You made up your mind. So you think you're right .... ?

Well it is kind of amazing that people can think that they are right and that they are perfectly sure about this. But they are wrong. They are not lying at you or something, they just don't understand it any better. These people are fooled by there own mind. This is an interesting article which lists some reasons how this can happen.

Actually this is no new knowledge. Greek philosophy though us that the only thing tat we can be sure about is our own mind. But unfortunately our mind is not foolproof. It's only the assesment ot the reality. There is no no garantee that this assessment is right. Think of the movie matrix. In the matrix all humans were perfectly conviced that they live in the real world but they were teribly wrong.

We have to be aware that we are all prone to this vulnerability to some degree although you might try your best to do the right thing. However, conciousnes about how we are fooled by our mind and how or mind can be manipulated will decrease the risk of beeing fooled or manipuladted and actually increase chances of making the right decisions. Therfore i thinke this article migth be worth reading.

We should keep in mind that trying your best to find the trouth is essential for our democracy and our freedom. Although you might think your contribution is small its still essential since we can be almost certain that if all people make an informed decision on average this decision will be the best possible assesment of a problem, despite the fact that the individual perception might be wrong. Yes, believe me, this is how statistics works and thats the power of democracy and elections.

Any attempt to manipulate the collective mind linke propaganda, missinformation or spreading of biased or missinterpreted information is therfore a direct attack on our democracy.

Incompetent bosses - unskilled and not aware of it.

Incompetent bosses suffer a dual burden. Not only do these bosses reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it. As a result incompetent bosses tend to hold overly favorable views of their abilities in many social and intellectual domains despite logic and statistical evaluation of their skills defies their views.

This seems to be quit a catch21 and unfotunately we are all prone to a similar imperfect apraisal of ourself as illustrated by the fact of the average person to believe he or she is above average, a result that defies the logic of descriptive statistics. Yet, an incompetent Boss is exceptionally difficult. Tough you don't need to obey to unreasonable order you still have troubles dealing with an incompetent boss for serveral reasons :

1. an incompetent boss can't possibly realize by himself that his order was unreasonable or unfortunate.
2. they won't accept any advice from their subordinates because of their bold self-esteem
3. Since he is the boss there is no supervisor who will correct his erraneous decisions

Problem #3 gets even more difficult since bosses usually have strong networking skills and high social position. Considering that abilities of socially high standing persons are evaluated less critically as their competence is considered to be immanent to their position, this means that refusal to obey to an unreasonable order of an incompetent boss will most likely be interpreted as insubordination, no matter what you do. Yet, if you comply to an unreasonable order this will problably have adverse side effects. The incompetent boss will not understand that these adverse effects are the result of his unreasonable order since his lacks the ability to realize this fact. As a result you will be accused for doing a bad job. As a result you are in a loose loose situation when dealing with an incompetent boss.

To deal with a bad boss I can think only of two possible strategies.

1. You can try to make the boss more competent. Provide him with additional training and information. You have to do this very carefully so he isen't aware of what you are doing. Due to their overly favoerable view of their own person they won't accept advice from other individuals. If you get trough to them the boss might get insight in his shortcoming. Of course you will not be acknowledged for this because the boss will hold the strong belief that he accomplished to identify his error on his own and he just saved you from doing a terrible mistake.
   
2. If strategy 1 doesen't work your best bet will be to find and other job a.s.a.p. or the incompetent boss will ruin your career. To continue working for him would be deleterions to you.
   

Since most likely all competent employees of an incompetent boss will eventally choose to quit this will leave the boss alone with incompetent subordinates. These incompetent subordinates will, like their boss, lack the ability to realize how unreasoble the decisions of an incompetent boss are. As a result they won't complain working for an incompetent boss. Vice versa the incompetent boss can't be aware of the incompetence of his subordinates since he lacks the cognitive ability. In the end an incompetent leader can cause considerable damage to a department, corporation or even country.

Criminally braindead bosses

Some bosses are so braindead that they actually need to be equipped with a sign nailed to their head saying "I'm criminally braindead" so other will be warned. So if the criminally braindead boss comes to give you an order then you see the sign you might sill have the chance to run.

This is because and order has to be reasonable.

So the boss comes and tells you to wash the truck though its raining cats and dogs. Ok boss heres your braindead sign.

Next time the boss comes and tells you: Go and vistit this or that seminar/meeting. Before you enroll you present him the bill and he will say: Well son, we have no money. Ok boss you just earned your brain dead sign.

