How Critical is Critical Thinking?

Critical thinking is an important skill that can help you make better decisions both in your professional and personal life. Consider decisions like; starting a project, sending a difficult email, or even moving to a new city. How often do you stop and think before acting? Although it can be hard to slow down, assessing all of your options with an actual technique is worth it. I’ve listed out three tools that can help you think critically and make better decisions for your long term growth. 

Pro and Con Lists

Creating and using pro and con lists is a classic way to aid decision-making. Many of us do an unwritten version of this in our heads and hearts, but writing down specific positive and negative outcomes of a choice is an even better practice. In fact, you could even ask a colleague or friend to help you review pros and cons. Additionally, you could create a weighted pro and con list. In this methodology, you assign a positive number 1 to each pro and a negative 1 to each con. However, you could say a really bad outcome is a negative 3 or 4 and a really positive outcome is a plus 3 or 4. This way, you can add up the totals to see if the outcome has a net-positive or negative score.

The best part about this tool is that it’s quick! It takes no time at all. And a pro and con list can illuminate issues or upsides you had not previously considered. I even used this technique in the past to help decide where to go to college. 

Basic Human Needs and Interests Checklist

Everyone has basic human needs. You may have heard of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs which is a popular psychological framework for understanding what most humans need to function well, survive, and be happy. For instance, we all need to eat and sleep. We also desire some level of social interaction and some level of self-fulfillment.

We also have specific professional and personal interests that take precedence over others’ interests. Someone might really want to be left alone during the workday while someone else may be eager to lead a project. Some individuals may expect you to provide critical information quickly but may be slow in responding when you need something. Other colleagues may want to avoid being involved with certain work at all costs or could be happy to help as long as you give them enough heads-up.

Another critical thinking technique to assess the various needs of everyone you interact with day-to-day in conjunction with your own needs. Writing these out and actually examining them can help you anticipate who could be convinced to be involved and why or who might be resistant and for what reasons. 

For example, if you are about to lead a project, you should consider how much bandwidth everyone has and how they would interact with each other. Is there a need or interest you could help with? Could you trade work on projects? 

In your personal life, it’s like when you are buying a house. You should think about what you and your spouse both need in terms of location, number of rooms, color preferences, and even noise levels.

Writing down the needs and interests of each person involved is important because it forces you to put yourself in their shoes. It makes you consider the needs and interests of your coworkers, of your clients or contractors, and of your family and friends. If you can empathize with them and know where they are coming from, you won’t make a mistake by reaching out at the wrong time or by proposing the wrong idea in the wrong way. Thinking through what others need helps you help them all the while helping yourself. 

Spoiler Inventory

The third and final technique is less about being empathetic and more about troubleshooting. Humans have faults, do not always get along, and sometimes fail to make good, timely decisions. Making a spoiler inventory means listing out all of the actors and factors that could spoil your decision. By knowing what dangers exist, you can better prepare or at least not be surprised when a problem arises. Furthermore, if you realize a spoiler is likely to halt a certain project or idea, it may be better to know beforehand so you avoid wasting the effort.

For example, a work spoiler list could include fellow team members, supervisors or other departments in your company. It could also include difficult clients, known technology issues, or foreseeable problems such as lower bandwidth during your organization’s busy season.

Spoilers will always exist and that is not necessarily a bad thing. Just because a spoiler could derail something, it does not mean you should not proceed with the project. Instead, the spoiler inventory lets you picture the constraints within where you are working. 

If more people added these three practices to their work routine, or even their personal life, everyone would be more appreciative of the necessary work that goes into making a good decision.