Communication – Page 7 – mardihumphreys.com

All the Feels

Does your workplace feel more toxic lately? Behavior once normalized or ignored is now being challenged and more openly addressed. Is there really more recognition and willingness to confront existing issues? Or have additional pressures and rapid changes in modern work environments actually increased their toxicity?

What Is Going On?

The stressors COVID-19 introduced, like remote work challenges and layoffs, heightened feelings of toxicity. Since the end of the pandemic, lots of other factors have surfaced. For example, the accelerated pace of digital transformation, heavier workloads due to short staffing, and a greater emphasis on productivity. Societal issues like economic instability, Artificial Intelligence advancements, and disagreements over national and local politics add to a workplace’s toxicity. The expanding gig economy introduces new stressors, like job insecurity and isolation, which can worsen feelings of toxicity.

Are Workplaces Inherently Toxic?

No, but certain conditions can foster toxicity if left unchecked. The nature of a workplace depends on its culture, management, and habits. Toxicity comes from a combination of ingredients like poor leadership, lack of clear communication, unrealistic expectations, the absence of support systems, and unaddressed conflicts. A workplace culture that rewards open communication, values employee well-being, and practices mutual respect is less likely to be toxic. On the other hand, a highly competitive culture that prioritizes results over well-being can breed toxicity if not managed properly.

How Can You Tell?

High Turnover: A constant influx and outflow of employees suggests dissatisfaction and a problematic workplace culture. For example: Have 28% of your new coworkers left within the first 90 days of their employment?

Low Engagement: Disinterest, lack of self-motivation, cynicism, and minimal participation in workplace activities are red flags. For example: How many people actually showed up for the annual company picnic last year?

Poor Communication: Ineffective communication channels, lack of transparency, and withheld information contribute to mistrust and confusion leading to frequent misunderstandings among team members. For example, in the last week, how many meetings that should have been emails did you attend?

Work-Life Imbalance: Excessive overtime, unrealistic deadlines, and constant pressure lead to stress and burnout. For example: When you ask your manager when a project is due is their standard answer, “Yesterday.”?

Negative Interactions: Bullying, gossip, and cliques create a hostile and divisive atmosphere. Any form of prejudice or harassment, whether subtle or overt, contributes significantly to toxicity. For example: When you go to the break room and your manager is in a whispered conversation with your coworker, do they look at you with startled expressions, stop talking, and leave the room.

Unfair Practices: Favoritism, discrimination, and unequal treatment undermine morale and trust. For example: Are the ideas you suggest in meetings frequently ignored, then a few minutes later someone else presents your idea as their own and it’s considered brilliant?

Micro Managers: Excessive control by supervisors and lack of employee autonomy stifle creativity, lead to resentment, and reduce job satisfaction. For example, if your manager is in the office, do you have to be in the office too?

Both employers and employees have a responsibility to make sure their work environments do not turn toxic. Next week in part two of this series, Toxic Traits, we’ll talk about how employers can ensure a healthy workplace.

Were you ever employed in a toxic workplace? What was your first hint that the culture was toxic? Please share in the comments.

Assess Your Systems

This is part three of four in the series, Stop and Think. In part one, we talked about reflecting on how you spent your time during the first two quarters of this year. Last week we put some energy into applying the insights you gained to update your goals for the rest of 2024. This week, let’s take your newly iterated SMART goals and turn our attention to your systems for reaching them.

What is the Difference?

SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time-bound) goals help you break down big ambitions into manageable tasks and set a timeline for reaching them. Goals are the results you want to attain. Developing systems focuses on your process to achieve those results. Now that you have updated your goals for 2024, you also need to update your systems. I’m thinking here of a quote from Atomic Habits:

“You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.”
James Clear

Reflecting on the last six months, do you see where your current routine led you to where you are now? How far off target are you? Gradual improvement is key to reaching your SMART goals. The purpose of your habits should be to help you keep making incremental progress. Flexibility and adaptability ensure that your incremental progress is in the right direction. Adjust your habits so they give you both the consistency and direction you need. For example, let’s say you got reassigned to a new department in May and are getting acquainted with four new team mates. Having a system to build relationships with them so that you can get to know, like, and trust each other will not only enable your team to complete work assignments faster, but also increase the quality of your projects’ results. Your system for getting to know your four coworkers is asking them how their weekends went during your project status meetings, so progress is slow. To get to know them more efficiently, calendar a 30-minute coffee meeting at the beginning of the workday every Tuesday for a month with a different team member. If during one of these coffee talks you discover it’s going to take more than 30 minutes to get acquainted with a certain team member, then schedule another coffee for next month. Experiment with your systems and adjust them to serve your goals. This helps you remain agile and open to change. Adaptability is crucial to your success at work. It is essential for navigating the challenges of your current responsibilities. It is also a highly sought after power skill.