And after a while he comes and asks you: Why diden't you attend that meeting? Duh. you definitely qualified for the braindead sign again, boss.

You tell your boss he will need a new project manager as the a substitute for the old one who will retire soon, otherwise the project must be cancelled. After two years of consequently neglecting the problem the boss comes to you: " We need a substitute for the old project manager. This is important! Why did't you tell me? If we don't get one within for weeks the project will be discontinued!" -- Duh. Boss, your so criminally braindead you need two signs at once.

Then the boss comes and tells you present his great results and you ask him: Well, your method protocoll can't work due to unspecific interactions. And he tells you nothing more that: Well, that was pretty difficult, but I finally managed to avoid unspecific interactions. Period...

Ok boss you did such a great job on this one you realy deserve you criminally braindead sign know and forever.

Some bosses are so criminally braindead the definitely need to be slapped in the face with a wet noodle the whole day long.

To all those bastard low-life bosses out there lurking around here

Just to those lowlife basdtard looser bosses from hell I'd like to say that I mean you with my page. So if you feel offended about the content of my page you probably belong to this kind of lowlife bosses and I don't care what you say or think unless you want to change.
In case you are wondering, I got a job and I like my job. It's just that I don't linke stupid dump ignorant egomaniac lowlife bosses form hell. And I'm not talking about the good bosses in any way. The good bosses got my loyalty at any time.

Don'ts when plan to refuse to comply to an order

• Do you break a workplace rule by not complying to obey the order? If your boss can show that you knew about the rule beforehand, then he can probably show that you consciously disobeyed the order, and therefore, acted in an insubordinate manner.

• Don't challenge the order! A challenge shows that you understood the order, but intentionally refused to do it.

• Examine your past performance. Are there any other instances of insubordination or questionable behavior in your past? Have you been disciplined in the past? How and for what? How are your performance appraisals and discipline records? If things start to go wrong, as a veteran employee with a good record you probably will have to face less severe disciplination than a newcomer with a series of bad reports, as long as the policy and practice of your boss shows that flexibility.(unlikely with egomaniac incompetent lowlife bosses, though)

Refusal to obey orders is not always insubordination

If you don't do what is asked of you your not necessarily insubordinate. Before doing a job, Ask the following.

• Was the order clearly expressed to the employee as a direct command? Check whether the order was phrased so that you knew you were supposed to perform a task, or whether there was any ambiguity. There is a big difference between stating “I want you to...” versus asking “Can you...” With the latter phrasing, you may assume you have the option of not performing the task or not doing it immediately.

• Do you have a good reason for saying no. For example, you may not have the required skills or time to effectively carry out the task.

• Do you believe that by performing the task you would be putting your own safety, or the safety of another, at risk? A caveat to the previous point is that, in general, you cannot be considered insubordinate for failing to comply with a request related to unsafe or illegal acts.

• Did you recognize that you were breaking a rule or could you make it look like this at least? If you did not intentionally fail to comply an order, it's not insubordination.

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insubordination.htm - When is it and when is it no insubordination. Explaination and a lot of examples

The matrix has you! What is the Matrix?

Most people will knows "the matrix". I think our "real world" might be similar to the matrix. Here I explain why.

Trinity: Wake up Reader, the matrix has you.

Reader: What is the Matrix?

Morpheus: The Matrix is everywhere! The Matrix is a dream world generated by politicians, managers economists and reporters, build to keep us under control in order to change us into puppets. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth. [1]

Reader: What truth?

Morhpeous: That you are a puppet. You were born into a prison that you can't smell or taste or touch, a prison of your mind. No one can be told what the matrix is. You have to find it out yourself.[2]

This is your last chance. After this there is no turning back.

You take the blue pill, the story ends and believe whatever you want to believe. [3]
You take the red pill and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes. You will be enlightend and leave you prison of self caused immaturity.[4]

Remember all I'm offering is the truth. Nothing more.

1 One of the most important and may be most urgent problems we have to face in modern times is insufficient access to reliable information. May be because we lack the time to read reliable news sources or gather information by other means we have to relay on information provided mainly by newspapers and television. A major shortcoming of these media is that they are likely to be manipulated be it intentionally or not. Journalists are likely to manipulate information subconciously because of their own political believe. Moreover, they might be forced to make the news a little more interesting than they are so the tabloid sells better. Furthermore the press and TV are both prone to manipulation by government authorities. In this case the are only supplied with limited or faked information (btw. the war on iraq is a good example for faked information.) This is what we would call desinformation and the Bush administration wants to create a secretery for desinformation. What actually happens is that we are not told the truth to make us continue or work and not to ask unpleasent questions.

