Critical Thinking Triad Insurance Company Essay

introductionThe endpoint critical thinking refers to to a wide range of cognitive skills and intelligent thirsts collected to effectively identify, analyze, and evaluate billets and up expertness claims, to disc any(prenominal) everywhere and overcome individualised prejudices and biases, to word and demo convincing causations in aid of mop ups, and to pro get together earthable, intelligent lasts about what to regard and what to do   (Bassham, G., et al, 2005).   It serves as the foundation of accusive analyses that leads to the correct problem definition resulting in the generation of sound alternative courses of action.  In the absence of critical thinking regulates, companies advise fall into termination-making traps where, unconsciously, they atomic number 18 forced to suck the defective decisions (Langlois, G, 2007).What ar the issue and conclusion?The case resume, as embodied in the Memorandum to the Chief Executive Officer, dat e September 20, 2007, presents a prescriptive issue, to ease up or non a lead development political program for Triad insurance Company of Indianapolis (TICI).  Ms. Denise Khali (Vice-Pre rampnt of gentlemans gentleman Resources) specifically recomm culminationed disapproval of the aim submitted by the director of trading operations, Mr. Ralph Clarke.What atomic number 18 the conditions?As VP of human resources and from her individual-to-person standpoint, Ms. Khali presented mixed arguments, persuasions and ideas to birth her recommendation.TICI has 12 older executives and none has attended a lead development program. The past performance of TICI casts precariousness on the necessity of the program. protrudeing(a) former 1 TICI is over 50 age old.  The continued operation of TICI suggests a made business undertaking.  Even at over 50 stratums, in that location is no end in sight for its continued operations, change magnitude its going-concern quantify order. musical accompaniment reason 2 TICI has an one-year average growth rate of 12%.  on that point is a presumption that the 12% growth rate is takeable in the insurance industry where TICI is located. load-bearing(a) reason 3 The age and growth doer of TICI ar indicative of the high societys prosperity.According to Ms. Khali, the winning and effective leading experience of TICI suggests that leadership are born, non made.Supporting reason 1 Ms. Khali number backed TICIs sr. staff on the nonion that leaders are born, not made.  The survey result showed that all, withdraw one, agreed with this notion.Supporting reason 2 Dr. Carleton Parker, a storied economist, has a similar stance.Supporting reason 3 Ms. Khali refers to an existing entire take aim of lead system that the worlds famous leaders possess super C traits that tooshienot be learned they are innate.Ms. Khali cited her in the flesh(predicate) observation that leaders arrest a ge w ebically determined tall sensual stature.Supporting reason 1 She cited cardinal net income websites Laughter Genealogy and IMDB that presented a partial list of Ameri chamberpot leaders, of diametric generations, having a height of more than than sextet feet.Supporting reason 2 every last(predicate) of TICIs senior staff members have heights of over six feet tall.  With the riddance of Mr. Ralph Clarke, the leaders preparation advocate.The intentions of Mr. Ralph Clarke are tentative with regards to his ambitions and liberal views on education and achievement.Supporting reason 1 Ms.Khali believes Mr. Clarke covets her position as VP of Human Resources.Supporting reason 2 Ms. Khali believes Mr.Clarke is out to discredit her.Supporting reason 3 According to Ms. Khali, Mr. Clarke believes every citizen lav get anything they desire through from each one citizens right to get education.Supporting reason 4 The leadership theories of Aspen demonstrate do not fit in the cul ture of TICI.Agreement to the suggestion leave alone set off requests for overpriced procreations that TICI supportnot afford. facts of life staff without leadership traits is a botch of money.Supporting reason 1 2 research studies, described as well-respected, reason out that personality traits point to a persons leadership potential.  These dickens studies appeared in the Journal of Applied Psychology and leading Quarterly.  in that location was no mention of the specific issues where they appeared.Supporting reason 2 recruitment efforts should focus on applicants with leadership traits.Which language or dialects are ambiguous?We round off the reasons cited above for ambiguity.  Vague words subvert the strength of the reasons accompaniment the conclusion.  The discussion of ambiguity alike opens the door to look into the marriage proposition itself for weaknesses and possible points of misunderstanding.  The Background Section identifies th e crowning(prenominal) purpose of the training program as preparation for future advancement of 20 young executives annually into executive positions.  There was no justification on the consider of trainees.  Does TICI have as many executive positions to fill up in the scant(p) or medium term?  The phrase future advancement can be broken down into the exact executive positions with vacancy and in what future timeframe.  The training program can be viewed as an investment and the training costs can be matched with the costs of pirating executives to see which is feasible.The term prosperity in conclude 1 can mean increases in value in different things.  The increase can refer to gross sales, net profit, net worth, hot leave, and another(prenominal)s.  In the insurance industry, cash emanate is not proportionate to sales levels as there is no guarantee in the collection of annual premiums due to default option or termination of contact by the policyhol der.  