VIDEO: Critical Thinking x Diverse Opinions

February 18, 2025

Differing opinions is how we learn about different ways of doing things

As practical and hands-on as I hope A Course In Production is, I admit that my favorite videos to make are these more philosophical ones. I think this is because I believe that critical thinking is a crucial skill for Production staff that is underemphasized.

I’m not talking about pondering Shotgrid/Shotgun/Flow filters for improved efficiency, I mean reflecting upon our motivations for being in a position of leadership in the first place, how we can constantly strive to be and do better, and being open to learning this information from a variety of different sources.

Even in making this very course, I have drawn on books and materials by lawyers, poets, poker players, choreographers, university professors, journalists, and basketball coaches. And this is all in the name of improving my work as a Production Manager in the Animation industry.

Annie Duke, the aforementioned champion poker player and author of Thinking In Bets (among other books!) quotes John Stuart Mill, long-dead and renowned political philosopher who wrote On Liberty. Mill says,

“The only way in which a human being can make some approach to knowing the whole of a subject, is by hearing what can be said about it by persons of every variety of opinion, and studying all modes in which it can be looked at by every character of mind. No wise man ever acquired his wisdom in any mode but this; nor is it in the nature of human intellect to become wise in any other manner.”
John Stuart Mill (quoted in Thinking in Bets by Annie Duke)

The late, great basketball Coach John Wooden highlights in his book alongside Andrew Hill an entire strategy for success which is, “surround yourself with strong, opinionated people,” which I think explains itself. Another famous basketball coach, Coach K writes in Leading With The Heart, “I try to employ really good, smart people who want to be part of my organization. And I try to surround myself with those who are not yes people. I want them to tell me what they really think, good or bad.”

If this wasn’t enough proof for you of experts weighing against the epistemic bubbles* and embracing a diversity of opinions, different ways of thought, etc, consider this: Stephen R. Covey, the late author of arguably the best-known self-help book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People has an entire Habit about this which is Habit 6, Synergize. Covey says,

“The person who is truly effective has the humility and reverence to recognize [their] own perceptual limitations [...] When we’re left to our own experiences, we constantly suffer from a shortage of data [...] unless we value each other and give credence to the possibility that we’re both right, that life is not always a dichotomous either/or, that there are almost always third alternatives, we will never be able to transcend the limits of that conditioning.”
-p.289 of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey

*An ‘epistemic bubble’ is defined by C. Thi Nguyen in his Aeon Magazine online essay Escape The Echo Chamber, “An ‘epistemic bubble’ is an informational network from which relevant voices have been excluded by omission.”

To this end, I think it's important to be open to learning in your role from all sorts of different sources. Don’t merely look to your Producer or Head of Production for how to do your job. Observe your leads, your supervisors, the pipeline TDs and IT support you interact with.

Just because their day to day is not your job, doesn't mean you can't learn from them, even if it's how someone handles conflict in a meeting, or how they parse and prepare information in order to proceed with a task. Differing opinions is how we learn about different ways of doing things. If we don’t learn, we don’t grow.