Give Me An Example Of Critical Thinking?

Complex Motions Include Critical Thinking!

Complex motions are not simple to do.  They require more thinking than a single thought.  Human beings possess the ability to practice complex motions.  It is one of the great things about the potential for human beings.  Human beings can acquire the skill to see, think and manage multiple duties at the same time.  They can perform these types of complex multiple activities every single day without even giving much thought to how they are being done.  Your employees are very capable of performing much better than they currently are and definitely much deeper in critical thinking.  They drive an automobile, don't they?  What daily activity can become more routinely demanding for critical thinking than managing the complexities of the highly distracted roadways in this day and age?  Your employees can easily perform complex and critical thinking.

Some do not have that much faith in their employees.  Some readers may actually believe their employees will destroy their business if they were given the right to perform complex responsibilities.  Not true.  Just in case it is true, however, get a new employee.  You are paying a liability, your weak employee, to remain dangerously alive on your payroll.  This post is not a message for removing good people from the payroll of your business, however.  On the contrary, it is a message that defines how your business may be under-utilizing the skill potential of your current staff.  Your business is only as good as its weakest link.  That weakest link is the benchmark of your business quality.  Some business qualities are higher than others.  Some business models get a lot more out of their willing employees than other models.  Some business models employ a lot of people who routinely perform complex motions and do so happily.

Can one business succeed in getting its employees to perform complex motions, critical thinking, routinely and willingly while others do not?  Can one business enjoy high levels of critical thinking while another business has trouble performing the simple basics?  Can a business discover how to perform the art of critical thinking?  Can this type of thinking become very important to the success potential of a business model?  Can a business owner invest time into developing a staff that easily practices critical thinking?  Can the practice of critical thinking come from the bottom up?  The answer to all of these questions is, "Yes."

How does a business owner identify critical thinking?  What does critical thinking look like?  Give me an example of critical thinking.

Be Alert More Often, Allow Critical Thinking To Flourish!

Critical thinking is the art of performing complex thinking, on a routine basis?  Critical thinking is how an employee performs beyond the tasks of simple basics.  Critical thinking is available to every business owner.  Critical thinking will serve as a great help to improve the bottom line.  Critical thinking is sometimes the main difference between a great business performer and an "also ran."  Every owner has time to encourage and honor critical thought.  The last person hired can help to teach other employees how to practice improved critical thinking.  It is an attribute that can come from the bottom up.  Critical thinking can do all of these things, providing the business environment permits it to bloom.  If you are a business owner and you desire to infect your staff with some improved critical thinking, you will not succeed at it if you send out a notice to your employees asking them to begin thinking deeper about important stuff while they are performing their routine tasks.  It does not work in this fashion.  Amazing enough, I have witnessed this type of leadership effort more than I care to admit.  Many business owners and leaders are not very smart.  Thank goodness for the ability to infect your business with critical thought from the bottom up!

What's more, critical thinking is more than a routine process.  It is a performance level of practice that can be taught and routinely embellished.  To most employees, unfortunately, critical thinking is not easily considered as being a part of their job.  Management and its egos have long been threatened by the ability of lower level employees to perform and think better than the leader.  It is one of those quiet diseases that can cripple a business model into poverty.

However, regular employees can and will learn how to drive automobiles in challenging traffic, using complex hand, eye and leg movements, listen to music and be thinking about thoughts they love to do...all at the same time, providing the motivation is right.  They perform critical thinking every single day when they navigate automobiles.  They become very comfortable performing this complex routine of tasks.  No big deal.

So what does critical thinking look like?  Give me an example.

A new hire for a department store was performing the tasks of being introduced to the computer, the staff, the facility and the duties they would be performing.  During the first week of employment, they were left alone to perform their work without very much supervision.  This type of orientation is very common.  Most business models offer about ten minutes of instructions and leave the new hire out in the business model to observe the others and figure it out for themselves.  Orientation is usually weak.  Nobody has the specific assignment to mentor the new employee.  Nobody has the shadowing responsibilities to introduce the new employee to everyone they need to get to know, which includes very special customers.  Most business models do not devote a seasoned employee to perform the task of orientation for new employees.  What's worse, most business models do not devote adequate time to train the new employee on what and how to do their job well.  It is alarming!  We expect new employees to just figure it out on their own.  Guess what, owners?  The new employees figure out one thing for sure.  They can easily acquire all of the bad habits each of the other employees perform.  This is exactly how they become accepted by the other employees!  It is as predictable as producing waste after we eat some food.  Stop it.

