Critical Thinking Application Paper

Critical Thinking Application Paper

LaToya Grant

MGT 350

June 25, 2011

Sandra Norris

Critical thinking is having the rational to deal with reason, the self awareness to understand our own point of view, the honesty to know our own selfishness, the open-mindedness to consider various viewpoints, the discipline to control our reactions and the judgment to know when we have reached a solution. Applying these skills to our thought process is the key to finding the effective and accurate resolution and implementing a system for change. Creating some kind of standards helps to assist in the critical thinking process to help provide accuracy and relevance to issue at hand. "Critical thinking provides the tools of mind you need to think through anything and everything that requires thought" (Richard Paul, 2006). Problems cannot be understood or defined without first examining the act of thinking itself.

Thinking that is not critical is not reflective. When you don't apply critical thinking you run the risk of error and may end up with truth or reasoning that is a combination of good, bad and prejudice. You have to be able to put everything aside and test yourself to be able to identify your weak points and then be able to reconstruct your thinking process to find a better resolution. This does not mean criticizing others or arguing, it is "engaging in reflective and independent thinking" (Joe Lau).

In my personal experience I have to use critical thinking often. I am in a position where implementing change and process is a serious task because it affects the work in different ways. In my role as a Budget Supervisor I was responsible for a team on six Budget Managers as well as the financials for all the clients of the agency. It was my responsibility to assign my team clients based on their strengths and skills however this changed often depending on the needs of the client and the account team that was being supported. I had one Budget Manager that had poor management and people skill. She was assigned a huge client and their happiness was very important to the agency. After several personal altercations with this person I knew that I had to make some decisions before the complaints made it up the chain of command to my boss.

Applying critical thinking here was important because the end result was going to be a rotation of clients. The assignments as they were were good and there was a need for change in some areas but there were also perfect pairings of accounts and budget managers. I could not risk ruining good relationships to cover up someone else's issues. I needed to weigh all my options in order to present effective recommendations based on my research. When dealing with this type of problem you run the risk of upsetting people who have worked on a piece of business for a long time and you run the risk of losing some of the effectiveness you already have.

In order to evaluate what was needed I had to analyze the situation