• The way we see the problem is the problem. All of us have lenses that we see through. These lenses filter out light distorting what we see. These filters could be how we were brought up, the people we hang out with, the experiences that we have lived through and so on.

Break down a house in a old neighborhood to build your dream house. To you it’s a dream house, to plumbers its piping, to the electrician its wiring, to the trades people it’s a job, to the contractor it’s a business, to the neighbor its noise and disruption.

How can we use this to increase our critical thinking capability.

1. Triangularize: People often think in pair; right or wrong, yes or no, pass or fail, win or lose. The world isn’t binary. Instead, think in threes or more. Always come up with a third option. To do, or not to do, or a third option. In a brainstorming session, people should contribute minimum three ideas.

2. Change the language of your intelligence: Some look at the problem purely logically, some emotionally, some creatively; try looking at things from different perspective and then brainstorm solutions.

Logical. How can we get people to buy from us?
Emotional. How can we get people to get excited about us?
Creative. How can we have people telling others about us at their parties?

3. Break the chains of measurements and measure progress with a different criteria. You limit the solutions by limiting the way you measure the impact; but there isn’t only one way to measure the impact. Make the measure objective and subjective.

Should you advertise in a newspaper? Objective measurement could be how many of your target market could be reached through the newspaper? Subjective measurement could is it befitting for your product to be advertised in this medium?

Action: Define the problem. Define the measurement being used. Define a new measurement. Brainstorm ideas that can be implemented based on the new measurement.

Example: Problem is volunteers are dissatisfied. Measurement is number of days they are absent. New measurement is level of passion among the workforce. Brainstorm ideas to increase passion among the volunteers.

4. Imagine seeing through someone else’s eyes, and how would they look at the problem. It’s like WWJD.

Example: Want to make an awesome presentation to people (or any other problem)? Choose some random letters from the alphabet and list roles with those letters. A: A for Astronaut; Astronaut sees the big picture, so give a holistic view to the audience. B: B for Baker; Baker would serve fresh, so present something fresh and new and hot, instead of old and stale. C: C for (ummmm) someone in construction; they would lay down the foundation first, so lay down the foundation. D … you get the point.

5. Come with solution with varied range in extremity. Come with a usual solution, an unusual and different solution, and perhaps a completely radical solution. Some is obese, how would you solve the problem. Something usual: go on a diet. Something different: start weight lifting. Something radical: live a healthy lifestyle.

How about if you have a very valuable employee who is losing his passion, how would you motivate him? Something usual: give him a raise. Something unusual: give him more responsibility (or give him a corner office with big windows – prestige). Something radical: give him a small company owned business to run.

• If you were alone in the world, then okay … but you live in a community and your success is related to the quality of relationship you can build. It’s really quite obvious; in marriage you need a lover, in business you need client and vendors, and on a deserted island you need an imaginary friend.

• Under the rule of Yazeed b. Muawiyah, the governor of Medina took some property of Abdullah b. Masud unjustly. Abdullah b. Masud threatened to call on Hilf al-Fudool (Treaty of Fudool); and when Abdullah b. Zubayr heard that treaty being called on, he stated, “swords will be taken out if Abdullah’s (b. Masud) property is not returned.”

The treaty was forged in the time of Rasoolullah, but before his prophethood. After his prophethood, he said about the treaty, “I witnessed a treaty in the house of ‘Abdullah bin Jada’an. It was more appealing to me than herds of cattle. Even now in the period of Islam I would respond positively to attending such a meeting if I were invited.”

It was a treaty witness by four tribes suppressing violence and injustice, and vindicating the rights of the weak and the destitute.The reason they found a need to forge this treaty was to protect the image of people of Mecca; not to be ruined by oppressors oppressing the travelers. So even if the oppressor doesn’t find the treaty in his favor; ultimately it’s for his benefit in the long run.

Al-Aas b. Wael refused to pay the travelling merchant (Zubaid). Zubaid went to one nobleman after another one, and no one wanted to help him because Al-Aas b. Wael was a nobleman. It is essential to separate the people from the problem. We tend to favor and like some people and dislike others. Separating people from the problem allows you to be hard on the problem, while being soft on the people.

Focus on the benefits rather than taking a position. The noblemen took the position of siding with Al-Aas, but the position wasn’t necessarily in the interest of the Meccans. The merchant, Zubaid, was a poet and he would have ruined the image of Mecca thus ruining trade. People often get entangled in positions and they can’t see underlying interests.

