Culture – Page 6 – mardihumphreys.com

High Pay Can Cost You

Welcome to the final article in our Toxic Traits series. In part one,
we asked what’s up with the toxicity-in-the-workplace trend. Part two
suggested what managers can do to mitigate its effects. Part three
explored how individual contributors can make workplaces less toxic. Now let’s talk about your wallet.

The allure of a high-paying job can be irresistible. You can have financial security. You can afford luxuries. You can climb up a rung or three on the social-status ladder. But those perks come with a hidden cost when the workplace environment is toxic.

The Pros

Stability: You can pay off debt, build savings, invest in property, and afford quality healthcare and education for both you and your family.

Comfort: You can upgrade your housing, travel more often, and participate in expensive hobbies.

Opportunities: Working in a high-stakes, high-paying environment offers valuable experience and visibility to leadership. These roles can be stepping stones to even more lucrative and prestigious positions within the organization.

The Cons

Stress: The constant negativity of a hostile work environment eventually destroys your productivity. Chronic stress leads to burnout, depression, and anxiety disorders. Stress also manifests physically through headaches, high blood pressure, diabetes, and/or a weakened immune system.

Balance: Toxic workplaces often demand excessive hours and emotional investment that erode the boundaries between your work and personal life. This imbalance strains relationships and reduces time available for self-care and fun.

Ethics: Working in a toxic environment may require you to compromise your principles. This creates internal conflict over moral dilemmas and reduces your self-esteem and professional integrity.

Only you can decide whether the financial benefits of a high-paying job in a toxic workplace are worth the negative impact. Some questions to ask yourself: How far will your resilience stretch? How long will these circumstances last? How patient will your support systems be?

Your Choice

The financial security and career advancement may outweigh the negative aspects, especially if you have effective coping mechanisms and strong external support. But do not underestimate the toll a toxic work environment takes on your mental and physical health, relationships, and overall happiness. The tipping point where toxicity outweighs financial compensation differs for everyone. Here are a few clues the job is no longer worth it.

Health: When your physical or mental health problems become obvious and unmanageable. When you always feel physically exhausted, mentally detached, and/or emotionally numb.

Relationships: When your personal relationships suffer significantly due to your work-related stress and unavailability.

Happiness: When the job requires compromising your values to the point where it affects your self-respect, you lose your sense of purpose, or the grind is relentless.

When You Can’t Leave Yet

If you depend on this job to pay your bills and can’t quit yet, recognize the signs of intolerable toxicity, evaluate your circumstances, and be proactive in mitigating its negative impacts.

Boundaries: Define, communicate, and maintain boundaries between your work life and your personal life to protect your time and relationships.

Cope: Lean on friends, family, and/or professional counselors to help you maintain both your mental and physical health. Relieve your stress through exercise, meditation, hobbies, or whatever self-care looks like for you.

Strategize: Invest in certifications that will open doors to better opportunities elsewhere. Attend networking events and connect with people who work in organizations you’d like to work for. Hire a career coach to help you prepare for your future. It’s good to have hope.

Have you ever worked in a toxic workplace because the job paid well? Was the compensation worth it? Please share in the comments.

Employees Engage

If you’re just joining us, we are in part 3 of 4 in our Toxic Traits series. So far, we’ve thought about why toxicity in the workplace seems to be on the rise and what managers can do to make the workplace less toxic.

Have you seen any Reels like these lately? Social media amplifies discussions about workplace issues, bringing visibility to toxic behaviors that used to be overlooked. While these videos make you laugh as well as feel seen, they don’t exactly help you solve your toxicity problem. Through collaboration, inclusivity, communication, and mutual respect you can help transform your workplace into an environment where both employer and employees thrive. This solution seems simple, but it’s not easy. So, what can employees do to make your workplace less toxic?

Communicate Effectively: Interact respectfully with colleagues and supervisors. Commit to constructive communication and use the appropriate medium. For example: When you feel like someone belittled your idea in a reply-all email, instead of immediately defending your position, reply all with, “I’d like to learn more. I’ll set up a call for you and I to go deeper.” Showing curiosity in their input signals you have an open mind. Pulling the issue out of the group email demonstrates emotional intelligence. By the way, keeping your mind open does not mean you have to change it.

Support Peers: Foster a collaborative atmosphere by helping your teammates. For example: When someone new joins your team, think about what you wish you’d known when you were in their shoes. Are there certain reference documents in the shared drive they should know about? Does the team take turns buying coffee? Offer to be available to answer their questions.

Engage Constructively: Participate positively in meetings to build a sense of community. For example: When your weekly check-ins start off with what went wrong, call out a teammate who helped make it right.

Manage Stress: Practice self-care to maintain personal well-being. Establish and maintain healthy boundaries around time spent on work. For example: When you receive a work email during Jeopardy! do NOT reply.

Report Issues: Speak up about toxic behaviors using appropriate channels. For example: When you repeatedly get left out of emails containing information pertinent to your responsibilities on the project, get face time with the source and ask them to add you to the thread. You do not have to be confrontational. Concentrate on the call to action. You can say, “Will you please add me to the email list for the project? It has come to my attention I need that information to complete my part of it. I can wait while you do that right now.”