What’s Next?

Let your manager know you have updated your goals and systems in your next one-to-one meeting. Give them a brief summary of your reflection including what you noticed was not working well, your updated goal, and your new plan to reach the goal. Tell them you intend to implement this process through the end of Q3, then report the results back to them at the beginning of October. This not only helps you be accountable, it also lets your manager see you are self-motivated, take initiative, and are a leader.

What modifications can you make to your routine to improve the systems that support your goals? Please share in the comments.

Money Wise

Your plan for keeping your children busy all summer is now in effect. Camps, your library’s summer reading program, maybe a summer job, will keep them occupied and gathering new input they can use during the next school year. Have you factored teaching them how to manage money into your summer plans?

The Sooner The Better

You may feeI they are too young to learn about budgeting, but spending and saving money is not really about money. It’s about how you feel about money. Even if your children’s school gave them an age-appropriate course on money management this year, don’t rely on it to teach them financial literacy. You want to be your children’s guide to managing both their emotions and expectations. By age three, most children recognize money. Between ages five and seven they understand the concept of working to get it, so start teaching money management skills from an early age and prepare to make money an ongoing conversation.

Practice, Practice, Practice

As your children mature, their critical thinking around money should too. For example, give your kindergartner a specific chore (e.g., putting their toys away) and a weekly allowance for it. Help your second-grader create a simple budget by labeling three envelopes: Spend, Save, Taxes. If they receive $10 every two weeks, then $8 goes to Spend, $1 goes to Save, and $1 goes to Taxes. You will have plenty of conversations about those envelopes over the course of the summer. You can introduce concepts like opportunity cost and delayed gratification. You can talk about the importance of thoughtful planning, disciplined spending habits and why you pay taxes. Let your middle-schooler eavesdrop on family finance discussions like, will the household budget allow you to go out to eat tonight? Buy a new car next month? Pay for extracurricular school activities next year? By the time you have a high-school freshman, it’s time to make borrowing money part of the conversation.

Give Them Some Credit

While it can be a powerful tool for achieving financial goals, borrowing requires being a bit of a futurist. You have to teach your teen to weigh the benefits of debt against its risks while simultaneously helping them avoid potential pitfalls. You can do this by teaching them how to manage credit cards. Your bank/credit union/financial institution can add a card for them to your account. You can set a credit limit, monitor their spending, and set their payment schedule. Now you have four years to help them practice determining how much debt is realistically sustainable given their income, expenses, and long-term goals. You expose them to concepts like interest rates and how much it really costs them when they don’t pay off their balance every month. The closer they get to graduating, the more concepts you can introduce. For example, what a FICO score is and how to keep an eye on it. If college is a goal, managing credit card debt gives your children practice for managing student loans. This is also a good time for your family to periodically evaluate your financial strategies, analyze current priorities, and question assumptions. For example, is going to college your child’s goal? What are the alternatives? Gap year? Internship? Trade apprenticeship? Full-time employment? In light of your financial situation, what makes the most sense? This type of discussion is a good example of when managing money is really about managing emotions and expectations rather than finances.

How do you teach your children to manage money? Please share in the comments.

Emotional Granularity

You’ve probably heard the advice that when you feel nervous, like before a presentation, you should tell yourself that you are not nervous, you are excited. By doing this, you turn the negative emotion into a positive one.

You’ve probably sat behind your computer trying to solve a difficult problem and suddenly your body feels like it ran a marathon. You think, “What is wrong with me? All I’ve done for the last hour is sit here and I’m exhausted.” When you feel frustrated, it’s not always because something is wrong, it may be because something is emotionally hard.

There is neuroscience behind these mindsets. For the health of your brain, as well as the rest of your body, take your process for dealing with your fight, flight, or freeze response a step further and recategorize stressful emotions.

What Is Emotional Granularity?

