New votes in L&D – Helen Bailey – Thinking about learning

As we continue the series of new voices in June in L&D, I am happy that Helen Bailey joins us and contributes to his critical thinking in an AI world.

Helen Bailey is a professional independent of independent learning and development with experience in a variety of sectors, including health care, distribution and retail. Describing itself as “constantly curious”, it is passionate about the creation of development of interactive and engaging leadership which focuses on practical solutions that managers and managers are faced every day at work.

I do not modify or modify the written documents for me. I am not an editor, and it is not something that matters to this series. Each piece is subject to the author's own writing style. I do not check the facts either, unless there is something that should be checked.

Have we lost the art of critical thinking?

In a world where the conversation seems dominated by AI, I thought about critical thinking and if we have lost this art.

So what is critical thinking? Tim Coburn Identifies it as the ability to think well, to think clearly, to take into account a certain number of various considerations which brings me to my favorite word – triangulation – the use of several data sets to validate or corroborate the data.

However, how often in our professional life do we do that? The work is busy, life is busy and often we reach the rapid solution, or the data has been handled to present a certain point of view. As Aaron Levenstein said once memorablely that “statistics are like bikinis – what they reveal is suggestive, what they hide is suggestive”. You can find interesting examples where it took place here.

Outside of work, we live in a world of click bait where the headlines attract attention and Bbc have identified a number of deceptive campaigns in the 2019 general elections, including the conservatives unforming their Twitter Now X site as the fact verification site.

However, it is clear that these critical thinking skills remain important as identified in the World Economic Forum Future report of jobs which notes analytical thinking as the main basic skills for workers. I remember having chosen my level A and rejecting the critical thinking option because I thought it did not seem interesting but by looking back, it is probably the one, I use most often in my daily life. For example, during the meeting with customers, I am often asked for training in time management – my answer is always to ask a lot of questions to identify the data and to guess what is not the most often. It is not a question of time management. It is a question of increasing the workload, complicated systems or a lack of confidence between the teams and the management among others.

More recently, this has been renamed in an approach based on evidence, especially in the world of CIPD and HR profession card. From the L&D point of view which is interesting than in the CIPD Learning at Work Report 2025 Only 9% noted that they strongly agreed with the declaration that they designed or made recommendations using informed principles. The same report also noted that there had been a decrease in organizational L&D priorities.

The rise of the much discussed AI led in certain districts to use the materials of this source with an indisputable eye, but it is clear that there are defects that are inside. For example Stable diffusion Asked to produce an image of a doctor and it took three shots before a woman's photo was produced. In a world where equality, diversity and biases are widely discussed, which indicates that this has not been eliminated and, because AI is based on quantities of existing data, there must be recognition that we must also question the answers here.

And it must be remembered that AI does not know everything – recently, I was checking an expression of a customer meeting, and this is the answer that came back:

In the end, the use of critical thinking will allow us to make better decisions and be more effective and makes us more credible when we present ideas and solutions.

So how can we get there – well here are some tips and tips to get started:

• Do you focus on the facts rather than on opinion-what do they tell you?
• Use reliable sources and scientific literature – My heart tends to flow when I see Wikipedia Cité.
• Use several data sources and if they tell you the same thing, this is probably the way to follow. THE CIPD Suggest examination of scientific literature, organizational data, expertise and judgment of practitioners and consultants and stakeholders.
• Always consider the data range – the old adage in the range of True shampoo advertisements. 80% of people preferring a type, however, sounds well if the data set is only 8 people, how valid it is?
• Actively listen to what is said and as Julie Starr Note what is not said in deep listening.

If I had to print t -shirts on this subject, I would say “think critically – be better!” And who wouldn't want a little bit of that?