2 This is because you have to escape your self caused immaturity using your own mind. Nobody can do the thinking for you. In this case you will stay in your prison which you bild yourself becaus you refuse to think critical and to make up your own mind. Only if you start to think yourself and to ask the right questions you will be able to escape your cage of mind. Then you will leave your self caused immaturity behind.

3 continue to watch fox news. (just kidding, lol ;)

4 Thats Enlightenment: Start to think critical and to leave your self caused immaturity.

Reader: My eyes are hurting !

Trinity: Because you never used them !

Morpheous: Welcome to the real world!

Technorati Tags:

matrix | immanuel kant | critical thinking

How to find out you got a boss from hell?

Always thought you have to do a good job to get a goog recommandation from your boss? Though, you never thought about judging your boss, did ya? Or may be you always felt like your boss was a bastard? Now you can make up your mind and make sure whether you were right or not!

Here I found a website and a book which helps you to evaluate the skills of your boss.
Take the boss test here to find if you can call one of these mentally disturbed backstabbing bastard bosses form hell your own.

I think the bosses I had so far make it well all the way down to the bottom. I'm sure you can't make a career with these bosses. Either you find a way to cope with them, which is not easy or you fire them and find a new boss or start your own business.

Fire your boss!

Iwant to help people to identify bad bosses and mechanisms that might be dangerous for them at their Work place. Sure, my advice is only based on my personal opinion and my personal experiance, though I hope they can be helpful for someone else to make up his mind.

I'm not saying that all bosses are bad and i'm not saying you should never negociate or comply to the orders of your boss. The only thing I say is to recognize that there are some bad bosses out there who just don't care for you and to defend yourself from beeing harmed by these guys.

If a boss Is going to harm you because of incopentence or ignorance than I would propose that its the right of each individual to stand up and fight. In my opinion its not sufficient to do a good job to make a career anyways. In my opinion smart networking is more important than doing a good job or obey to orders. Doing a good job will not help you if you want to make a career if your boss is an egomaniac.

Recently a read an article at A list Apart about Starting a Business: Advice from the Trenches. What I had to think about most was that he suggested to work at company before starting your own business because:

When working at a company, you see how established businesses function: how workflow is managed, how clients are dealt with, how managers treat workers, and the absolutely critical nature of deadlines, no matter how tight. These are invaluable lessons that school does not teach.

Yet, what happens if you work at a place where your boss is a liar, which doesen't know the slightest thing about management, doesen't care about workflow, doesen't care about workers and ignors deadlines. Woulden't you agree with me that you are not tought these invaluable lessons so that you can't develop yourself. If you can't learn these or other important lessons because of the ignorance or incompetance of your boss than this will be potentially harmful for your career. In this example you wouldn't get the important information to start-up your own business. If this would be your goal you would only loose time, and none of us is getting younger.

I think in such a case it would be best to search for a new job as soon as possible

How to kick the ass of you boss

Insubordination is the failure to carry out direct orders from management and may be a reason for termination of employment. Therefore it is difficult to be inSUBordinate without putting your job at risk. Before to choose disobey direct orders this has to be taken into account. Yet there are some ways to indirectly disobey orders which might get your boss into troubles if well designed.

If a boss wants to give a talk using your results its a great way to humiliate him. Just don't give him all the imformation he needs, just part of it, so tha he will make the impression of beeing poorly informed to his audiance.

If he is giving you a direct order of which you know this order will lead to negative results make sure that you have witnesses around who can testify he is responsible for that order and then go ahead and do your job. If the project will be a failure than it shoud be possible to blame your boss.

I you get a direct order then only do exactly what you have been told. If he forgot some important details that could mess up the whole project then you can say you only did what you have been told to.

If you are told to attend important meetings concerning topics your boss is not well informed about try to be absent e.g be sick, go on holiday or have a car breakdown.
If you get an order of minor importance without deadline, just forget to do it. May be your boss forgets it, too.

Networking is important too. Try to do a very good job if you are working with the boss of your direct boss or other bosses.

Listen carefully to the order of your boss. May be he says something like: could we do this or could we do that ... In this case the can also be interpreteded as a suggestion and not a direct order.

New message board script needed.Tag-board.com script sneaks pop-ups into my blog!!!