Help Others: Embrace opportunities to stay engaged. For example: When your marketing department needs an extra hand hosting a table at an event your organization is sponsoring, volunteer to help. This gives you insight into another department, feedback on how your work contributes to your organization’s brand, and a networking opportunity.

Both employers and employees have crucial roles to play in growing a healthy workplace culture. It takes perseverance, but working together will decrease toxicity, increase productivity, and promote overall well-being for everyone in the organization.

Have you ever worked in a toxic workplace? What did you do to make it less toxic? Please share in the comments.

Managers Matter

Last week we wondered if workplaces are becoming more toxic in part one of our series, Toxic Traits. The growing awareness of the effect of employment on mental health keeps workplace cultures under scrutiny. We talked about possible causes and listed some clues to watch for. Every employee of an organization at every level influences its culture. This week let’s talk about how managers impact your work environment.

The Role of Control

Excessive control, whether through micromanagement or rigid policies, can lead to feelings of powerlessness and frustration among employees. On the other hand, a lack of control or guidance can create confusion and insecurity contributing to stress and dissatisfaction. To successfully supervise a team, managers must balance guidance with agency. Your team should have a clear mission as well as feel trusted to perform their duties.

Set Them Up for Success

Empowering employees with decision-making authority on how to meet their key performance indicators develops an individual contributor’s sense of ownership and accountability. Providing clear direction, like establishing monthly goals and coaching on how to reach them, sets your team up for success. When you balance oversight with autonomy you significantly reduce the potential for toxicity. Here are some suggestions.

Open Communication: Encourage transparency and honest feedback through regular check-ins with each member of your team. Allow your direct reports to voice their concerns without fear of retaliation. Address any issues quickly. This both prevents escalation and builds trust.

Clear Expectations: Define roles, responsibilities, and goals. Make sure they are realistic. When circumstances change, revisit them. Every six months at one of your check-ins, analyze how the last six months went. Align expectations for the next six months.

Work-Life Integration: Can you offer flexible working hours, remote work options, and/or resources for mental health and emotional well-being like an employee assistance program (EAP)? Can you budget for investing in professional training and personal development opportunities for your team? Continuing education in communication, leadership, and diversity will not only help them grow and feel valued, it will positively impact your organization’s bottom line. At the very least, ensure your employees take regular breaks and use their vacation days.

Foster Inclusivity: Create a culture of respect and belonging where diversity is valued and discrimination is not tolerated. Implement and enforce policies that protect against harassment and other toxic behaviors. Promote teamwork and collaboration to build strong, supportive relationships among coworkers. Check your hiring and promotion processes for hidden biases. Monitor your team’s workload distribution. Is one person doing all the heavy lifting?

Recognize Progress: Acknowledge employees’ hard work and achievements and reward them with public praise, an email to your Director, lunch with the C-Suite, or a gift card. Learn what type of recognition makes them feel valued and use it to reward them.

Lead by Example: Demonstrate the values and positive behaviors you want to see from your team. You set the tone for the organization.

Both employers and employees have a role in preventing workplace toxicity. Next week in part three of this series, Toxic Traits, we’ll look at some of the ways employees can promote a healthy work culture.

Have you ever worked in a toxic workplace? What was your manager’s role in the toxicity? Please share your story in the comments.

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 Success

This is the final installment in the series, Stop and Think. For the last three weeks we’ve talked about reflecting on how you spent your time, energy, and attention on your work for the first half of 2024. This week, let’s stop and think about the money you make.

Your Decision

Society uses money to gauge success. But that does not mean you have to. If you make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, but have no time or energy to spend them the way you want, is that really success? Success is not actually about the money. It’s how you feel about the money. If making a lot of money is important to you, ask yourself why. What does the money you want buy you?

Our culture trains us to believe the more money you have the more options you have. While that can be true, it is also true that with more money comes more expectations. You have to figure out the balance between how much money is enough to reach your goals and what you’re willing to do to get it.

Think about that in relation to reflecting on your goals half way through 2024. Has your definition of success changed since January? Maybe at the start of the year you were focused on financial gains, but now a flexible schedule is more important to you. Update your definition of success and adjust both your goals and systems accordingly. Here are some questions to help you rethink your definition of success.

Is management happy with your job performance?
Is your family happy with your work-life integration?
If you have given your best effort for the last six months, what are three things you are most happy about accomplishing?
Are your original goals still relevant? For example: Did you discover a new skill in the last sixth months and you want to get certified in it? If so, then it’s time to rethink your original goals.

Your Climb

Success is more like climbing a tree than like climbing a ladder. You may need to move laterally, switching branches, before you can climb higher. For example, you may have to change jobs or acquire new capabilities. Moving in reverse or taking a different branch of the tree can often lead to your desired destination more effectively than sticking to your original goal. It may also reveal a new destination you were not aware of that you want more. For example: Is your definition of success more money or is it more control of your lifestyle? Do you have rare and in-demand skills that would allow you to work the hours that you dictate? Time is more valuable than money. You can always make more money. You cannot make more time.

You do not have to wait six months to reflect on your progress, alignment, systems, or success. If you normalize rethinking when new information warrants it and embrace the change then your self-awareness will grow. Periodic realignment keeps you motivated and helps you pursue what type of success truly matters to you.

How do you define success? 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.

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.

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.