The Ability of Critical Thinking - Essay Example

The ability to think critically is beneficial not only in life-related decision, but also in the workplace setting. Critical thinking is vital for effective learning at college or university; it is essential for productive living and important for being successful employee. Humans are living in the age of information and the inability to evaluate ideas and make good decisions results in failure. Individuals with good critical thinking skills in different situations have plenty of employment opportunities waiting for them. Fluctuations in the employment market mean that in order to survive and be successful, workers must learn new skills and adapt to the changing environment quickly. According to definition, critical thinking is the intellectual process of conceptualizing, analyzing and evaluating information gathered from observation, experience or communication (Mahwah, 1996, page 64, paragraph 4). In simple words, critical thinking is about involving the skilled judgment or observation of situation into decision-making process. Critical thinkers do not only make the decision based on what they think is the right choice, but they also evaluate the outcomes of their choice for positive and negative results. Critical thinking is about using knowledge and this ability cannot be developed hastily. Human brain is biologically set up to make sense of received information through summarising and reducing the amount of it. For example, an individual can decide that the unknown animal is a dog, because the animal has physical similarities with dogs. Even though this example is simple, it does reflect the application of critical thinking skills to evaluate the situation and make the conclusion. In the workplace setting, required critical thinking skills are different. For example, one of my co-workers, Peter, was very different in terms of work values and ethics from all of other employees including our supervisor. Even though his productivity has always been above average, he was labelled as lazy. My supervisor has informed the staff that there will be downsizing and one person has to leave our team. He has asked me to evaluate the performance of all team members and decide who should leave. The first person I has in mind was Peter, even though his productivity was above average, he has completed his job very slowly. Nevertheless, not Peter's name was on the top of the list I provided to my supervisor. If it was, my decision would lack critical thinking. To make my decision in this particular situation, I have identified the causes of staff reduction and hypothesized that the major cause is unproductive working. Thus, the person who should leave the company must be the one who is the least productive. Productivity was most important factor to focus on. Peter was slow and lazy, but his productivity was above average. I have developed the employee evaluation scale to monitor and analyze the productivity of team members. In the result, it became evident that Shawn's productivity was the lowest - he was the friend to everybody but instead of doing his work, he was talking with others all day long. Thus, through applying critical thinking skills I have identified the person who should leave the team - the one who contributed less. Following the above example, when college students enter workforce, they are amazed with the complexity of every day decision-making processes (Muir, 1996, vol. 59, page, 78, paragraph). It is more complicated than choosing the restaurant to dine at; the success of company depends on the decisions made on daily basis within the company and one wrong decision may lead to failure. It is not always obvious who the key players are, however, when it comes to making the decision and finding the solution to the problem, every employee has the opportunity to apply his/her critical thinking skills. The absence of critical thinking means that the individual blindly accepts the situation without making any evaluation and analysis. Thus, critical thinking is very important to decision-making process. Making quality decisions involves critical thinking (Petress, 2002, vol. 29, page 192, paragraph 3): exploring the problem, integrating available information and resources, arriving at the solution, and justifying the position. According to Petress, critical thinking requires that the problem or situation is discussed and disclosed clearly prior to deliberations (Petress, 2002, vol. 29, page 192, paragraph 3). Critical thinking is often lacked when participants of decision making process lack full knowledge about the situation or are not fully prepared. Moreover, the decision will be ineffective if there are time constraints that inhibit consideration of all facts, listening to proposals and thorough analysis of consequences. Critical thinking helps decision makers to construct logical and clear rationales for the decisions they make. Logical rationales make decisions more palatable to the different challenges. Excellent decision makers possess the following critical thinking skills: they are truth seeking and have the desire for better knowledge even when this knowledge is undermining to self-interest. They are open minded and tolerable to opposing views and the demand the application of reason and evidence. Moreover, good critical thinkers trust their own reasoning skills and are eager to learn explanations even when the solutions seem not immediately apparent. Critical thinking is not pure reliance on logic; it requires deep analysis of the situation and prudence in suspending and revising solutions. If the person wants to be effective in decision-making, he should be aware that critical thinking requires interpretation, evaluation, analysis, explanation, inference, and self- regulation. Unfortunately, as my personal experience proves, most of the decisions in workplace are quick fix, meaning that not enough time is available and not enough reasoning is applied to finding the best solution. Managers often lack time to gather appropriate information and to evaluate alternatives - their decisions are based rather on logic than reasoning. They are tempered to find easy answers and simplify the problems excessively which leads to the worsening of situation instead of solution. Someone has noted that people should make everything as simple as possible but no simpler. Critical thinking is one of the ways to solve difficult problems not only simply but also effectively. In conclusion, critical thinking is important in all spheres of life. For the student, it helps to improve academic performance by developing the understanding of co-students' opinions. For the employee, critical thinking helps to make good decisions. In the daily situation, critical thinking helps to avoid making emotion-driven decisions. Critical thinking is the ability to understand others, evaluate opinions, analyse information and solve problems. Critical thinking is reflective thinking and those who possess this viable skill understand that knowledge is not the pure awareness of the facts; it is the continuous process of examination and evaluation. Word Count: 1097 References Mahwah, N. (1996). An introduction to critical thinking. Erlbaum Associates Press. Muir, C. (1996). Using Consulting Projects to Teach Critical-Thinking Skills in Business Communication. Business Communication Quarterly, 59 (4), 77+. Petress, K. (2002). An Alternative Model for Decision-Making. Journal of Instructional Psychology, 29 (3), 189+. Read More