Be aware that the tag-board message board script at www.tag-board.com which sneaks pop-ups into your site which are not allowed if you are using blog-explosion. The sneaky thing is that the pop-up won't show up each time you load the script but only once in a while so I didn't realize it at first. I had to remove the script. Although it was a gimmick that was of not much use it was fun. I'd like to replace it with a script without pop-ups. Can You help?? Please post suggestions as comments.

Alan Moore Quote

"We’re all puppets, Laurie. I’m just a puppet who can see the strings."

Alan Moore in Watchmen

This will be my new mascot!

It took me quite a while to draw this cartoon. Tell me what you think

For the frustrated: dilbert will cheer you up

For all who are frustrated about the job I recommend reading some Dilbet cartoons at dilbert's blog. The fun thing about these cartoon is that they characterize all the stupid mean games stupid egomaniac bosses and bitchy colleagues play. This demonstrates how ridiculous they are.

Links to Blogs might predict what's a blog worth

Since AOL bought Weblogs Inc. we can know estimate whats a weblog worth.( AOL to buy Weblogs Inc., courts bloggers). It is suggested that the value of a blog can be estimated based on the numper of links to a Blog.(Doing the numbers on the AOL-WeblogsInc deal) I found a little tool which can calculate the value of a blog based on the link analysis of the technorati API. Pretty neat. You can find this tool at www.business-opportunities.biz

My blog is worth $56,258.16.
How much is your blog worth?

motivational quote of the month

"the only thing we have to fear is fear itself"

Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933.

The "Leecher"

Leecher bosses will feed on you. They leech the last bit of power out of you, you get nothing in return and after you are exhausted you will be replaced. As hard as it sounds.

It is a trend that workers or employees are not classified as humans any more. Management considers them to be goods. Why's that, you might ask. Well, Employees are usually referred to as human resourcess or human capital. See, I feel very uncomfortable when refering to humans as resources. For me resources are treasures of the soil, forestss or water and may be animals if you which - but not humans.
What you usually do with resources is to exploit them, make money with it and if they are exploited you move on. If bosses and managers refer to humans as resources this denotes their relationship to their employees. Those bosses are arrogant, emotionally disturbed egomaniacs which don't care for their employees.
What you get if you exploit human resourceses is labour like you get milk from cows. Thus, employees are labour animals. Would a cow get the money its milk is worth? No, of course not. A farmer would try to spent as little money as possible to support his animals and would try to sell their products as expensive as possiblele. This means cheap food and small smelly stables for the cows and good food and a nichousees for the farmer. (o.k. in reality the big reseller gets all the cheese... anyway). As there are cows producing a lot of milk and not so much milk at the same cost which is needed to feed them a farmer tries to get rid of the low productive cows. Though as a cow is usually very expensive a farmer can't exchange his animals that easily.
In the mind of these arrogant egomanicac bosses today, human beings are only resources. Employees are worth less to leecher bosses like those cows. Employees are more or less productive which means they are more or less interesting to make profit with. The only difference is that an employee is usually not an investment in which the boss has to stay engaged in. An employee can be hired and fired at will of the boss. He just want to leech the profit out of the employee and then fire him. Does he want to invest in the employee?? Nooo. He wants highly educated and highly productive employees for free.
Well, therefore it makes life easier for the bosses. He thinks of employees not as humans but as resourcerce that has to be exploited maximizeise his profits. For the boss an employee is not even like farmland where you have to take care of the quality of the soil which you have to fertilitze. Like a plague of lucusts they feed on the resources as long as its profitable, then they move on leaving nothing but desert behind. They don't seed they don't fertilize in other words they don't invest. If the employee is exhausted, you just exchange him.
The leecher boss doesn't care for the needs of a human beings. That's why bosses are usually egomaniacs. For an egomaniac, other people are worth nothing anyway. Employees are just like cows except boss doesen't has to invest money in them, its enough to exploit them, as long as its profitable or till they are exhausted and then replace them.
If you have a leecher boss the only way to survive is to think the same way he does. Don't ask what you can do for your boss, ask what your boss can do for you. Always try to do as much as you can which is of benefit for you. Try to get as much money as you can get. Continue your education and try to let the company pay for it. Try to get as much money mony from him as you can. In conclusion, know what you are worth and sell yourself as expensive as possible and exploit your boss as much as you can. Build a strong network whith other coworkers and potential employers. You have no choice than that because you can't change the rules of the game, your not the boss.
But be warned, too many leechers are destructive to a community. I like to use the analogy to a peer to peer network. It works best if everyone uploads as much as he can. Though a peer to peer network can stand some leechers it breakts down if there are too many. That's why successful bosses are not neccesarily good for a society scince they might be leechers. As bathetic as this might sound to you:" give and you shalt recieve" says basically the same. But I want to amend that those who don't give shalt recieve nothing!!!!! That's fair.

