Critical thinking will help you make better decisions and to rationally apply information. While there are many benefits of critical thinking, we will examine only four. They are:
• Being more persuasive
• Better communication
• Better problem solving
• Increased emotional intelligence
Being More Persuasive
Persuasiveness is the characteristic of being able to influence others. We normally think of salespersons and politicians when we hear the word persuasiveness. However, all managers or professionals use persuasiveness on a daily basis. Anytime, we want to have others accept our ideas, we do so through the power of persuasion. How will critical thinking make us more persuasive? It is because critical thinking is a deliberate or thoughtful process, and the more deliberate we are, the better we are in expressing our assumptions or ideas and persuading others.
Better Communication
Critical thinking improves communication for some of the same reasons that it improves persuasiveness. Many of the same factors we use to improve our persuasiveness also make us better communicators in general. For instance, the use of analogies and metaphors are a great persuasion and general communication technique. In addition to helping us in using language more persuasively; critical thinking also helps us use language with more clarity.
Better Problem Solving
Critical thinking and problem solving are closely related and are almost intertwined. Sometimes we say that to solve logic problems we must use our critical thinking skills. In fact, logic, critical thinking, and problem solving use some of the same cognitive processes. Critical thinkers use their problem solving skills and not just their intuition to make decisions or draw conclusions.
Increased Emotional Intelligence
What is emotional intelligence and how does critical thinking help increase our emotional intelligence? Emotional intelligence is identified as the ability to assess and control the emotions of oneself, others, and even groups. Emotional intelligence is being “heart smart” as opposed to “book smart.” Critical thinking helps increase emotional intelligence because one of the characteristics of a critical thinker is self-awareness. Also, critical thinkers know how and when to use their emotions, such as empathy, in making decisions. The more a person uses his or her critical thinking skills the better adept they should become at identifying, understanding, and managing their emotions.
This post is from Octobers’s topic on Critical Thinking, which is also a course on our Executive Mini-MBA program online from Harvard Square.