The New Year’s Resolution We Should Make: Think Better

Every January, the resolutions come roaring back. This is the year we’ll write more, lead better meetings, stop reacting so fast, make clearer decisions. We don’t usually say it this way, but what we’re really resolving to do is improve the way we think.

That turns out to be a harder goal than it sounds. Most flawed decisions don’t come from a lack of intelligence or effort. Instead, they come from leaning too hard on one way of thinking, be it analysis, imagination or judgment.

As Professor Lillien Ellis puts it, the problem isn’t that people don’t think. It’s that they don’t think in balance.

“I see unbalanced thinking all the time,” says Ellis, an assistant professor in the area of leadership and organizational behavior at the University of Virginia's Darden School of Business. “I see people, for example, who zero in on one data point and insist that nothing else matters — that context doesn’t matter. They reduce complex situations to, ‘All we have is what’s in front of us.’”

This leads to sub-optimal decisions.

A Framework for Thinking Well

In new technical note, “The Scientist, the Artist and the Judge,” Ellis and colleague Matthew A. Cronin of George Mason University, introduce a framework — known as SAJ (pronounced “sage”) — that’s designed to help people become more reflective, strategic and ultimately more effective thinkers.

The premise is simple: Thinking well requires holding three fundamental questions in productive tension. What is truly happening? What are our options? And what is the right or best path forward? Each question corresponds to an internal role we can all access.

The Scientist seeks understanding — how things work, what causes what, and what patterns govern the situation at hand. The Artist imagines possibility, asking what could exist that doesn’t yet. The Judge evaluates, weighing options against values and determining what should be done.

“Everyone has all three — each of us has the cognitive tools needed to analyze, imagine and evaluate the merits of something,” says Ellis, an expert in creativity and innovation. “Human beings desire to know how things work. They desire to create. And they desire to understand what’s right or wrong. But if they don’t pick up these tools and leverage them together, effectively, and in the right context, it leads to sub-optimal decisions.”

The problem is that we often put people in convenient boxes or, when it comes to ourselves, default to a role we’re used to assuming because it’s the most familiar.

“I see identities attached to these ways of thinking, and sometimes to the extent of short-changing one’s potential” Ellis says. “Someone might say, ‘I’m just the ideas person,’ or ‘I’m only a scientist’ and then they double down on that one role when keeping the others in balance would be the most beneficial.”

The danger is that these self-imposed labels become limiting beliefs. “That kind of thinking underutilizes the valuable cognitive resources we already have,” she adds.

Thinking well requires intentionality and self-awareness. “The big hurdle between us and better thought is understanding what is happening internally,” says Ellis.

When Thinking Goes Off Balance

Problems arise when one role crowds out the others. Overreliance on data can produce technically sound but impractical solutions. Excessive imagination without grounding can result in ideas that are novel but useless. And judgment unmoored from facts or creativity can render a person blind to the possibilities.

In the technical note, Ellis and Cronin describe six archetypes of unbalanced thinking, including the Technician, the Visionary and the Zealot, that emerge when one mode dominates. These aren’t personality types, they say, but patterns of thought that anyone can slip into. The Technician, for example, over-relies on scientific thinking, the Visionary on imagination, and the Zealot on the judge.

Thinking Well at Work and Beyond

Ellis sees the framework as particularly valuable in moments that are ill-structured, emotionally charged or ethically complex — precisely the situations leaders and professionals face most often.

She plans on teaching the SAJ framework in her upcoming fourth-quarter elective, “Establishing Yourself at Work.” Students will apply the framework to cases to try to evaluate the decision-making from an outsider's perspective.

“At the highest level, the question is: What does it mean to think well?” says Ellis. “You might hear people say, ‘Being able to understand how things work,’ or ‘Having a clear ability to process the data, or information, that's around you.’ Others might say: ‘Being able to think ethically and morally and identify what's right and wrong,’ or ‘Being able to be innovative and creative.’”

In reality, it’s all of the above.

Students will also need to take a look at themselves.

“An even bigger part of the class will be turning inward and creating space for students to evaluate how they think — where their thinking lacks balance, whether in the moment or across different situations,” says Ellis.

“Is there a situation in which you tend to overprioritize one role over another? Where is that functional? Where is it dysfunctional? Are there times when leading with one role — an unbalanced approach — is beneficial? Or are you prioritizing it simply because it's more comfortable?’”

Ellis also plans on incorporating the SAJ framework into executive education.

“Thinking well is required at any stage,” she says. “Whether you’re transitioning into your first role or navigating leadership decisions later in your career, the way you think determines whether you’re clearing a productive path forward, or getting in your own way.”

Rather than assigning different roles to different people on a team, Ellis stresses that the real work happens internally. “It’s not about finding a Scientist, an Artist and a Judge and putting them around a table,” she explains. “It’s about recognizing that those perspectives already exist within you, and learning how to bring them into balance.”

A Resolution That Sticks

For Ellis, the new year is an ideal moment to have this conversation.

“This is the time when people have the juice to jump back in,” she says. “It’s the season of ‘this is the year I’m going to … [fill in the blank].’ And that makes it a great time to talk about motivation and areas for growth.”

Thinking well, she argues, starts with self-awareness and intentionality: noticing which role you default to, where that tendency serves you, and where it holds you back. The goal isn’t perfection, but balance.

“If we want progress, we have to understand how something works, imagine how it could be better and decide whether it’s worth pursuing,” Ellis says. “You can’t have progress without all three roles.”

As resolutions go, it may not be the flashiest. But learning to think well may be the one that makes all the others possible.

Professor Lillien Ellis is co-author of the new technical note, “The Scientist, the Artist and the Judge,” with Matthew A. Cronin of George Mason University, published by Darden Business Publishing (January 2026).