A Most Necessary Skill: Critical Thinking
I can easily recall disdain for the english assignments where we had to write an essay that compared/contrasted the motives of the hero and villain, or some other similar aspect of one of the many pieces of literature that we read. This certainly busted through the memorization approach to earning a good grade in English Literature.
Looking back now, I can clearly see how the approach cut through the lack of true understanding and got us to actually look at what we were reading and to begin to exercise our ability to think critically about some subject - the ability to reason and think are much more than the foundational bedrock to logic in that they essentially contribute to, or detract from, every aspect of our day to day lives.
Criticalthinking.org, describes this succinctly: “Everyone thinks; it is our nature to do so. But much of our thinking, left to itself, is biased, distorted, partial, uninformed or down-right prejudiced. Yet the quality of our life and that of what we produce, make, or build depends precisely on the quality of our thought. Shoddy thinking is costly, both in money and in quality of life. Excellence in thought, however, must be systematically cultivated.”
In the workplace, what is the value of critical thinking? According to a 2016 Payscale survey of 63,924 managers, critical thinking is the number one skill they feel recent graduates are lacking.
With such high regard for critical thinking, one would think our educational institutions would provide curriculums that fostered and developed ths skill in their students, yet according to a Society for Human Resource Management survey of its members, 51% of respondents say education systems have done little or nothing to help address the skills shortage issue.
As employers, executives and associates, the inability of those under our employ to think critically almost invariably results in administrative trouble - a situation that makes perfect sense gets disastrously muddled when passed to those that can’t think critically. As an example, the simple order “Please bring your division’s costs down so that they are within budget” gets translated into some outrageous expenditure that is based on the idea “the item was offered at a discount so we purchased a year's supply of it”.
What were they thinking?!!
In light of the fact that the educational system might not be adequately responding to the situation, what does an executive have at his disposal to help remedy this situation?
I can think of several approaches but I’m in favor of relying on the power of simplicity, and so I would lean toward educating those under my watch with exercises until they can think. Perhaps something on the order of comparing (finding similarities) and contrasting (finding differences) in some object, circumstance or event.
Take for example the picture that is associated with this article:
How is the chef in the picture different from the businessman?
How are they similar?
How are the two guys with yellow safety hats similar?
How are they different?
Name an instrument that is similar to the guitar in the picture?
Name a profession that is not depicted in this picture?
And so on.
Additionally, given the onslaught of social media images/messages and news cycles that run 24/7, there is a non-stop deluge of information hitting our screens, so there is one more skill I’d like to add to the mix and that’s the ability to separate fact from opinion, since lacking skill in this area, can also easily results in confused ideas, thoughts and actions.
With a little bit of work and practice, one can easily gain the ability to see differences and similarities and quickly spot what is fact and what is opinion and develop a high ability to think critically.
Hold the line!