The next level of emotional intelligence is emotional granularity. It is the ability to precisely label your emotions at the time you are having them. This is a coping mechanism that helps you be more spontaneously resilient during a stressful situation. When you can recognize an emotion and label it, you can regulate it. You gain more control over the outcome of the situation you’re in at the time you are in it. While you can’t stop feeling emotions, you can decide how to act on them to create the results that most benefit you.

How Can You Use It?

You probably mentally place the label “negative” on the emotions you perceive as unpleasant. But emotions are neither positive nor negative. Emotions are electrical impulses in your brain signaling that what you’re experiencing is something you care about. For example, let’s say you are gearing up for your annual job performance review and you are dreading it. What would happen if you told yourself you feel determination instead of dread? You would be able to change your reality. You would prepare differently. If you dread, then maybe you avoid preparing for the review until the last minute because you don’t like the way it makes you feel. If you recategorize dread as determination, then as soon as your review date is scheduled, you pull out your Atta Baby file and revisit all the goals you met during the last year as well as the praise you received for your job performance. Now you have the documentation to remind the organization of your value. Now you have the confidence to prove your worth. Now that emotion is a force driving you to a more positive outcome.

Why Should You?

When you are in a situation that makes you feel anxious, your body is trying to tell you something. Instead of making a snap decision, stop and ask yourself why you feel the way you do. Paying attention to those feelings and getting curious about what is causing them gives you options for how to deal with them. The discomfort is rolling around in your brain anyway. You may as well catch the emotion, unravel it, and make it work for you.

How do you reframe your unpleasant emotions? Please share in the comments.

Underwhelmed

I was introduced to the concept of boreout in Adam Grant’s book, Hidden Potential, and it’s fascinated me ever since. You’ve heard of, and probably experienced, burnout caused by your job. It’s when you are exhausted by too much emotional, physical, and mental fatigue for too long. Boreout is the same exhaustion, but the cause is different. Instead of being overwhelmed by the stimulation of your job, you are underwhelmed by it.

What It Looks Like

You arrive at work each morning facing the same tasks you mastered ages ago. You complete a monotonous routine that offers no room for growth or innovation while constantly checking the clock and counting down the minutes until you can leave. There’s no challenge and no sense of accomplishment. You go through the motions while your skills stagnate, your creativity dwindles, and your enthusiasm decreases with each passing day. You feel apathetic and frustrated. These emotions can spill over into other areas of your life, affecting your relationships and overall well-being. Here are some questions to ask yourself if you suspect you’re suffering from boreout.

Is your comfort zone too comfortable?
Are you running on empty energy-wise?
Do you procrastinate more often?
Are you disengaged with your work and coworkers?
Is your productivity slipping?
Do simple tasks feel burdensome?
Do you feel indifferent to meeting deadlines or achieving goals?
Are you questioning the purpose of your role within the organization?
Do you feel like a cog in a machine rather than a valued contributor?
Has your job performance suffered?
Are you progressing on your career path?
Are you increasingly irritable?
Do you feel detached from friends and family?

How to Combat It at Work

Seek Challenges: Talk to your manager about taking on stretch assignments. Work with them to identify new projects or responsibilities that align with your capabilities. Ask where the skills gaps are on your team then volunteer to learn the competencies that are missing. Online courses, in-person workshops, and mentorship opportunities all broaden your skill set and keep you engaged. Increasing your knowledge base and your network both expands your comfort zone and breaks your cycle of boredom. Experimenting with new approaches to old challenges promotes continuous improvement, injects creativity into your work, and helps you build relationships. Host brainstorming sessions and collaborations with colleagues to spark fresh ideas and gather diverse perspectives. Explore unconventional paths to solutions together embracing failure as a learning opportunity rather than a setback. Everyone suffers from boreout at some point. Surround yourself with coworkers who inspire and motivate you so you can support and encourage each other when needed.

Set Goals: You don’t have to wait for your manager to give you something new to do. Set SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound) personal development goals for yourself, both short-term and long-term, that align with your values and career aspirations. Having something to work towards gives you a sense of purpose and direction. Break down larger objectives into manageable tasks, track your progress, and celebrate every completed step.

Establish Boundaries: Strive for healthy work-life integration by prioritizing self-care. Take regular breaks throughout the day to recharge and refocus. Go for a walk or do whatever helps you clear your mind and boost your energy level. Set, communicate, and protect non-business hours so you can disconnect from work to do things you enjoy and be with people you enjoy. BTW, if the only person you want to be with is you, that is valid!

