Building applied critical thinking into the structure of an organisation

This article in Bloomberg caught my attention. It is a background piece on a team known as the “Applied Critical Thinking” unit that has been operating inside the New York Federal Reserve since 2016.

The general idea of contrarian thinking and recognising the limitations of what is and is not knowable are not huge innovations in themselves. What was interesting for me is the extent to which this unit can be thought of as a way of building that thought process into the structure of organisations that might otherwise tend towards consensus and groupthink built on simple certainties.

I have touched on this general topic in some previous posts. A review of Paul Wilmott and David Orrell’s book (The Money Formula), for example, discussed their use of the idea of a “Zone of Validity” to define the boundaries of what quantitative modelling could reveal about the financial system. Pixar (the digital animation company) also has some interesting examples of how a culture of candour and speaking truth to power can be built into the structure of an organisation rather than relying on slogans that people be brave or have courage.

I don’t have all the answers but this initiative by the NY Fed is I think worth watching. Something like this seem to me to have the potential to help address some of the culture problems that have undermined trust in large companies (it is not just the banks) and the financial system as a whole.

Tony