Even if an insurance company is development in terms of premium sales, there is the speculation of cash period problems that go out translate in operational problems, including training activities by the Human Resource Department. campaign some(prenominal), uses a very general commentary of TICI leadership in the words productive and effective.  The words suggest that TICI leadership is successful in all areas of corporate focal point finance, operations, marketing, sales, administration, information systems, and others.  If that is the case, there is no need for an outsourced training program.  The best training the junior-grade executives can get is from the company leadership itself.  The Human Resource Department can develop in-house training programs.  Ms. Khali was silent on this possibility.  She did mention training of personnel with leadership traits, besides she failed to elaborate.Ms. Khali demanded a survey to support the not ion that leaders are born, not made.  She did not inform the technicalities as to exemplar population instanceistics, sample size, and others.  It could have been a simple query to a get group such that the procedure itself is biased.  Therefore, in this case, the result is also biased.  The use of the descriptive phrase entire school of leadership theory suggested a huge followers but said following is unverifiable.Reason 4 reveals place play and Ms. Khali accuses the Operations Director of discrediting her.  There seem to be an assumption the training proposal of Mr. Clarke is indispensable by the company and the VP of Human Resources was not able to see or finger this.  Therefore, she may have been bypassed in the saying of the proposal.  How the leadership theories of Aspen do not fit the culture of TICI is in itself vague.Ms. Khali mentioned subsequent requests for expensive trainings are something TICI cannot afford.  atomic number 18 t hey having cash black market problems even if the company is experiencing a considerable period of prosperity?What are the value conflicts and assumptions?The case facts line us to determine in the work place.  A good reference in analyzing the interplay of set in Triad Insurance is Schwartzs determine Circumplex (McShane & Von Glinow 247, 2005).  The case facts present bipolar positions where the VP of Human Resources assumes conservative set while the Director for Operations assumes set reflecting openness to change.  This explains, in part, the actions of the two protagonists and the set they are false to have.  Ms. Khali possesses the values of obligingness (adherence to corporate culture), security (tenure and stability) and tradition (moderation and fear of the status quo).Mr. Clarke whose values cluster on the opposite side of the model is assumed to possess the values of self-direction (independence in thinking and action) and stimulation (faci ng challenges and taking risks).  The Schwartz model also has vertical bipolar clusters nearly self-transcendence and self-enhancement.  From this dimension, only the values clustering somewhat self-enhancement are present, from the facts disposed in the case.  two protagonists possess the values of achievement (personal success) and power (dominance over others within the organization).  The conflicting values and assumptions explain the collision course of the two corporate protagonists.What are the descriptive assumptions?The set-back descriptive assumption is that the senior executives exist almost everything about leadership and still training is unnecessary.  This assumption is hard to accept in this age of orbiculateization, which promotes the free flow of information, resources and people (Jrank, 2007).  Several decades ago, the concept of external competition was limited to the big multinationals.  With the developments in information tec hnology, competition is now global in character and big and nonaged players can compete in various geographic locations at the same time or within cyberspace itself. genetics play an important role in determining leadership traits of every person.  Ms. Khali relied heavily on this descriptive assumption to support her recommendation not to accept Mr. Clarkes proposal.  Underlying this descriptive assumption is other(prenominal) descriptive assumption that exposes Ms. Khalis incapableness of adequately supporting her arguments.  The info on leader heights she presented to the chief operating officer was taken from the Laughter Genealogy website.  Professional journals are readily accessible in the libraries and the internet and are better sources of reliable data and information.The case did not present much information on Mr. Clarke.  It was apparent that Ms. Khali was on the lookout of Mr. Clarkes intentions and she was convinced that the latter was after her position.  The mien by which Ms. Khali reacted, gathering supporting arguments left and right and throwing accusations, seemed to portend another descriptive assumption.  Ms. Khali was insecure of her position in the company for reasons not stated in the case.  She was desperately protecting herself in the ongoing power struggle, as she perceived it.Are there any fallacies in the ratiocination?The following analysis on fallacies is base on the article of Haskins (2008) as stick on on the Skepdic website.Ms. Khali has connected the phantasm of argument from ignorance and the fallacy of begging the question when she argued that all, except one, senior executive of TICI are over 6 feet tall that explains why they are successful and effective leaders.  She also committed the fallacy of false analogy by quoting Dr. Carleton Parker in proving that only a hold group can be leaders and they are genetically determined to fashion leaders.  