How do you fight boreout? Please share in the comments.

Time is Up

Wouldn’t life be so much easier if it gave us clues when it’s time to change like Peter Brady’s voice? How can you tell when the time has come to change your work situation?

Frustration

Do you feel disengaged in your current role?
Are you unable to use your skills and strengths in your job?
Do you feel like you’ve plateaued and there is no clear path for advancement?
If the answers are yes, is the situation likely to improve?

Toxicity

Do you get the Sunday Scaries?
Is your workplace full of negative energy?
Are you micromanaged?
Is there a lack of communication between leadership and individual contributors?
Does your manager expect you to follow their instructions even if they are unethical?
Do you feel harassed?
These are signs of a toxic environment. How toxic does your work culture have to be before you leave it?

Control

Do you have autonomy over the work you do?
Do you feel adequately valued and paid for your contributions?
Do you have multiple managers who communicate with each other regarding your workload?
Are your boundaries around work-life integration respected?
When you present your managers with documentation of your high performance, do you receive positive incentive to perform even higher?
If the answers are no, is it time to look for a new work situation?

Persistent dissatisfaction indicates you need some kind of change. Figuring out what that change is requires introspection, self-awareness, and a willingness to take action. Prioritize your well-being, financial stability, and long-term goals, then try these steps.

Options: Before making any decisions, take time to assess your capabilities, define what kind of work you want to do, and how you envision your future. Research potential job opportunities and consider how they align with those three things. Use your network to discover what possibilities are available and to help you make connections. Do the research on your personal devices and on your own time. Also, be discreet about whom in your network you trust with your inquiries.

Finances: Health insurance and retirement plans are a thing, y’all. If your current job offers these benefits, weigh the financial implications of leaving against the potential benefits of changing employers. Can you make a move within your organization? Since you’ve done a self-assessment (see the paragraph above) can you craft your own job description that fills current staffing gaps, allows you to work with a new team, and retains your benefits?

Side Gigs: A side gig is both a creative outlet and an opportunity for skill development. Before going public, make sure it doesn’t conflict with your primary job responsibilities or violate any employment agreements. If your side gig shows potential, maybe it’s your next full-time gig. Think critically before transitioning to self-employment. Do you have enough savings to pay your bills for a year? Is there demand for what you do? Is the forecast for that demand positive for the next 5-10 years? Will you grow to hate your side gig if you have to do it for a living?

What would cause you to consider a change? Please share in the comments.

That is Disappointing

When I have a negative experience at work it feels much like the grieving process (shock, denial, anger, acceptance). After feeling all the disappointment, I have to intentionally let that emotion go. Being preoccupied by disappointment can cause us to get stuck. Do any of the following sound familiar?

Taking Your Credit

During a brainstorming session, you share an original concept and your team enthusiastically supports it. At the official launch of the project your coworker presents the idea as their own. What do you do? First, control your emotions. Then gather your date and time-stamped notes just in case you have to prove it was your original idea. For example, flag emails and save meeting minutes (and any other records you can cite as evidence) in a folder on your desktop. Now pull the credit stealer aside and in a private 1:1 meeting say something as non-confrontational as possible like, “I’m happy the client is excited about our idea and I’m surprised you did not mention that it is our joint brainchild. As we move forward, what is your plan for sharing future credit?” If they don’t plan to share credit and if this person is a repeat offender, confidentially ask your manager how they would handle someone who presents other’s ideas as their own.

Losing a Client

When a client leaves it is a blow both to your confidence and your company’s bottom line. After pausing a minute to process the emotions, adopt a learning mindset and get curious. Analyze your data and ask yourself some questions. What went wrong and where? Was there a breakdown in communication? Did the client’s needs or expectations change unexpectedly? Get past the symptoms to pinpoint the root causes so you can prevent similar issues in the future. Take what you learn and apply it to the rest of your clients. For example, if the client left because what they received from you was wildly different than they expected, that indicates you may want to adjust your communication process with your other clients.