Having a choice is an outpost of freedom

You think you are free, but are you really free? Without having choices to make you're not.

You can be the freest man in the world. Without having oportunities to do what you want it doesn’t help you anything. The lack of options is as worse as lack of freedom. Meaning you are encased in your contemporary state of existence without a chance to escape. Even if a government or a society pretends to protect your freedom, pretending you are free to go where you want, free to speak up and tell what you think, free to become whatever you want to, this doesn’t count if you don’t have the opportunity to. Then you are doomed to an existence in stasis.

We don’t change our hatered job because we don’t see an alternative. We leave our needs our personality and our demands behind and adopt the demands of the society or employer. We are deprived of the possibility to do or to find what we are born for by fate and the conditions created by the society. We don’t change because we are afraid of loosing our job, because we need the money, because we have bills to pay, because we have a family to support.

We stop fighting for our freedom and we give up what we are. This is the worst prison of all. Remember, nothing in the world worth having comes easy !

2005 Resolution

I don't want to make a resolution for 2005. Why should I. I personally try to improve myself constantly. I always analyze my own behavior and try to get rid of my bad habits but try to adopt some new good habits. Though, to review what you have accomplished in the recent time and to set a benchmark for the future is kind of important. Yet, to do this on new-year is kind of arbitrary. Any other date would be fine too.
The good thing about the new-years resolution of others is that you learn that you not the only person in the world which is imperfect and we all have the same problems, more or less. Most people try to become more organized, find a better job become a better person and so on. Its the same with me, yet my resolutions are constant. I try to achieve my aims all the time. I try to keep up coming closer to my goals all year and try to focus my everyday scheduling to accomplish these aims. As most people I try to get more organized, improve my professional skills , keep in touch with my friends, though I'm very busy in my job, find a better job, make a career. Yet most bad habits never change, or least only very slowly. That's why they are habits. And that's why I most likely will never succeed to achieve these aims completely. I guess, we all have to accept, that we are not perfect. But we should not be disappointed about that. Each improvement towards the right aims is a success. It's just important to keep it going. Each day, each week, month or year.

The egomaniac control freek boss

The control freak boss has to hold control on everything. Without beeing able to control everything he will feel helpless. The most disturbing point is, that he is trying to control you all the time. This will cage your mind. You won't be able to be creative any more because if you start to be creative you make the impression you might be able to be independent. Making the impression of independence will give the egomaniac control freek the feeling of loosing control. The egomaniac control freek hates that feeling of loosing control and not beeing superior. To avoid loosing control he will start to turn you down. He will turn down everything you do, even if you did a perfect job. That way he will hinder you from developing yourself. Stagnation will be the result. It will be hard to continue developping because you will lack the poitive reinforcement. This means, you will not be receiving rewards for your good work. You will recive punishment. Only if you do what he tells you will be rewarded. That way you will never be able to develop youself and you will never recognize your abilities.

Incompetence of bosses

Bosses do make mistakes, although they never admit. Their mistakes can get you into trouble very easily if you don't pay attention. Never allow that you suffer because your boss does not now how to do his job right.

Keep in mind, that most bosses are egomaniacs. Egomania means, that such a person would consider himself as the most important person in the world. Only his needs, demands and wishes play a role in his life. They could never possibly behave like a empathic human beeing. They never show respect for other peoples needs or feelings.

If you don't pay attention your good work will only accelerate the careerer of your boss and you get nothing. If your project is a success he will take all the cheese and pretend that this success would only be his work. If your project is a failure he will blame it on you, and eventually you get fired.
They will choose projects which can't be possibly an success. The risk for you is verry high. If this is your first and only project you might loose everything. But they give it a damn because the risk for them is almost zero. And should you succeed, against all odds, he will pretend to be even greater and more capable and you will be standing small.
If your boss makes the wrong decisions which affect your project, they waste your time and put your career at risk, not their own. They just don't care for you.

Make up your mind about what you want and what you need and then go for it. If you don't do this, egomaniacs will exploit you with great pleasure.

