Second Order Thinking

Second Order Thinking is a necessity to think beyond what we know, things we haven’t thought about by applying divergent information and forming new associations and connections. Second order thinking as a mental model requires going out of our comfort zone to think outside this box. It requires analyzing the potential impact of our decision into the future. It requires asking these questions:

• How can I make decisions with positive outcomes compounded in the future?
• Is this decision attractive only because it has an immediate effect (first order consequence) positive?
• What can be the potential downside of this decision and its effect later?
• How far can I look to determine how every subsequent decision creates a world of possibilities or limits the outcomes I can achieve?

Second order thinking provides a framework to make decisions by learning the second order consequences of our decisions and analyzing its impact in the near future. Going beyond second level thinking is difficult, but some people learn to expand their thinking to the third level and beyond by asking the same questions at each level.