How to Improve Critical Thinking Skills at Work?

Tips to improve your critical thinking 

You can improve your critical thinking by working on these related skills – observation, analysis, inference, communication, and problem-solving.

1. Be clear about your path/goal

To make good decisions, you should know exactly what you want. All decisions are made with specific purposes or objectives. This means that having a clear-cut understanding of your goal can improve the chance of making a good decision. 

You can use your objectives and expectations from the decision as a starting point. 

So, you need to ask yourself questions – What is it that I want? What are my expectations from it?

The answers to these questions can help you get a crystal clear picture of your goals.

2. Get rid of biases

Often you go wrong with your decisions because you were taking into consideration your perspective alone. And the chances are high that your own thinking is biased. To make better decisions, you need to eliminate bias from the process and include all perspectives in the mix.

The ability to put yourself in other people’s shoes is an asset. Empathy can help you see the bigger picture. You can develop this skill by imagining yourself as someone you know well enough and think like them. Such as at work, think about how your colleague or boss would deal with it. 

Viewing the problem with various perspectives and diverse angles can give you insights into the problem you never knew existed and offer solutions you would never have considered otherwise.

3. Think it through

Decisions, especially important life-altering ones, cannot be taken light-heartedly without considering the ramifications. When you have to choose between the ones available, consider the consequences of each one of them before arriving at a decision. 

At times, your decisions can impact the lives of others as well. Even after much soul-searching, if you aren’t able to identify a perfect solution that would have only positive consequences, take the one that offers the maximum benefits and the least setbacks for all involved. 

This means you need to gather all the information related to the problem. And, list out all possible favorable and unfavorable outcomes. Then it is time to put into use your analytical skill to arrive at an informed decision.

4. Do due diligence

Making good decisions is a simple task if you are willing to let go of your biases, preconceived ideas, and consider all perspectives and options. 

Often you tend to see the problem through the lens of your preconceived beliefs which may offer a skewed view. Hesitation to let go of outdated beliefs and embrace new ones can cost you dearly. To improve your decision-making skills, you should be willing to revisit your belief system periodically and do away with ones that do not conform to your present ideals and state of mind.

Keep your mind open to new ideas and beliefs. Be ready to research hard and collect information. Be willing to learn and adapt to new ideas and situations. With all these, you are improving your critical thinking skills.

5. Admit your mistakes

It is hard to accept that something you did with all the assurance in the world was a mistake. After all, as Shakespeare puts it, “to err is human”. There is nothing to be ashamed about. We all make mistakes.

By acknowledging the fact that you are not always right, you get the chance to correct it and move forward. Instead, if you hold on to the belief that you can never go wrong, you will keep repeating the same mistake. This can set you back in your pursuits, whatever it may be.

You need to double-check your solutions and look over them from a critical point of view. Use your mistakes as an opportunity to learn rather than as a mark of failure.

6. Avoid overthinking

In your enthusiasm for getting things right, you may end up overthinking and overcomplicating the problem at hand. There is a fine line that separates thinking and overthinking. How much thinking is right is something you learn with experience. 

How you approach a problem can make all the difference. It is good to have the bigger picture. But to understand the problem and arrive at a solution, you need to break it down into smaller elements. This can simplify the problem to a large extent, thus making it easier to arrive at a solution.