What Dr. Parker sai d is that each human organism is born into this world with rich, psychical disposition that provides all his motivations of conduct.  She also committed the fallacy of slippery slope when she argued that there would be more requests for expensive trainings if the leadership program were ap spread outd.It is only a claim but prevails to be proven.  Upon concluding her arguments, she also committed the ad hominem fallacy by shifting her criticisms from the leadership program to the character of Ralph Clarke accusing him of coveting her position.  She resorted to the ad populum fallacy when appraise the acceptance of the notion that leaders are born, not made.  The survey was more of a popularity vote on an idea alternatively than a serious attempt to record statistical probabilities.How good is the evidence?The evidences given by Ms. Khali were gathered to support her decision not to recommend the acceptance of the proposal.  On the contrary, whatever position she takes testament be more acceptable with a study that will show the feasibility of the proposed program.  She lie her register with personal accusations that were impossible to prove or defend.Are there gibe causes?As Vice President of Human Resources, it was the prerogative of Ms. Khali to recommend or not the leadership-training proposal.  It is assumed that anybody n her position will recommend what is best for the company.  The memorial she wrote was fill with ambiguities and fallacies.  As she cast doubt on the intentions of Mr. Clarke a similar cloud of misgiving hung over her intentions.The manner by which her memo was crafted was not deserving of the CEO.  All these factors indicate the possibility of rival causes.  Did Ms, Khali recommend the rejection of the proposal as part of her job as frailness president or did she make that recommendation to protect her hold on the position of vice president?  contradictory values as discussed ab ove indicated a collision course between the two major players in the case.  Corporate executives constitute with conflict and are expected to get back them in a professional manner expected of them.Are the statistics deceptive?     The proposal itself and the arguments against it contain deceptive statistics.  Training 20 junior executives for senior positions every year indicates a requirement stemming from growth or a fast turnover of senior executives.  Both of these two possible reasons remain unsupported throughout the case.  If the number of junior executives for training were down to five, for example, would it have been more realistic for the company?  Ms. Khali did not look at it from this perspective she simply went all out to prevent project implementation.Dr. Carleton Parker was quoted as supporting the hypothesis that a contain group is genetically destined to obtain leaders.  What Dr. Parker said was all human beings are psy chically equipped to face motivations in his lifetime.What significant information is omitted?  The pros and cons of the project proposal did not get equal investigation.  The memorandum would have gained much credibility if the side of Mr. Clarke was sought and presented in the memorandum.  possibly, Ms. Khali was not consulted during the verbal expression of the project proposal causing her personal hurt and doubts as to the real intentions of Mr. Clarke.  In retaliation, she presented only her side of the picture.  In the absence of Mr. Clarkes arguments, the memorandum could have achieved a sense of balance and fairness if both sides of the coin were represented in all the arguments used.What reasonable conclusions are possible?There were so many ambiguities and fallacies in the memorandum.  Perhaps the CEO will ask an improve version, one expected of a vice president.  A balanced report will provide stronger arguments and the opinion of Mr. Clarke may be required in the modified memorandum.  The CEO may ask other parties to conduct the investigation.  Both the proposal and the arguments have weaknesses and points to the possibility that personal interest weighed heavily against that of the company. endingAs mentioned, critical thinking is a requirement to overprotect the right arguments, generateAlternative courses of action and make the right decisions.  By not following a critical thinking model, the company finds itself with the wrong decisions.  Many decision alternatives are arrived at because of the poor thinking styles used in the process.  As a result, companies unconsciously limit their own decision choices. Langlois (2007) identifies several trial-and-error program (decision) traps companies face.  In the case of TICI, a decision based on Ms. Khalis memorandum will force the company into a framing trap that prevents the generation of other alternatives to the proposal presented.  It i s the responsibilities of the CEO to identify heuristic traps and develop strategies that will guide the company develop a healthy decision making environment.ReferencesBassham, G, Irwin, W, Nardone, H, & Wallace, J (2005). full of life thinking, 2nd ed. New York, NY McGraw-Hill/Irwin.Haskins, G. (2008). A pragmatic guide to critical thinking.  Retrieved January 20, 2008, from  http//skepdic.com/essays/haskins.pdfJrank, 2007, Modernization theory globalization theory.  Retrieved January 16, 2008, from  http//science.jrank.org/pages/10275/Modernization-Theory-Globalization-Theory.htmlLanglois, H. (2007). The challenge of changing, part II. mamma Cambridge Course notes.  Retrieved  January 14, 2008, from http//isites.harvard.edu/fs/docs/icb.topic203996.files/Challenge_in_Changing092507B.pptMcShane, S.L., Von Glinow, M.A. (2005). Organizational behavior emerging realities for the work revolution, 3rd ed. New York McGraw-Hill Education.