Denied the Promotion

You invested your time, energy, attention, and money into developing your skills and all that still was not enough to get the promotion you expected. Again, give yourself a moment to feel your disappointment, then get proactive. Seek feedback from your manager to understand why you weren’t selected. Was it lack of skills? Were the projects you worked on not visible enough to senior leadership? Do you need a sponsor? Determine which variables were in your control and fix those. Be open to constructive criticism and use it as a roadmap for next steps. Identify skills your organization values and strengthen those. Build relationships with people who will champion your work. Publicly committing to bounce back after this disappointment impresses your managers, inspires your coworkers, and makes you a more competitive candidate in the next round of promotions.

Festering disappointment can poison your work environment and stifle your personal growth. Overcoming it requires a combination of self-awareness, proactive communication, and resilience. You have to choose over and over again to control your emotions. With the right mindset and strategies like addressing issues head-on, learning from setbacks, and finding ways to turn negative circumstances into opportunities, you will emerge stronger.

What disappointments have you experienced at work? Please share how you overcame them in the comments.

Getting Directions

Customer success became one of my passions during the pandemic. I wondered what our users’ experience was with us. So, I asked them. What are your expectations? Are we, at the very least, meeting them? How can we bring more value to the relationship? Their answers to these questions were as unique as they were. Each of their journeys to us was different, but had three major themes in common.

Awareness

Customer success begins when a stranger turns into an acquaintance. It involves multiple touch points across various channels, including online platforms, events, and other customer’s opinions of their experience with you. How did they first connect with you? Social media? Word of mouth? Networking event? You have to collect data at each interaction and analyze it so you can personalize communications, services, and outcomes to encourage your potential customer’s engagement. This is a relationship. It’s personal. It’s unique. They expect tailored experiences based on their preferences. For example, did they see a post on LinkedIn promoting your monthly newsletter, then click through to your website and subscribe? Then they are interested in the content you provide. This is a good time to find out how clear your message is. Does this potential customer easily see your value proposition?

Anticipation

Do you have a process for onboarding customers? During discovery conversations, can you identify potential hurdles? Do they look confused when you list your offerings? Is the language in your proposal clear? Have you given them three ways to contact you at their convenience with questions? By anticipating their needs and challenges you can proactively address issues before they escalate. Ask them what their preferences are. How do they want to be communicated with? What are their goals? What does success look like? Then ask yourself: How do they benefit from working with you? Are they excited for check in meetings or do they keep cancelling? Monitor your customers’ behavior. It’s feedback you can use to identify patterns of frustration then quickly course correct. Use conflict as an opportunity to strengthen the relationship. Whatever you promised to do for them over deliver on time and on budget.

Advocacy

As you move through a project for your customer, continuously optimize their experience by making notes of what works and what doesn’t. Regularly review and update their customer journey map based on feedback, data analysis, and their evolving expectations. This helps you not only stay responsive to their changing needs and preferences, it also makes them want to work with you again and again. You craft such a superior experience, they reward you with their loyalty. They organically become your champion in the community. They write good reviews and refer their friends to you. At this point in the journey, you come full circle for how a new customer becomes aware of you: word of mouth.

People need stuff and they assign value to those who can give them what they need. By understanding a customer’s journey from awareness to advocacy, you can move more confidently through the know, like, and trust process.

What do you do to understand your customer’s journey? Please share in the comments.

Power Tool

Two weeks ago we began this series, Let’s Get Critical, by defining critical thinking. The following week we discussed how to use it at work. But does critical thinking benefit you personally if no one knows you can do it? How can you prove you are a critical thinker and use it to further your career?

Demonstrate

Ask – Curiosity is the fuel that powers critical thinking. You need to get past the symptoms of a problem to find its cause. What is your why? What is the context? How does it make you feel? What works well? What can be improved? What should you stop doing? Questions like these signal your mind is open to new ideas and new ways of doing things.

Listen – While someone is answering your questions, only break eye contact to take a brief note. Nod in acknowledgement when they emphasize a point. After they answer, reply with a paraphrase of what you heard them say. You don’t have to agree with their point of view, but you do have to consider it. Part of critical thinking is realizing just because you don’t like someone’s opinion does not mean they are wrong. Constructive dialogue requires you to suspend judgment, try to understand their assessment, and reach a consensus.

Change

Rethink – Critical thinkers do not accept the status quo. They challenge prevailing beliefs, uncover hidden agendas, and examine the rationale behind both. To accomplish this, embrace stretch assignments that force you out of your comfort zone. Intentionally work with colleagues from different departments, backgrounds, and cultures. This broadens your worldview, reveals your unconscious biases, and gives you new approaches to problem-solving.