• Building win-win agreements: So what is building win-win agreements? It’s a balance between courage and consideration, its justice, its fairness. Being raised in a culture of black and white, and win and lose, and right and wrong, it becomes very hard to think win-win. People are stuck in the win-lose mentality; I can only gain if you lose. But the world isn’t as constricted as they think it is. Make a differentiation between creating alternatives and judging alternatives. In case of Hilf Al-Fudool, it was to build a treaty among tribes in which a member of each tribe witnessed. Building a win-win relationship is the consideration you give to others on what is fair, and courage to take from others what is fair.

• People’s emotions clouds rationality; just like it did for Al-Aas b. Wael. He could have simply paid the man, he could have simply complied to the treaty, but he had to be forced by the confederacy. Never yield to pressure, only principles - keep an objective criteria at all times (just like the confederacy did).

• No man is an island: Everyone needs a support system, and it needs to be in place before you need it. Even the Messenger of Allah sought support from his family before going public with the dawah. Once he came inside with dirt all over his head. The weak followers of Quraish had completely trashed him. His daughter, Fatima, cleans him while crying, and he says, “Do not cry my daughter, Allah is my only protector.” And then remembering Abu Talib says, “Quraish did not actually affect me until Abu Talib died.”

• We are not prophets, but they were examples for us and they followed the natural course of action to reach their goal, and if we don’t follow that course we won’t accomplish anything of significance. This includes seeking help of others – whether it’s to achieve personal goals, or professional. A well developed support structure provides guidance and assistance when needed. You would often find Messenger of Allah seeking advice from companions like Abu Bakr and Umar and other companions. This guidance also helps you avoid pitfalls.

• A well developed support structure provides you a place to test out your thought and get reality check on complex ideas. It also provides you feedback; some people can be poor judges of their own behavior.

• A well developed support structure provides emotional support; the example of Khadeeja (radheeAllahuanha) for Rasoolullah. Rasoolullah (May peace and blessings be upon him) talks about his wife, Khadeejah (radheeAllahuanhu), “She believed when people rejected, she said I was saying the truth when people were saying I was lying, when people held their money from me, she gave me all of her wealth, and Allah gave me all my children from her.”

• A well developed support structure challenges you to reach your potential.

• Create transparency and openness: This means being real, genuine and telling a truth in a way that people can verify. Having a conflict of interest and not disclosing it can totally ruin it.

• Confront reality: Take on tough issues head on; discuss the undiscussable (elephant in the room); share the bad news as well as good news.

• Service recovery: Service recovery is righting wrongs, especially when you have wronged. Lose confidence of others with arrogance, not admitting to a wrong, or covering things up when you’ve wronged.

• Rasoolullah (peace and blessing be upon him) said, “You must adhere to honesty, for honesty leads to righteousness. And verily, righteousness leads to Paradise. A person continues being honest and seeking honesty until he is recorded with Allah as an honest person. You must remain away from lying for lying leads to wickedness. And verily, wickedness leads to the Fire. A person continues lying and seeking falsehood until he is recorded with Allah as a liar.” (Recorded by Muslim)

• Things come in levels and layers, and what you see may only be the surface with different layers and dimension behind it. In certain things its obvious, in order to master level 4 you must first master level 3 and 2. Sometimes we just jump into level 10 without addressing the first 9.

We often become focused on quick fixes and never trying to figure out what the underlying chronic condition is. We just want techniques to solve the problem, never strategies of determining what the real problem is and cutting it from the root.

Salah didn’t become fard until 10th year after prophethood. Zakaah, Siyam, Jihad didn’t become fard until after hijrah. Ruling on hijab and alcohol came even later. So what problems of the community were being addressed before that?

Action: Make the problem more encompassing; what is the bigger and deeper problem? Progressively make the problem bigger and bigger until you come to the root of the issue.

• Ask more insightful question. Thinking is a process of asking questions; to become a better thinker, ask more insightful questions. It’s the difference between asking “What new product can our company develop?” and “What product can we develop that people would rave about?”

List out tons of insightful questions that you should ask to address the task at hand. Then … make those questions more insightful.

• Work counter-intuitively. How about doing something that you don’t think will work? Give it a thought and consider those. Just because you think it’s not going to work, is no reason to completely disregard it. Example, You have too much work to do and not enough time. New way of thinking: add more work. It will force you to be more ruthless in managing time and priorities.

