Jonathan Rojas - Module 1 Assignment Response

[jonrojas]

I scored 21/30 on the pre assessment quiz. Some of those answers were surprising to me and I would be keen to debate for the answers that I chose.
------------------------------------
• What is critical thinking?
A: Critical thinking is the ability to look at a situation objectively to ascertain the best solution possible. It involves considering every point of view and what biases might be applied to those points of view. The also includes you being able to identify your own point of view and biases, and taking that into consideration as well. This will help to see the big picture and also understand the smaller pieces that create the big picture.


• Why is it important?
A: Critical thinking is important because as a leader, you need to be able to consider everyone's point of view and their biases. When you are making decisions that effect more than just yourself, relying on just your point of view and biases would give you a very small scope of the situation.


• Name someone famous you believe is a critical thinker.
A: I come from a heavy tech background and my favorite current day innovators come from that field as well. The person that I believe is a critical thinker is the CEO of AMD, Lisa T. Su.


• Why do you think they are a critical thinker?
A: I believe she is a critical thinker because of the sheer size of the obstacles that she faced when she took over leadership of the company. AMD had been in a slump that lasted over a decade before she took over. Not only did she manage the change the ideology of the company's leadership, but she brought with her a vision that would bring AMD to be at the top of the industry after a mere 4 years of her being CEO. She brought drive and vision to AMD and they proceeded to break technological boundaries year after year. She came in with a set plan that had a timeline that she shared with the entire world. All of her work has lead to keep them on track with their timeline and their new computer processors changed how the industry views a CPU. She had to ability to see the big picture, pick apart what needed work with the smaller pieces, and bring it all together to create the AMD that the world sees today.

[jesseperez]

Agreed, being objective is key. Also, being objective by evaluating the information in an effort to remove/be aware of our personal bias is a process. We all have beliefs that inform our decision making and we aren't always aware. It sounds like Lisa T. Su did something similar to Elon Musk. They saw the pig picture (vision), picked apart what needed work--and I'm sure in some cases had to start from scratch--and created products that are changing the course of their industries.

[paulwickson]

Hi Jon,

I like the fact you've introduced the concept of 'bias' as part critical thinking. We all approach a situation with certain biases but it's important that we recognize and consider these when looking at solutions or judgements. Thanks for sharing your critical thinker Lisa T. Su. It seems like she was instrumental in turning the organization around in terms of vision, structure. I'd like to know more about how her critical thinking skills allowed her to make such good judgements. What evidence did she source, how did she overcome/use some of her own biases, what other viewpoints/data did she seek?

[jonrojas]

Paul,

She came in with a plan to not only redesign the company's leadership but also redesign their processors from the ground up. In a lot of her talks, she refers to countless nights studying the history of AMD's products to understand where they came from, the good and the bad, and used that information to structure a path for the future. There aren't many female CEO's in the tech titan world and I feel that brought different points of views that previous CEO's didn't bring to the table. She is also very level headed while surrounded by chaos which is exactly what AMD was dealing with when she became CEO; chaos. She used a number of different data points to make her decisions. She paid attention to what the consumers wanted and what was being sold at the time. The budget side of the CPU world was lacking since Intel got comfortable in their dominate position. So instead of attacking the high end market, she attacked the low end market. This caused their new line of processors, Ryzen, to blow up in popularity. This was an extremally smart move as there was much need for quality CPU's in the low end market. She is also an amazing presenter and really knew how to drive the information home marketing wise.

It was truly has been amazing to see what AMD has done in the last 4-5 years since she has taken over.