Your business deserves better.  Spend the time.  Devote your best to teach the new ones.  Give them all a reward, including the new one.  Make a big deal about it.  Here's why...nobody else does it as well.  Be a special environment.  Teach your employees well.  Teach them.

Back to the department store new hire.  The new employee was asked to clean up a small storage area in the back of the warehouse.  Discovered in that area were many sold items with name and identification tags taped on the products, loaded with dirt and dust.  Some of the identification tags had dates going back several years.  Much of the area had become the common dumping grounds for miscellaneous items.  The new employee decided to find the proper location where many of the dumped off items should actually go.  The new employee decided to return each of those items to their proper place.  Much of the items with unknown locations were the ones with aged identification labels.  It was decided they could be placed in a more logical and visible location so they can be sorted and returned to their proper places.  The disheveled warehouse area, once sorted and properly arranged was cleaned thoroughly.  It was decided that a thorough cleaning would include dusting, vacuuming and neatly arranged appointments.  Some new inventories were discovered hidden among the piled up collections in that mess.  Those items were cleaned up and decided they would be best served to be returned to the sales and display floor.  While working to improve that warehouse area, it was noticed there were other areas poorly maintained upstairs, too.

When the compliments from the other employees began to surface about how nice the old warehouse spot looked, the new employee decided to ask if they needed the upstairs area cleaned, too?  Seeing this concept, critical thinking, the leader of the business concurred with the others and suggested the new employee begin work on that area next.  As the area upstairs began its clean up process, many current products for sale were discovered scattered about in this storage region also.  The new employee cleaned them up, deciding to place the aging ones in front of the shelved items to be sold first, and marked the others down that had expired their popularity.  Critical thinking.  The storage area upstairs was filled with items that had areas too small for being stored together.  Critical thinking.  The new employee decided to move some of the items stored upstairs to a better, more adequate area downstairs.  Critical thinking.  Now every display item in storage, every excess product inventory had a space adequate for proper placing.  The new employee decided that new locations for old stuff may need new signage to help the others find where they were properly placed.  New signs were made and properly posted.  Critical thinking.

Permitting and Promoting A Wide Variety Of Decisions Is The Key!

Now both areas of warehouse storage were much improved and hidden products were returned to the sales floor to be sold again.  The cleaning process was added to make both regions look sharp.  The rest of the employees began cleaning the front showroom as if the impression was catching.  Critical thinking is infectious.  The leader of the group began talking about how nice everything was looking.  The new employee also described how the multiple stored items were arranged in the upstairs area which eventually piled up enough to block the heat registries to the central air conditioning unit.  The new employee decided to move all of the stored items away from the return registers on the heating unit so it could function more efficiently.  Even the owner of the facility did not notice this inefficiently arranged storage error.  Compliments for the discovery were issued about.  Critical thinking.

While the discussion surfaced on the improvements made, especially the energy efficient discovery, the new employee decided to ask if an open garage door inside the warehouse could be closed half way?  The reason...to shut off the heat loss from the upstairs area of storage and still allow traffic movement of the warehouse access below.  The discussion was shared by many in the discussion area.  Each walked to the controls to see if the garage door could be pulled down and stopped at the half way level.  Success.  Now heat loss would be prevented without compromising employee access to the lower warehouse area.  Critical thinking.  The new employee then asked if it would be a good idea to block the rest of the garage door channel in case the unit failed and dropped the door the rest of the way down, unexpectedly.  Critical thinking.  The group standing in the area was silent.  It was clear the new employee was more than an employee.  The new employee practiced critical thinking!  This is a crossroads for a leader.  It is a wonderful opportunity to kill it or enhance it, depending upon the image the leader holds of themselves.  Many leaders fail at this point.  Many.

All business models deserve to nurture critical thinking.  One step will lead to another.  If you manage a business and you do not witness critical thinking from your staff, begin by honoring the simplest steps towards that type of activity.  It will grow.  All employees have the ability to decide.  Learn how to direct honor in the directions you want them to decide.  The others will catch on.  In the example above, the other employees now practice more acts of critical thought than was happening prior to the new employee coming aboard.  The leader is feeling threatened, but still permits the acts to occur.  The business model will enjoy the improvements at the bottom line.  It will become one of those invisible reasons why one business model performs better than another.  Help your business model find invisible improvements.  Promote critical thinking.  Your business deserves it.

Until next time...