• We often do things that we shouldn’t and we don’t do thing that we should. Understand the principle: Just because you could do something, doesn’t mean you should! Figure out what the right course of action is and implement that!

• Get rid of the hierarchies. Positions and titles have weight that tends to often drown critical thinking. Positions and titles have weight that people tend to enjoying pulling around. Positions and titles is a breeding ground for ego and arrogance. People blindly follow positions and titles, and blind following means not thinking on your own. Learn from the past experience of those who have more experience, but keep the playing field flat and leveled.

• Keep the process flexible. Like a balloon. It will grow, but if it’s rigid it will blow.

• Become a CCO.

• Listen first: Listen before you speak, understand before you diagnose. Listen not just with your ears, but with your heart. Don’t assume that what matters most you, matters most to others as well. Don’t assume what matters most to others. Don’t presume that you have all the answers.

• Most people don’t listen to understand, but rather with intent to reply. People go through different spectrums of listening from ignoring, pretending, selectively listening, to attentively listening; but the most effective listening is empathic listening – listening with intent to understand – emotionally and intellectually.

• Actively seek other’s perspective and viewpoints that is different than your own. Explore their ideas, find worth in their ideas, and give them credit. Don’t just try to prove your own point. People like to surround themselves with like-minded people, but how does that bring about any growth; no one is pushing one another outside their creative boundaries.

• Remember, when someone is trying to communicate with you, don’t just listen to their words, but listen to their eyes and hearts. Only 10% of communication is done by words, 30% are other sounds, and 60% is body language.

• Humility frees from your constricted views on problems to a broader and wider view of the problems and tasks at hand; it gives you the ability to openly and empathically listen to others and their experiences and points of views. So if you are having a tough time listening to other people, perhaps it the ego that needs to be checked.

• Truthfulness in one’s action includes being true in dealings and transactions without cheating or deceiving and not even giving a false impression. What is represented on the inside of the Muslim should be represented on the outside. The prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said, “The one who creates a false impression of receiving what one has not been given is like one who wears two garments of falsehood.” (Sahih Muslim)

• Shaddad ibn Aus narrated from the Prophet, “Verily, Allah has prescribed excellence in all things.” This includes perfecting a deed (not limited to act of worship) and doing excellence towards others. Today, many of us have lost self respect and dignity, but a personality of a Muslim should be of a perfectionist, who can be proud of the acts we did.

• People can trust you to be reliable or unreliable. It is your consistent behaviour that determines what people will expect you to be like. Perhaps, your consistent behaviour is coming late to a meeting, people will start expecting you to come late. Build trust of reliability by making consistent deposits into the relationship.

• When dealing with others examine your intention; if it is flawed refine it with a win/win attitude, and declare your intention clearly.

• Make sincere effort to understand what makes deposits to the relationship, and what makes withdrawals. And then consistently make deposits to the relationship. Occasionally you will make withdrawals; balance those withdrawals with deposits. And understand that not making consistent deposit to the relationship is like making withdrawals.

• Key to changing your behaviour is building a compelling sense of purpose. If you have no purpose you have no reason to change your behaviour. Build that sense of compelling purpose so that you can do things consistently.

It’s like how a sahabi came to Rasoolullah in the battle of Badr and asked, is this a revelation or strategy of war? And when Rasoolullah informed him it’s a strategy, he advised him of a better strategy. And Rasoolullah readily accepted the idea of destroying all the wells so that Muslims maintain control of the water during the battle.

• Curiosity is the driving force to finding a broader meaning to things. If the person isn’t curious, he will see the problem (or task) as it is, but when person is curious, he will try to find more different dimensions of the same thing.

It’s like a person in search of truth; while majority of the people are satisfied living the life they are living, the curious people are demanding more out of life. It’s like what Islam does to an individual? When a person submits to Allah in humbleness, he is freed from a constricted view of this dunya to the expansive view of this dunya and the hereafter.

• Set aside what you know to learn something new. Often times we will rely on what we know, and hope that will get us through anything. Ego says that you already know what is best.

With your ego, you think you know exactly what you are doing; you believe in your decisions and are confident about them. Then, why do 80% of the businesses launched fail in the first five years? Why do 80% of the products launched never succeed? Why are 50% of the decisions forced upon other team members? Why is it that managers feel more and more confident in their decisions, but 60 to 70% of those decisions fail?

