Newsletter - February 2008
End Business as Usual—Become a Critical Thinker
February 14, 2008 - Melissa Vokoun
“But we’ve always done it this way.” “We’ve tried other things and they don’t work.” Sound familiar? This is the theme song of many companies and their managers. New and innovative methods shake the status quo and threaten comfortable patterns of thought. Looking at individual problems and processes in new ways is a start but to truly bring development and innovation to your business you have to look at everything in a new light—a critical light.
Reflective skepticism is defined as approaching every element of a process as if you were starting from scratch. With no established protocol to follow you have to create from the ground up. A critical thinker looks at every system, every process, and every procedure as if they were being done for the first time. This creates an opportunity for innovation with every action you take. This opportunity for innovation is what will yield an atmosphere of constant improvement that makes you competitive in today’s dynamic and volatile market. It is not just adjusting your methods and practices to resolve problems as they arise; it’s heading off these roadblocks before they occur.
Every assumption you make has its basis in conjecture and a “best guess” mentality. You are relying on past performance, market conditions, and outcomes. Do you really want to trust your company’s success on the past and ignore all the variables that may affect the future? The key is to identify and challenge these assumptions in the context of every new situation. Challenging the context of your decisions is vital to critical thinking. When you start looking at what may seem like routine procedures as separate and unique pathways to separate and unique outcomes you have defined context. Each context contains the possibility for improvement and better results and has its roots in innovation instead of time worn beliefs.
Critical thinking is triggered by positive as well as negative outcomes. Change does not always have to occur simply as a response to failure. With a critical way of thinking, success is simply something to be built upon. A critical thinker does not look at a success as the end of the process but a new starting point for greater success. Critical thinking is a process in and of itself, not just an outcome. The energy that results is infectious and stimulates everyone in the organization. An atmosphere of dynamic synergy is created and allows employees the opportunity to effect change and challenge themselves to reach their true potential. In a small business where keen competition defines the market and routine means stagnation, an atmosphere of critical thinking can mean the difference between temporary and continuous success. When scrutiny becomes the watch word and long standing beliefs are questioned as a matter of routine, total quality management infects every aspect of your company’s operations. The quest for continuous improvement is one of the hallmarks of total quality management and by developing critical thinking this quest for excellence in every element of your business can become a trusted reality.
Critical thinking is not an individual pursuit nor does it exist in a vacuum. Managers must embrace a new openness and be willing bring everyone into the process. Sounding boards for new ideas bring vitality to the process. Also, remember that challenge is the foundation for critical thinking. Dave in Accounting can challenge your ideas for improving vendor selection and Karen in Shipping can improve Steve’s new format for marketing strategies. Bringing everyone into the arena exponentially increases the volume for innovation. This also provides a nurturing and empowering environment for employees to build on their own sense of excellence and importance to the organization.
Approaching your business with a sense of beginning and newness can revitalize you and your employees. Everyday is a new day in the business world, where you are not defined by what you did yesterday but what you will do today. Critical thinking is what keeps everything new and exciting. It can be the difference between putting in your time and truly making it YOUR time!
Melissa Vokoun is a successful Business Advisor and Trainer. From 1983 to 2005 she was COO and VP of Sales and Marketing for a national telecom equipment distributor. Her passion for business, working with clients in solving critical issues in the strategic, tactical and operational areas of growth continues. She is now President and Founder of NuVo Partners and Successful Business Advisors. To learn more about the services available, please visit the website at: http://www.nuvo-partners.com or call 847-392-6886.
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