Network – Get out of your organization and into your community. Attend industry conferences, roundtable discussions, and Special Interest Group (SIG) meetups. Engage in conversations with people who do what you do and people who use the products or services your organization provides. Get their feedback on what is going well for them as well as their pain points.

Learn

Educate – Getting a degree or certificate is a great accomplishment and it has an expiration date. To maintain your subject matter expertise, you have to learn a skill, use it, unlearn it, learn the new skill, use it, unlearn it, etc. To be a critical thinker, you must be adept at both gathering and integrating information from various sources of relevant and reliable data, pull key insights out of it, and test your conclusions. Regularly reflect on your choices. Think about your reasoning behind them. Consider the perspectives of those impacted by your decisions.

Fun – Engaging in activities that stimulate your mind also stimulate critical thinking. For example, reading a work of fiction while concurrently reading a work of non-fiction, attending non-work related workshops, doing Sudoku or crossword puzzles. Team bonding events where the goal is to relax and get to know one another help build the trust necessary to accept diverse viewpoints when it’s time to problem solve. When you are emotionally invested in someone, you want to collaborate with them.

For example: Let’s say you become known for asking good questions, thoughtfully listening, taking on stretch assignments, presenting at SIGs, and starting your organization’s leadership development book club. These all set you up to be an influencer who contributes innovative ideas, correctly analyzes complex issues, and makes informed decisions. Critical thinking makes you a valuable asset to any organization.

How do you demonstrate your critical thinking on the job? Please share in the comments.

Want to Know

Last week we began Let’s Get Critical, a four-part series on critical thinking, by defining what it is. Here in part two, let’s discuss why critical thinking is essential to your job performance.

Relationships

Business moves at the speed of trust. Active listening combined with critical thinking and empathy is one of the fastest ways to build trust. When you communicate your ideas clearly to your teammates, attentively listen to them, and respectfully debate with them, then your meetings are more likely to generate positive results. Building a safe space for everyone to contribute ideas not only facilitates effective productivity within your team but also across the organization. When you repeatedly give your subject matter expertise to anyone who asks for it everyone wants to know you.

Decisions

Critical thinking prevents knee-jerk reactions while helping you make wiser choices faster. Testing your assumptions breeds confidence because either you get confirmation that you are right or you find out you are wrong before you go telling a bunch of people. Identifying the various factors, considering their impact on people, processes, and performance, and predicting potential consequences for each all help you excel at solving problems efficiently. Banish the phrase, “because we’ve always done it that way,” from your mind. It squelches the culture of transformation your organization needs to survive. Instead make it a habit to question existing processes, listen to your team’s ideas, and propose low-risk experiments. Using critical thinking this way enables you to quickly grasp new concepts and adjust your strategies accordingly. This capability becomes more crucial as technology like Artificial Intelligence speeds up the pace of business evolution. Adapting to new challenges, identifying the opportunities in crises, and devising original conclusions require you to possess strong critical thinking skills because you have to navigate ambiguity, normalize change, and address challenges with clarity and precision. It is an organization’s critical thinkers who identify inefficiencies, brainstorm new ways to correct them, and drive the mission forward.

Future

Critical thinking is a power skill. It equips you with the tools and mindset necessary to thrive in today’s competitive job market. You help maintain a positive work environment conducive to productivity and innovation when you can:

Demonstrate your creative resourcefulness at problem solving
Think strategically and align your actions with your organization’s goals
Communicate complex concepts concisely and in easy-to-understand terms
Recognize when it is time to pivot, embrace change, and quickly learn new skills
Empathetically challenge both yours and others’ assumptions and welcome alternative perspectives
Actively seek feedback and regularly reflect on your experiences
De-escalate tensions, constructively resolve conflicts by seeking common ground, and facilitate meaningful dialogue to foster collaboration

For example, let’s say you are on a software development team troubleshooting a critical bug in a new application. Instead of resorting to quick fixes or assuming you know what is wrong, your team applies critical thinking skills to systematically diagnose the root cause of the issue. You conduct thorough analysis, dig through code repositories, and interview stakeholders to gather relevant information. Through rigorous testing and experimentation, you identify the underlying flaw, implement a sustainable solution, and document it to prevent similar issues from happening in the future.

Next week let’s talk about how you can demonstrate critical thinking skills to further your career. How does thinking critically help you do your job? Please share in the comments.