An engine consists of two benefits for you; one, the potential it has to produce; and two, the production itself. You do the proper maintenance on the engine, make sure it is well oiled, and the engine will continue to have the potential to produce. In order to do that, you have to take the engine off the streets – just a temporary decommission. But if you neglect to do so, and the run the engine constantly without any rest, initially it will produce, but the performance will gradually decline. For engines there is an optimum potential, but for humans, optimum has no ceiling.

Principle of self improvement endows you to gain more knowledge, constantly improve yourself and add value to yourself by increasing your potential. The more potential you have, the greater the results you can produce. How?

Ever used a wrench to hammer in a nail? Here’s my definition of strategy: to utilize the best tool for the task at hand. Here’s my definition of effective strategy: to have enough tools in your tool box, so that you can find the right tool for the task at hand. Your tools are very limited if you rely only on your personal experience.

When you learn, you pick up tools from the experiences of other. Learning is not limited to school and books and teachers and professors, but actually listening intently to others to learn from their experience, to learn for their view points and how they see the problems and solutions to those problems.

• Hear out others and their ideas. Actively seek other’s perspective and viewpoints that is different than your own. Explore their ideas, find worth in their ideas, and give them credit. Don’t just try to prove your own point. People like to surround themselves with like-minded people, but how does that bring about any growth; no one is pushing one another outside their creative boundaries.

Most people don’t listen to understand, but rather with intent to reply. People go through different spectrums of listening from ignoring, to pretending, selectively listening, to attentively listening; but the most effective listening is empathic listening – listening with intent to understand – emotionally and intellectually.

Remember: Ears, eyes, heart. Only 10% of communication by words, 30% sounds, 60% body language.

• Apply focal point process to everything that you communicate. Figure out what is the specific goal that you would like to achieve and then focus on it like a rifleman – focus on one thing that you can do to achieve that goal. Talk single mindedly in a straight line with absolute clarity.

• What is clarity? Clarity is knowing exactly what you are about to say, and how you are going to go about saying it. It is essential to define the core of the message that you want to get across. Most of us communicate in a way when a shotgun is shot where pellets fly all over the place. Instead we need to be communicating like a rifleman, single bullet with a single target.

• Operate your message like a turn around. Focus on the core of the message. Expand on the core of the message with details, but always return back to the core of the message, give it a boost and then return to the details if you need to.

• Identify what are your key constraints in getting your point across effectively. Don’t blame external factors, but take complete responsibility. The reason you’re not achieving your goal is an internal reason. Ask yourself, “What is holding me back from really achieving what I have set out to achieve?” Be honest with yourself, bring your weaknesses out of your blind spot and identify them, and then deal with them. Top communicators are concerned about results. Weak communicators are concerned with pleasing means and circumstance.

• Take account of yourself. Were you able to get your point across effectively? What lessons can you learn to improve for the next round? Don’t focus on the mistakes, but focus on what you would do differently. What gets measured gets managed, and what can’t be measured, can’t be managed.

• You should have the ability to think fast and you should have the ability to cut your losses fast. If a strategy is not working, don’t keep using it. Assess the effectiveness immediately, judge the facial expression, the body language, and the speech patterns of your audience and then adapt quickly and on the go.

• Complacency is your enemy, and excellence is a journey. Indeed Allah has prescribed excellence on everything (Sahih Muslim). Do the job with excellence and the reward will be excellent, do the job with mediocrity and that’s what you’ll get. Stop competing with unsuccessful people; excellent people compete in degrees of excellence. Do better than just good, do excellence.

• Society wants you to drop down from level of nobility and honor to their own level. Never agree to the role society imposes on you. Forge your own identity, be an authority on your own image rather than being pushed into one. You will be treated the way you carry yourself. Appear vulgar and people will respect you with vulgarity. Act confident and powerful, but don’t advance yourself by humiliating others.

• Integrity begins with intent. Indeed all actions are judged by intention. If your intention is flawed than your actions are also flawed. Intent is your decision that you made on the motive or agenda that you want to carry in your actions and behavior. If your motive is contrary to the expectations that you have set, then there is a definite problem with being genuine.

• Loss of trust in your authenticity (the correlation of your motive and the expectations that you have set) has a direct affect on a person`s willingness to give you attention and respect.