Toxic bosses

Neurotic persons might have a negative influence on your life, your carreer or your well beeing. This is extremly hazardous if such a person is your boss. According to a recent study most people working in leading positions are neurotic egomaniacs.

The times where teamwork was important to make a carreer are history. Studys report that most persons in leading positions are neurotic and egocentric. Unfortunately, it is also well established that the most neurotic bosses cause most stress and troubles among their co-workers or workgroup. For your own sake it would be important to elucidate if your boss might have a negative impact on your life due to his neurotic behavior. On the other hand, if you are a resposible leader you should analyse your own behavior for negative impact on the psyche of your employees. They might become demotivated and the resulting loss of productivity might become a problem for you.

InSUBordination

Insubordination implies the qualitiy of failure or refusal to recognize or submit to the authority of a superior. It is not insubordination if you refuse to obey even a direct order if it was ilegal or discriminating(see also Wikipedia entry for more information on the definition of Insubordination)

Insubordination on the job for example occurs when an employee refuses a reasonable order from a supervisor or manager. However, a company may be held responsible for a failure in communication that results in insubordination. If the following three elements exist, an employee may be disciplined for insubordination if he/she fails to follow orders: 1) the employee understood the instructions; 2) the order was in line with the employee's duties; and 3) there was no good reason for the employee to refuse the order.
Sometimes you might have the feeling that your boss, your government or anybody else is just wrong. To make sure you are right you reflect the pros and cons of a problem. After careful consideration you might have the right or even duty to disobey his decisions. This behaviour would be in accordance with Immanuel Kants demand of "leaving a man's self-caused immaturity."

Here I'll post my perception of any controversial topic which comes to my mind that prompts for critical evaluation.

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related posts
Donts when refusing to comply
Refusing to comply is not always insubordination
Sometimes you just have to disobey

It's your patriotic duty to question authorities!

The most terrible tragedies of man kind have been caused by unreflected obedience to authorities. You decide what to do. The key to find out what to do is critical thinking. Critical Thinking is them most mature and secure guide to find out what is the right thing to do and what is wrong. Use your mind and get involved.

The critical thinking comunity proposes the following definition for the term critical thinking:

"Critical thinking is the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action" (1).

This definition implies that critical thinking results in a guide to your belives and your actions. Thus critical thinking is a way or a tool to find out what to do and what to believe.

As you look closer to this definition you might recognize that the process of generating these belives does not nesessaryly incorporate any values. This means the analysis you do can be done with the intention to achieve aims which are good or evil. So the definition goes on:

"In its exemplary form, it [critical thinking] is based on universal intellectual values that transcend subject matter divisions: clarity, accuracy, precision, consistency, relevance, sound evidence, good reasons, depth, breadth, and fairness" (1).

In an ideal world each decision, believe and action of an authority would be perfect. Yet, how do you know its perfect. Which tools do you have to decide if they are wrong or right? How do you know you can trust them?

1. You just trust them because you are loyal (which is actually no decision)
2. You toss a coin
3. You ask the Oracle of Delphi
4. You just guess
5. You start to think critically about the problem

As you try to elucidate which is the best method of decicion making you probably automatically started to critically think about this problem. You most likely started to analyse information which result for example from your experiance. This little experiment should demonstrate that critical thinking is the superior tool for evaluation of problems and decision makeing which is immanent to the human mind. Critical thinking is the superior method because you used it to evaluate all other methods. The importance of Critical thinking can also be derived from the definition of enlightenment by Immanuel Kant:

"Enlightenment is man's leaving his self-caused immaturity. Immaturity is the incapacity to use one's own understanding without the guidance of another. Such immaturity is self-caused if its cause is not lack of intelligence, but by lack of determination and courage to use one's intelligence without being guided by another.

Immanuel Kant, 1784: What is Enlightenment

We all know this world is not ideal. We all know the authorities are not always as prudent and skillfull as they want to make us believe because authorities are only humans and humans are not perfect. Thus, we have to make up our own mind by means of critical thinking. If we don't, we are either Immature (lazy, coward) or have a conciderable lack of intelligance (stupid).

We have to use critical thinking to review the descisions of the authorities. To do this we have to gather information from independant and turstworthy sources and to evaluate the arguments of the authorities. If we end up with conflicting results we have to find out why. If we are sure the authorities are wrong we have to take action.

For example Democracy is founded on this principle. The gouvernment is controled by the people. If we don't use our own understanding without the guidance of the government we are jeopardizing our freedom.