answer, especially in dealing with complex problem-solving under increased time compression.

So, if critical thinking works for military “air combat” pilots, (as well as other combat specialty groups), can it prove useful within the general population? We think it can, absolutely, and Throttle-Up is one in a series of initiatives that presents the value of critical thinking to a broader audience.

Q. What else are you doing?

A. Along with Throttle-Up we have published four books, so far, as well as two instructional videos, all of which are available nationally. The flagship book Critical Thinking Essentials is going through a major revision and should be available late in 2017. Also, our web site: ThrottleUpRadio.com has a lot of good stuff.

Q. How does Throttle-Up Radio and critical thinking fit into the political discourse?

A. Critical thinking among our citizens today is more important than ever. This is not only because we are being saturated with propaganda masquerading as legitimate news, but we are being asked to accept without question what I call “intellectual nonsense.”

Intellectual nonsense contains its own set of attributes: breathless headline, sensational first paragraph, prerogative language, followed by either scant evidence to support its claims or no evidence at all.

The way to break through this intellectual nonsense quagmire is with skillfully applied critical thinking.

Q. You have mentioned that critical thinking needs to be our bedrock skill from which all other skill sets emerge. Could you elaborate?

A. Of course. Critical thinking allows us to “clarify the actual.” That we must all do this as American citizens is no longer an option. Our institutions have almost entirely reached a critical stage-one in which impending failure becomes inevitable.

Our political system, controlled by the established order, is now in free fall. Our institutions of higher learning are no longer promoting wisdom, but indoctrination into the “joys” of collectivism. Our businesses are simultaneously mired in the quagmire of complexity and unable to find workers who can solve problems.

Critical thinking is now the skill set of choice among most American executives, yet colleges and universities keep teaching irrelevant “feel good” subjects. Our military keeps buying weapons systems that are at once enormously expensive, never delivered on time, and once deployed work poorly. Can I use the word “scandalous”? I could go on…

We must become a nation of “critical thinkers,” because we now have no choice.

Q. So Throttle-Up can help?

A. Yes. Throttle-Up is designed to begin the conversation in this enormously important area that we call critical thinking, delivered in an engaging way, and supporting the view that we can all take charge of our power of reason, relinquishing it to no one.

Q. But what about conservative principles?

A. Good question. For us to “make America great again” we must place conservative principles—which I prefer to call the founding principles of America—alongside strong moral and ethical values and the uncommon ability to think critically.

Since America celebrates the individual, as opposed to most other forms of government that celebrate the collective, Americans need to develop their individual abilities to think critically. This is not an option, because otherwise the government will decide what is best, and this will lead eventually to tyranny.

The goal for all of us—our mission statement—is to think critically and optimize our power of reason. This is not an attribute of the collective.

Q. Final thoughts?

A. This is planned to be a series of articles, so stay tuned.

The goal for all of us—our personnel mission statement—is to think critically, solve problems, and win.

Critical thinking is a skill that can be learned.

Critical thinking can be practiced. When it used with intent it will produce amazing results. The critical thinking system is organized like any system. The zone for success is based on analysis, not opinion.

To view the entire process in a fun, thoughtful way, click on the image below to download a special report.

The New Intellectual Frontier

It began in the field of aviation.  In aviation, one does not have the time to sort through enormous quantities of data (data overload) that are characteristic of information-intensive systems.

The design philosophy for these digital systems appears to be “more is better.” In aviation, this will not work, because in many situations less may often be better.

So, something else was urgently needed—but what?

Alongside members of a federal task force, I had the responsibility of finding out. At first there was a lot of trial and error .  A lot of off-the-shelf information seemed useful but was not and was thus discarded.

Digital systems covering everything from beginning to end entered the work environment with much fanfare, but failed to deliver the expected benefits.  So we continued our search.

We found the solution was not another piece of hardware, but a radical out-of-the-box enhancement to problem solving skills for all operational personnel. What worked was surprising, inexpensive, and out-of-the-box: it was critical thinking.

Fast Forward to Today

Throughout all information-intensive enterprises, a significant amount of data provided by modern digital systems is not used. This alone shows the error-prone way many of us think. In many cases, a whopping 90 percent of data that is collected is not used because it is not timely, not predictive, or too granular (source: IBM).

In aviation, data overload caused cockpit workload to sky-rocket, confusion to prevail, and performance to suffer. Likewise, in non-aviation enterprises, data overload caused unproductive work to spike with the top twenty companies spending about 240 billion dollars a year trying to muddle through an increasingly complex work environment (source: SAP).

Finding a Solution

In finding a solution to what caused degraded operational performance, critical thinking proved to be a winner. The critical thinking motto is Clarify-Reason-Win, and this is not just a clever phrase—it works.

Going Mainstream

The Wall Street Journal stated, “Ask most corporate leaders today what kind of employees they want, and the answers will be nearly uniform: They crave creative workers who think outside-the-box… and who are always looking for a better way to get the job done” ( May 16, 2017, retrieved from Page R6). In other words, they seek critical thinkers.

A recent survey of 900 executives revealed that the vast majority (90 percent) considered critical thinking to be as important or more important than technical skills.

That’s the good news. However, while critical thinking has gone mainstream, much work needs to be done by innovators to install critical thinking skill sets within each enterprise.

Currently I am working with some airlines and universities to jump-start a massive campaign to install operationally focused critical thinking skills throughout their organizations.

Throttle-Up Radio Show

Critical thinking operatives are trying to re-engineer the American business and economy from a conventional one, offering narrowly defined components, products, or services, to an unconventional, futuristic enterprise offering solutions. This is all brought about by—you guessed it—critical thinking. This weekly radio show will help you discover how critical thinking plays a major role in America and in its role in innovation, business, and economy.

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Captain Kevin M. Smith, U. S. Navy (Retired) is the host of Throttle-Up, airing weekends on RSTR Encore channel. Captain Smith is a pioneer in the field of Applied Critical Thinking, High Velocity Reason, and advanced adaptive systems.

Captain Smith’s latest book Mission Adaptive Display Technologies and Operational Decision Making in Aviation (co-authored with Stephan Larrieu) is available nationally.

Captain Smith is also the author of Critical Thinking Essentials Quick Reference Handbook, also available nationally.

Hosted by Captain Kevin M. Smith U.S. Navy (Ret.), an expert in critical thinking, the Throttle-Up® radio program represents an innovative format designed to both entertain and inform. He provides a new way to employ critical thinking to consider America, our institutions, and its people in the proper context with respect to the real world. The point of view is “what works.” However, reality is often unpredictable and what works is not always obvious.  We must embrace critical thinking in order to understand more productive, non-linear pathways.

It might be surprising to many that one of America’s great critical thinkers was Benjamin Franklin. This may be why we are organized along state lines instead of regions—the state being semi-autonomous. This organization lends itself to greater levels of innovation, experimentation, and small scale prototyping. If programs are first examined at the state level, so as to determine through performance data what works, then success is more likely at the national level.

This is but one example of how we can cut out old thinking, break out of our self-imposed intellectual prison, and re-engineer America’s return to greatness.

This is what Throttle-Up® is all about.  We hope you will join us!