Enquiring Minds

I help people make decisions, but I do not give advice. (Does that qualify as irony?) Everyone’s circumstances are different and you have to do what makes sense for you. One of the most useful tools for figuring that out is learning how to think critically. For the next four weeks, we will explore both what critical thinking is and how you can use it to make wise choices regarding your time, energy, attention, and money. Here in part one of this four-part series titled, “Let’s Get Critical,” we take a minute to define it.

What Is It?

• Critical thinking is your ability to analyze, objectively interpret, systematically evaluate, and integrate information to form reasoned judgments.
• It’s like being a detective. You ask lots of questions, look for clues, and figure out the best solutions.
• Acquiring knowledge is part of critical thinking, but you also have to be able to think logically, organize data, consider alternative perspectives, and discern between fact and opinion.
• Critical thinkers are adept at dissecting complex problems, uncovering hidden variables, and making choices based on evidence.
• Critical thinking requires you to recognize your assumptions, double check them with reliable sources, and test them to see if they are still valid.
• It’s not about being skeptical. It’s about identifying the one great decision among all the good decisions and rethinking your opinion in light of new information.

What Can it Include?

Analysis: To solve a challenge using critical thinking, first organize the facts you gathered into categories like people, processes, and performance. Examine how the data impacts those categories and ask yourself if you’ve collected all the information necessary to draw a conclusion. If you are unsure, ask your team, “What am I missing?”

Interpretation: Based on the accumulated available information, clearly articulate, preferably in writing, both your decision and the reasoning behind how you reached it. You don’t know what you think until you see what you say.

Evaluation: Share your conclusion with leaders in the affected categories and let them ask you the hard questions. Does your conclusion hold up under their scrutiny?

Testing: Take your colleagues feedback and use it to iterate your conclusion. Test your theory on a sample before rolling it out to the whole.

What Could It Look Like?

Let’s say you are on your company’s marketing team and you are launching a new product in a competitive market. It’s not enough to come up with flashy slogans and eye-catching graphics. Team members must parse market data, research consumer trends, and study competitor strategies. You may have to question your client’s assumptions, challenge biases (both theirs and yours), and weigh alternative solutions in order to design a comprehensive marketing strategy. You have to ask questions. Who is the target audience? What other similar products already exist? Why would our target audience like ours better? When you gather enough data you can do a limited roll out in a test market.

Next week we’ll explore how you can use critical thinking to improve your job performance. In the meantime, what process do you use to think critically? Please share in the comments.