Saturday I had the opportunity to listen to Judith Estrin speak about The Innovation Gap, her first book. What struck me about her talk was that she framed a number of her ideas in the context of children and the next generation. In fact, the introduction of her book begins with details about her son, David. So immediately I’m faced with a corporate executive that has served as CTO of Cisco and sits on the FedEx and Disney boards and yet has the long-term view of growth. This talk would be different, and I had to pay attention.

In Corporateland, growth and innovation are measured in three month cycles – something I ranted about here before. Where does room for growth and innovation really exist? If I can’t generate return in three months, I risk losing company valuation and could become an acquisition target. Where is the incentive to take the long-term view.

In my family I have the opportunity to look at the horizon. And I have a number of horizons that will come into view. Barring my turn to get hit by a car, I get upwards of 50 to 60 years with my wife. Next, I have direct influence over my oldest daughter for 18 years (please make it only 18). Then I get to build on that learning with my other two daughters for five years after that. So the incentive to take the long-term view exists inherently within the nuclear family, and so does the platform and framework to innovate. I have an ability to collect, analyze, and apply reams of data over time in order to develop the character of my family as individuals and as a whole.

My daughter recently asked me, “if there was no sin in heaven, if nobody ever got sad, and if there were no tears, wouldn’t heaven be boring?” Great question I thought. For some reason I felt even better that she felt completely comfortable asking it. Judith said something that helped me quantify what I felt. With such a strong focus of passing standardized tests, and an education process tweaked to produce cookie-cutter students of average intelligence, “We are not teaching our kids how to question. We are teaching them how to answer, but not to ask and not to frame questions well.”

As our kids grow up, they will be used to facing many times more data than we ever had. The problem is that this produces children that are “data rich but critical thinking poor.” As they face hundreds of decision points daily, they respond with immediate text messages, instant messages, and phone cam pictures. No delay exists to allow them time to truly digest the information bombarding them.

So what can I as a parent do to help my kids become critical thinkers?

• Require writing. Writing takes time. Writing requires a thought through position. I can’t think of a reason to not ask them to write out their thoughts, so I’m going to ask them to apply some critical thinking to our family issues. For instance, as my kids pester me about getting them mobile phones, I think I’m going to ask them to write me a couple of paragraphs to understand their position.
• Ask good questions. When I read through their thoughts I can ask some non-judgmental questions to ensure they have a well-rounded perspective. For instance, they are saving up for the phone and the activation fee. I’m sure they won’t think about who or how we’ll pay for ongoing service charges. I can ask them if they have included this in their position, and if not, to develop some ideas on what we can do as a family to meet this obligation. Or perhaps even decide that we can’t really manage mobile phones for everyone right now.
• Finally, make sure I give them enough time to address my questions. I don’t want to start talking about an issue just as I’m dropping them off at dance class, because the issue will get tabled. And I don’t want to leave a conversation unfinished. I need to take the time and have enough respect for my kids to find a quiet time to bring it up again. I need to let them know that their thinking, input, and responses matter to me.

So don’t let things go unaddressed, don’t judge while you’re asking questions, and make sure the abundance of available data does not allow our kids to obfuscate real thinking and analysis. This should go a long way towards raising critical thinkers.

- Andy