What You are Missing Out On if You are Not Mastering Critical Thinking

Today, I am going to show you how critical thinking will improve your understanding of your company's numbers and strategy.

"Critical thinking is thinking about your thinking while you're thinking in order to make your thinking better." ― Richard Paul

We are here to challenge the assumption that you can understand your company's numbers with just visualisation tools, statistics and Excel skills.

You must learn how to use a tool of your choice to manipulate numbers and extract information from them.

More importantly, you need great thinking to make sense of your company's numbers and get some information out of them.

You need to learn how to think critically.

If you don't have this kind of thinking at your disposal yet, you can be the best Excel expert on the planet.

You can win the Nobel Prize for visualization.

But you still won't get any information out of any amount of company's numbers.

Without critical thinking, you will never gain actionable insights or a solid foundation for your strategy.

Today, we're going to explore the advantages of critical thinking.

Advantage # 1: Critical Thinking is the Way to Overcome Beliefs and Biases.

Everyone has beliefs and biases. They make us think things are a certain way, when they really aren't.

We must not allow ourselves to be influenced by them and make our own decisions.

Let me introduce you to Chris, our friendly neighbourhood course creator. She wants to get more clients to buy her courses, so she is improving her offer. She is convinced that the content is not compelling enough.

Is her content boring?

When that thought crosses her mind, she stops and thinks: "Wait a minute. Have any of my clients ever said that? Or is this just another unfounded fear? Why so few people visit my webpage but don't purchase my course?"

She starts by asking her clients for more detailed feedback. She will find out whether her content is too long or if the descriptions of the courses don't explain well why people need to learn that topic.

It will depend on her clients' answers.

Thanks to her stopping and asking herself if she had a reason for her convictions, she will undoubtedly find the correct answer through her clients' feedback.

Stop worrying and ask yourself.

Stopping and asking yourself "Why am I thinking what I'm thinking?" is the foundation of Critical Thinking.

Advantage # 2: Critical Thinking Eliminates Self-Doubt.

As solopreneurs and small business owners, we all move forward based on a strategy.

Sometimes it takes time for a strategy to work.

We must not lose hope in the meantime.

"Success is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm!" -- Winston Churchill

We must keep going and keep making adjustments, even if we don't see immediate results.

Chris, for example, took action after listening to her clients' feedback. She analysed why her courses weren't getting the traction she wanted. She will improve her social media exposure.

As anyone who has advertised their product or services knows, social media does not produce results from day one.

It's frustrating, but we can get through it.

Chris persists because she has a rock-solid reason-based strategy based on her clients' feedback.

Critical thinking improves both inductive and deductive reasoning.

Chris is not discouraged by minor setbacks or brief delays in achieving her desired outcomes. She has a well-reasoned conclusion that inspires her and her colleagues to have confidence in it for longer.

Advantage # 3: Critical Thinking Kills the Ego

"We don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are" -- Anaïs Nin

We must not mistake less than happy comebacks from our clients for attacks directed at us.

They are just having a bad day.

Chris is aware of this. Sometimes her clients complain about her courses.

When she asks, she always finds ways to improve. She'll make an improved offer.

Sometimes, she simply encounters stressed individuals who are concerned that not learning on the spot reflects poorly on them. In which case, she confidently reassures them that they just need time and practice. She is an incremental theorist, after all. (If you missed the issue about incremental theorists, it is here)

The moment she stopped and asked herself, "Why are they saying this and that? Are we sure this is the real reason?" is the moment she applies critical thinking.

Advantage # 4: Critical Thinking Enhances Curiosity.

All of these examples we have made so far are based on a moment of critical thinking, where we stop and ask ourselves, "Is there something more to this?"

It is indisputable that critical thinking cannot exist without curiosity and the desire to learn more.

Once you're curious, you won't stop.

You keep asking why.

Why this happens.

Why that happens.

Critical thinking starts with questioning and ends with information gathering.

These are the building blocks you need to gain a deeper understanding of your company's financial performance and operations.

Chris always follows the same action structure:

1. Something happens.

   
   

2. She challenged the beliefs with questions.

   
   

3. She gathers information.

   
   

4. She then takes action based on that information.

   
   

Advantage # 5: Critical Thinking Increases our Willingness to Learn

Curiosity without a ready, reasonable answer leads directly to learning.

When Chris first considered seeking feedback from her clients, she likely wasn't sure of the best approach.

She probably tried a few times before getting some actionable information.

She knows exactly what to do next time she needs feedback.

Advantages of Critical Thinking

This is All Well and Good, but How do we Develop Critical Thinking?

There are several ways to improve critical thinking.

The first thing you need to do is train yourself to stop several times a day and think: "Why am I doing what I'm doing?"

Ask yourself: What am I thinking? Is it a reasonable ground for what I'm thinking?

Download our free step-by-step guide to improve your critical thinking from our website.

Select a topic and something you are thinking about. Answer some pilot questions designed to challenge your beliefs. It might be a bit uncomfortable at first, but you will gain confidence in your convictions because they stood up to questioning.

You can step up your reasoning and creativity all at once.

I believe in you!