The Ability of Critical Thinking Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

The Ability of Critical Thinking - Essay Example According to the definition, critical thinking is the intellectual process of conceptualizing, analyzing and evaluating information gathered from observation, experience or communication (Mahwah, 1996, page 64, paragraph 4). In simple words, critical thinking is about involving the skilled judgment or observation of the situation into the decision-making process. Critical thinkers do not only make the decision based on what they think is the right choice, but they also evaluate the outcomes of their choice for positive and negative results. Critical thinking is about using knowledge and this ability cannot be developed hastily. The human brain is biologically set up to make sense of received information through summarising and reducing the amount of it. For example, an individual can decide that the unknown animal is a dog because the animal has physical similarities with dogs. Even though this example is simple, it does reflect the application of critical thinking skills to evaluate the situation and make the conclusion. In the workplace setting, required critical thinking skills are different. For example, one of my co-workers, Peter, was very different in terms of work values and ethics from all of the other employees including our supervisor. Even though his productivity has always been above average, he was labeled as lazy. My supervisor has informed the staff that there will be downsizing and one person has to leave our team. He has asked me to evaluate the performance of all team members and decide who should leave. The first person I have in mind was Peter, even though his productivity was above av erage, he has completed his job very slowly. Nevertheless, not Peter's name was on the top of the list I provided to my supervisor. If it was, my decision would lack critical thinking.