Critical Thinking, A Workplace Perspective

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     I looked at critical thinking form a different perspective.  When students complete their education and move into the workplace, critical thinking will be a valuable skill.  In all of our professions, we use critical thinking to make decisions, assumptions, and in employee relations.  Many people seem to have it as a natural skill but others have to struggle to use it. It is very important because without it, you may be busy but not accomplishing anything. (Jones, 2011)

     Chris Jones is an IT Strategy and Change Management consultant.  He has a passion for achieving new levels of engagement and learning in today’s business organizations. He has come up with 7 steps that can help us achieve critical thinking in the workplace. They are as follows:

• Use data to drive decisions – Add time in projects to gather facts and data. The data will provide the support that will help the decisions be easier to accomplish.
• Research and sharing – use sources of information to obtain pros/cons of a decision.
• Talk it out – share your ideas and get opinions.
• Use experts – find the experts in your organizations and get to know them and use them.
• Go deeper into the problem – Discover the root cause of the problem and address them
• Research and practice – have conversations, read, and explore other topics that will help build skills needed to make larger, more complex decisions.
• Prioritize your time – use the most time on bigger, more important problems rather than dwelling on smaller decisions.

Using these skills will help us not to make snap decisions and take the safe, default path.   It will give us the opportunity to explore problems and create more informed solutions. (Jones, 2011)

     Linda Elder proposed a critical thinking definition 2007. She stated that critical thinking is “self –guided, self-disciplined thinking which attempts to reason at the highest level of quality in fair minded way. People who think critically consistently attempt to live rationally, reasonable, and empathically” (Mayhew, 2015).

     According to Ruth Mahew, critical thinking is essential in human resources, marketing, and customer service.  In human resources, some of the decisions that must be made are concerning hiring or terminating employees, making suspensions and rewards, and dealing with multiple harassment issues. A marketing employee must make decisions concerning advertising, creating appeal for the company, or even product packaging choice. Customer Service employees must be able to make decisions to resolve conflicts while maintaining customer satisfaction. (Mahew, 2015)

     As you can see, critical thinking skills are also very important for students as the transition from the classroom to the workplace.  As educators, teaching critical thinking skills to students will help them to be successful in their education as well as their future careers. 

References

Jones, C. (2011, April 11). 7 Steps: Critical Thinking in the Workplace - TalentCulture. Retrieved from http://www.talentculture.com/leadership/7-steps-critical-thinking-in-the-workplace/

Mayhew, R. (2015). Examples of using critical thinking to make decisions in the workplace. Retrieved from http://smallbusiness.chron.com/examples-using-critical-thinking-make-decisions-workplace-12952.html