Critical thinking is all about being aware of the things happening around you and making well-informed decisions and not based on just one factor. Critical thinking involves keeping in mind all the perspectives from all angles. We often make decisions based on our perceptions and, as people have different perceptions, they perceive a situation differently. Critical thinking keeps you away from jumping to conclusions based on your perceptions. Critical thinking lets you make decisions based on facts, evidence, logic, understanding the accuracy of various perceptions, and weighing the different arguments presented.
We often make decisions or choose the alternative by coming under the influence of others. We assume they have made the right decision because of the influence they have on us. It could be through social media, close family, social circle, and so on. But Companies do not agree with making decisions based on the trust factor or your perceptions. Every job profile today, be it product manager, project manager, lawyer, business analyst, or marketer. Critical thinking skills are necessary for all job roles.
- Importance of Critical Thinking
- Importance of Critical Thinking skills
- Ways to improve the Important critical thinking skills
- Step involved in Critical Thinking
Importance of Critical Thinking
Critical Thinking is important because companies require people who can analyze problems based on evidence and facts and make well-informed decisions and backed by logic.
It helps you make decisions based on facts and figures and not just self-perception. It lets you validate your argument with data and logic. It is important because you work on evidence. Still, when you are a critical thinker, you tend to identify the relationship between your evidence facts and arguments. This leads to making unbiased decisions.
A critical thinker questions every opinion presented, and that is why critical thinking is very important. When you analyze situations from all perspectives, you develop a complete understanding of the situation and the possible solutions, backed by evidence. This is important when making any kind of decision. The arguments presented by someone who is a critical thinker are not made just by perceptions. Still, they are compelling and convincing, which makes it important when companies are pitching to stakeholders.
Importance of Critical Thinking skills
We have seen how critical thinkers are important to the company, but what is the importance of various critical thinking skills?
- Expansion of perspectives
Critical thinking lets you see things from various perspectives. You ask all kinds of questions and, with answers that you receive based on people’s different perspectives, your analysis becomes more efficient. With an expanded perspective on the situation, you find new solutions that you wouldn’t have thought of.
- Identification of hidden facts
Sometimes we are so engrossed in the perspectives that we lose out on various facts and evidence. A critical thinker observes, asks questions, and looks at problems from all angles possible, which lets them identify various facts that might have been overlooked.
- Gain new knowledge
When you listen to people’s opinions, you gain extra knowledge and understand the problems. This newly gained knowledge can be of help in the current problem or the future problems too.
Ways to improve the Important critical thinking skills
- Observation skills
Observation skills are the most important skills when learning to become a critical thinker. A person who observes their surroundings notices the minute details in a person or a situation and listens actively makes a great critical thinker.
How to improve observation skills?
- Become a good listener, listen to people attentively and notice the verbal and non-verbal cues.
- Focus on emotional intelligence, empathize with people and situations and become self-aware
- Identify the situations where your opinion is unconsciously biased, observe the situation deeply and identify the prejudices that led to you taking a biased decision.
- Analytical skills
With observation skills, you tend to identify the problem. Once the problem has been identified, it is important to analyze the situation based on the facts and evidence.
How to improve analytical skills?
- Read more analytical skills can be improved with knowledge. Read more and interact with people that have varied opinions and perspectives.
- Work towards conducting unbiased researches
- You can also play brain games or cognitive thinking games that help you develop analytical skills.
- Inference skills
Identifying and analyzing the problems is done, but it is also important to draw inferences and conclusions from the data you have gathered using the information you have gained and based on your personal experiences.
How to improve inference skills?
- Have discussions with teams from different age groups, backgrounds, and experiences to understand varied viewpoints.
- Consider all the information available, even the minutest details available, and then conclude instead of jumping to conclusions.
- Communication skills
You are never working alone in a company and communication skills are important. It could be to understand a problem, explain solutions, and even listen to different opinions.
How to improve communication skills?
- Develop respect for people’s opinions, even if they are different from what you believe in
- Actively listen
- Communicate your viewpoints by providing reasons for the same. Do not force your opinions on people.
- Problem Solving
The main reason you do everything is to solve a problem and provide the best solution. After identifying the problem, analyzing it, finding and discussing the solutions, it is time to implement it.
How to improve problem-solving skills?
- Set achievable goals
- Gain complete knowledge of the industry and stay updated with the trends
- Ask questions to those who are experts in the field.
How to Improve Critical Thinking?
A critical thinker’s work might seem complicated, but it’s working over these skills with time and moving ahead one step at a time.
- Look for gaps in the information available.
Critical thinkers always look out in between the information available. They work towards identifying the gaps. They understand the point of having complete information and work towards avoiding being judgemental and conclusions based on incomplete information. To improve critical thinking skills, always distinguish your perceptions and opinions from the facts and evidence available.
- Identify Connections
Developing and understanding the connections between the opinions and facts will help identify patterns and is a great way to improve your critical thinking. Every time you come across a situation, look towards patterns. A pattern will help you identify the right path to go on and also draw conclusions quickly.
- Question yourself
You must always ask questions to yourself and challenge your perceptions and opinions. When you challenge your thoughts, you develop a deeper understanding of why you believe in this and why others should too. This will also help you get rid of unconscious bias.
- Evaluate the information
Any information or evidence available to you, develop an understanding to evaluate the information through various parameters.
- Self-awareness
A critical thinker has to be self-aware of any unconscious bias or disrespect. Be aware of your values and beliefs when making a decision. Be aware of your strengths, weaknesses, and perceptions, and try to change them if they are negative.
- Work on yourself
Understand times when you become defensive or situations where you are unable to listen attentively. Identify times when you best receive information and can work better. Identify how you react to certain kinds of information and opinions based on your perceptions and prejudices.
- Develop a deeper understanding
When working with a team, analyze how you made people feel comfortable/uncomfortable. Focus on how the discussion changed your opinion and actively listen to people when they express their opinions.
A few other ways in which you can improve critical thinking is by
- Looking up to a mentor, asking your mentor to assess you for your critical thinking skills
- Participate in team-building activities and bond with your colleagues.
- Develop leadership skills.
- Have an open mindset towards opinions, thoughts, and viewpoints
- Be a flexible thinker, look at new insights, and also accepts new opinions
Step involved in Critical Thinking
- The first step is to identify the problem or the situation. Look at your past understanding, knowledge of the subject and develop an understanding of the current problem. It is important to ask questions at this stage since that will help in gaining clarity on what the exact situation is.
- Gather all the information and organize it in a way that helps you identify the solution you are looking for. Interpret the problem based on your perspectives and the evidence available to you. Work towards identifying the causes and effects of the problem, which will help you develop opinions.
- Use your analytical skills to understand the credibility of your information and which information actually backs your solution. Look at data and probabilities to gain a deeper understanding of the potential solutions.
- Identify important information and also the gaps between information and focus on minute details. Not all information available to you is important for a particular problem work towards segregating important information.
- Have a discussion with a team that has multiple perspectives, and come to a conclusion as to which could be the best solution to the problem. In this stage, firstly explain the problem, listen to the provided solutions, and be careful of any unconscious bias.
- Present your final solution to the stakeholders, explaining with clarity the reason for the chosen solution backed by evidence.
Critical thinking is an important soft skill that recruiters look for because critical thinking is a combination of skills that help make informed decisions and also develop stronger teams. Critical thinking is important as it helps you ask questions that make sense and listen to answers you would have never thought of. It’s a two-way learning process with skills that help the company achieve its goals of profitability.
You can also head over to Great Learning Academy and take up the several free online courses that will help you improve your skills!
