BENEFITS OF CRITICAL THINKING

Shared from:

http://blog.readytomanage.com/category/critical-thinking/

Applying Critical Thinking

February 22, 2013 by Dr. Jon Warner

Critical thinking involves us making a deeper evaluation or judgment about what we hear, see or general experience and to challenge what is so often stated to be true.  There are a number of immediate and practical benefits to critical thinking:

• To increase the quality of thinking
• resist the urge to pass judgment based only upon initial reactions or gut feelings
• plan and consider the approach to make better decisions
• To better challenge assumptions
• always thinking about other alternative pathways or options
• To improve problem-solving
• help to clarify and focus the approach
• To be more attentive listeners
• the more effectively we put ourselves into the “shoes” of others, the better our decisions are likely to be
• To improve decision-making
• gather more evidence or to add facts, figures and evidence
• be more effective evaluators of people and their ideas
• need to distinguish between the person and the idea or issue

 

Qualities of a critical thinker:

Truth-seeking	Even if truth is inconsistent with closely-held beliefs
Open-minded	Value honest intellectual disagreement Strength in competition between a diversity of ideas
Analytical	Demand evidence for positions Consider the consequences of adopting any particular position for all affected parties
Systematic	Organized and focus are necessary requirements for the process of developing, testing, adopting, and advocating new ideas
Self-confident	People tend to develop confidence in their ability to judge the merits of and choose between ideas
Inquisitive	Curious and want to know Ignorance is neither bliss nor desirable
Mature	Wisdom born of personal experience and the experience of others

 

The 3 “B’s” of Beliefs, Bias and Blind-spots are these ones to guard against the mental appraisal traps that can occur.

BELIEFS

We are concerned about those beliefs that are just held and not challenged.  The may be held for a long time because they have not been subjected to deeper thought or may be held for a lifetime even when facts undermine the belief.

BIAS

Often called prejudice or discrimination is the tendency to consider what we see and hear from our own limited or narrow perspective and not realize that the view is distorted.  We need to put ourselves in the shoes of other people much more often in order to reach better quality conclusions.

BLIND-SPOTS

Arise when an individual has little or no knowledge and perhaps tries to argue a position by guessing or hypothesizing.  We cannot specifically know our blind-spots but we can become more aware that we may be missing something important.

 

We all have some degree of unfounded belief, bias and blind-spots.  We need to develop our awareness that there may exists a different pattern that better explains what is happening or a better “story” than the one we think.  We need to:

• become more self-aware
• develop the characteristics of a critical thinker
• ask challenging questions about what is happening around us in our team, the department or the organization