Solving Problems with Critical Thinking
Problem-solving with critical thinking requires setting goals. Discover how you can solve business issues by reviewing your goals.
Why Critical Thinking is Important for Business Solving
Critical thinkers are often regarded highly in organisations, especially when it comes to solving business problems. Often, critical thinkers reside in more strategic roles and are able to execute both critical thinking and abstract thinking to:
- Effectively analyse and make a sound judgement on a decision
- Help devise creative solutions to solving problems
However, not all critical thinkers need to be business strategies. We all have a level of critical thinking capabilities. The only difference is critical thinkers tend to be self-aware of their thoughts, beliefs and biases and how to direct these into their thinking/decision making. A critical thinkers rational thinking allows them to judge without bias; direct thinking and energy when in search of solutions to problems.
For businesses, critical thinkers are pivotal in the problem-solving process. Whether this is during new product development or process management, critical thinking has the benefits of driving incremental growth for businesses and increasing bottom-line revenue.
Problem Recognition and Definition
One of the key aspects within business that requires critical thinking is problem definition. Firstly, the nature of the problem must be recognised and defined accordingly to achieve a relative, creative solution.
Critical thinking skills allow us to identify the actual problem at hand and not the surface issue, which can often distract from the true problem. For example — a business might see that their profit margins have decreased from sales in a specific product. They believe the solution is to change suppliers to one that is slightly cheaper. However, in doing so, they don’t identify the real issue is the length-to-supply time and so the cheaper option adds to product delivery time, further decreasing profit in this product.
A critical thinker is more likely to see this through the use of something we refer to as the R.E.D Process for critical thinking. This process essentially breaks down critical thinking into 3 core stages, with sub-activities in between. The three stages are:
- Recognising Assumptions
- Evaluating Arguments
- Drawing Conclusions
Problem recognition and definition occurs at the very beginning of this process. It begins with data collection and the recognition of assumptions. At this stage, problem identification helps to identify the core business problem that needs solving. Critical thinking then allows us to understand the problem through data collection and bias/assumptions before evaluating biases before moving into the second stage of the process.
Once in the second stage of the process, the critical thinker moves into evaluating arguments and removing biases to continue to think rationally about the problem, before taking the data and rationally drawing conclusions on the best solutions to solve the business problem. It’s an art to go through this process without succumbing to any cognitive biases.
Acquiring Information and Data
For any problem-solving activity, the correct and relevant information/data should always be acquired. You can acquire information anywhere — through the media, through data sheets of company business or simply cultural information on the problem from people on the ground within the business.
All of this information when pulled together helps to give a clearer picture of the business problem. Although you can also have the issue of too much information, especially if the data is arbitrary to the problem and won’t add value to providing a solution. Sources must be accurate and unbiased, which can be hard when surveying internal staff. However, there is something to be said about acquiring this sort of information, too, as long as your critical thinking ability allows you to rationally explore potential biases if there is a potential avenue for a solution.
Setting Realistic Goals for Your Problem
Problem-solving with critical thinking requires setting goals. This allows the activity to stay focused and aligned when solving the problem. There is no better process for setting problem-solving goals than using the S.M.A.R.T goal-setting process. Critical thinkers use S.M.A.R.T goal setting during the critical thinking process to allow them to set small goals to periodically achieve to help them achieve their overall objective.
Solving Problems with Critical Thinking Solutions
The fun part is the solving of the problem. There are plenty of problem-solving exercises you can implement to help you solve your business problems with critical thinking.
A favourite of strategists and business growth experts is the mind map. A mind map is a simple tool that helps critical thinkers to boil down the core aspects of a business problem in more detail.
Mind mapping allows critical thinkers to:
- Simply display complex information more coherently
- Identify specific issues that are more weighted than others
- Stay focused on the problem at hand
- Begin to identify patterns in your data/information
- Piece together strategic ideas for potential solutions to the problem.
Running a mind-mapping exercise is straightforward. Use them purely as a guide for navigating thoughts, ideas and opinions — this will help to explore creative solutions for business problems and direct teams and talent towards a clear way of thinking.
Enhancing Critical Thinking in Your Organisation
Critical thinking skills can be assessed using critical thinking tests like the Watson Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal Test. For more information, get in touch and learn how you can take your team's critical thinking ability to the next level.