• We often limit ethics to truthfulness, an action of the mouth or a statement that we make; but being ethical is being integral. Integrity goes beyond mere words and speech, rather it is the fulfillment of all of the parts to achieving completeness. It’s not just the words that you speak, but the thought in the mind that precedes the words and the actions that proceeds. Integrity is adherence to moral and ethical principles beginning with your heart, to your mind, and down to your actions. Integrity goes beyond honesty, and it goes into the realm of doing the right things at the right moment at the right place with the right person. Integrity is honesty, integrity is humbleness, integrity is courage, integrity is keeping commitments, and integrity is standing up for your beliefs …

• Imam Ghazali states, “Verily, one’s external manners is the mark of one’s inner manner, and the movement of the productive members of the body are results of passing thoughts. Moreover, actions are the results of character, and fine breeding is the distillate of knowledge; indeed, actions are rooted and originate in the innermost thoughts of the heart. [Verily] the innermost lights of the heart shine upon one’s external behavior, adorning and embellishing it, and substitute good qualities for disliked and evil ones. Furthermore, he whose heart is not humbled, his external members are not humbled; and he whose chest is not the niche of divine lights, there does not spread over his external features the beauty of the Prophetic manner.”

• Rasoolullah advised Muadh b. Jabal when he was being sent to Yemen. He (peace and blessings be upon him) said, “Fear Allah wherever you are. And follow up a bad deed with a good deed and it will wipe it out. And interact (behave) with the people with a good behavior.” (At-Tirmidhee)

• Ibn Rajab states regarding ‘And interact toward the people with good behavior,’ “Having good character is a characteristic of Taqwa. Taqwa cannot be complete without it. It was mentioned here by itself due to the need for explicitly explaining that point. Many people think that taqwa implies fulfiIlling the rights of Allah without fulfilling the rights of humans. Therefore, the Prophet (saw) explicitly stated that he must deal with people in a kind manner. He was sending him (Muadh) to Yemen as a teacher, instructor and judge. Especially a person in that position, more so than others, must deal with people in a good manner. Many of those who take advantage of fulfilling the rights of Allah, and are attached to love for Him, fear of Him, and obedience to Him, neglect the rights of the humans, either completely or partially. There are very few people who combine together the fulfilling of the rights of Allah and of His servants. The only ones who have the strength to do that are those who are complete in their taqwa from among the prophets and sincere ones.”

He was once the aggressor. He tortured his own son, he argued and debated against Muslims, and he was the negotiator for the Meccans at the Treaty of Hudaibiyah, and then he took part in violating that treaty. But it was now time for Sohail ibn Amr to accept Islam at the hand of the army’s general. He called for his son, the same son he tortured. He could barely look into his eyes out of shame, but his son interceded on his behalf to Rasoolullah.

The lesson of today’s post isn’t in his conversion, but the drastic change he went through. Once Abu Sufyan complained, “I have never been humiliated like today, he gave permission to these people while we are still waiting.” Ameer ul Mo’mineen, Umar Al-Khattab, called in Ammar b. Yasser before them, he was not from the nobility of Quraish. Sohail replied, “if you are angry, be angry with yourself. When Rasoolullah called, he called for all of us. He called them and called us. They hurried to him, and we delayed. What will we do when they are called to paradise and we are left behind? Then you’ll be angry with yourself. You want to precede them into the house of khaleefa, what they have preceded you in is much better and honorable then what you are fighting for.”

Questions, Lessons and Applications

Question 1: How can we increase our ability to think critically?

Lesson: Sometimes, the way we see the problem is the problem. Abu Sufyan saw the situation as a problem in one way, that he was being dishonored by the khaleefah. Sohail saw the problem in a different light, that it was because of his own shortcoming that they missed out on this honor. All of us have lenses that we see through. These lenses filter out light, distorting what we see. These filters could be how we were brought up, the people we hang out with, the experiences that we have lived through and so on.

Application: Break the chains of measurements and measure progress with a different criteria. You limit the solutions by limiting the way you measure the impact; but there isn’t only one way to measure the impact. Don’t just look at the external responses, look at the internal actions that bring about those responses.

Action: Define the problem. Define the measurement being used. Define a new measurement. Brainstorm ideas that can be implemented based on the new measurement. Make the measurements external and internal, objective and subjective, emotional and logical.

Question 2:How can arrogance stand in our way of moving towards progress?

To be continued …