Get fresh perspectives and insights into the actionable approaches needed to build back smarter after inflation. Be inspired to transform your organisation while delivering profits.
Get fresh perspectives and insights into the actionable approaches needed to build back smarter after inflation. Be inspired to transform your organisation while delivering profits.
Get fresh perspectives and insights into the actionable approaches needed to build back smarter after inflation. Be inspired to transform your organisation while delivering profits.
When critical thinking is the difference between success and failure
Critical reasoning benefits the firms that foster it, says the founder of our two-week course on the subject
All professionals can benefit from thinking critically about their work. Just as important—but less understood—is how thinking well can help teams and organisations solve shared problems. In a guest contribution Dr Tom Chatfield, the founder of our course, Critical thinking: problem-solving and decision-making in a complex world, and the author of several books on the theme, explores how to think in groups. Chatfield explains how a seemingly solitary activity can be harnessed by managers who want their teams to ask the right questions—and find workable answers—together.
Over the past decade I’ve worked on critical-thinking skills with organisations ranging from global tech companies to international not-for-profits; from banks and insurers to charities and business schools. This has taught me how firms approach problem-solving. And it has highlighted something counter-intuitive: that critical thinking, done well, is a team sport, honed through collaborative scrutiny as much as personal reflection. That holds important lessons for organisations.
Consider one of the simplest and most powerful exercises I use in my work: the “pre-mortem”, a technique explored in detail in Economist Education’s two-week programme. As the name suggests, it’s the opposite of a post-mortem: an exercise in anticipating rather than looking back at failure. It involves getting a team to outline a potential project, then imagine it has gone horribly wrong.
This releases teams from a natural reluctance to express criticism. But it also emphasises the value of critical thinking as a group activity. Indeed, I believe that modern organisations cannot thrive unless they integrate critical thinking into their teams’ functioning. Pre-mortems are a collaborative form of stress-testing: they help ensure that ideas are robust before rather than after they meet the world. But they also help people to investigate different lines of reasoning; explore diverse perspectives on common challenges; and share concerns with others before seeking solutions together.
There is some truth in the cliché of critical thinking as a solitary activity. It requires time, space and self-reflection. But all the reflection in the world is useless if an organisation lacks the mechanisms to share, assess and implement it.
Hence the importance of another team exercise which features in Economist Education’s course: reframing key questions. If an issue is consequential, it’s risky to analyse it from only one perspective. If there isn’t a single, definitive answer then failing to compare different views guarantees missed opportunities. No individual can know everything.
Organisationally, the capacity to reflect together in this way can be the difference between success and failure. That’s why Economist Education’s programme teaches participants how to put critical thinking into practice. It develops the techniques described here in more detail and introduces several others. It equips learners with the tools to tackle their own business challenges. And it demonstrates that critical thinking, practised correctly, is a skill both solitary and shared.
If you’re interested in exploring Economist Education’s critical-thinking course, click here.
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Critical thinking and decision-making
In an algorithm-fuelled world, the ability to interrogate assumptions and reason with rigour is essential, both in business and in life. Designed by The Economist’s journalists and leading critical-thinking experts, this two-week online course will equip you with the tools to avoid cognitive bias, reframe complex problems and capitalise on your human advantage. You’ll gain the practical techniques and skills to use data discerningly and strengthen decisions through self-reflection, with a case study from The Economist’s newsroom.
