Why Hiring Critical Thinkers is Absolutely Critical for HR
Consider this: A company that invented digital photography in 1975, missed the opportunity to make it big in digital photography. In early 2012, when most of the competitors were thriving only on digital photography, this pioneer filed for bankruptcy protection. How did this happen?
Their primary business was film based photography. In 1975, when an engineer went to the executive management with his invention of digital photography, the management did not promote the idea with a fear that this invention will destroy their existing film-based business model. Executive management lived with this denial for a long time, not able to see the opportunity in this disruptive technology. They did not think critically about this new technology and clearly, they missed the busi.
The fear to change was born from the assumption about negative impact of digital photography. Worst yet, no one recognized that they were assuming. They did not allow any arguments for and against digital photography. Conclusion to not consider digital photography as a way forward was drawn purely based on emotions and not facts. The situation was dealt with subjectively and not objectively.
An organization thrives on people and decisions they make. An organization grows (or doesn’t) one decision at a time. These decisions, ranging from strategic ones to tactical, are taken by people at all levels in the organization.
The foundation of a right decision is based on one of the most important skill of 21st century – critical thinking.
With people being at the core of an organization’s greatness, it is extremely important for HR professionals to pay attention to two things – that existing people are trained to think critically and people are hired based on their ability to think critically.
A 2010 study by American Management Association says,
Proficiency in reading, writing, and arithmetic has traditionally been the entry-level threshold to the job market, but the new workplace requires more from its employees. Employees need to think critically, solve problems, innovate, collaborate, and communicate more effectively—and at every level within an organization. According to the AMA 2010 Critical Skills Survey, many executives admit there is room for improvement among their employees in these skills and competencies.ii
We will delve deeper into this all-important topic of critical thinking, but here is the bottom line for now:
Companies need to assess and develop employees’ ability to apply critical thinking skills right from freshers to C-suite executives. It only leads to more effective problem solving and better strategic thinking which is so vital in today’s competitive and uncertain economic times.
Tell Us Something: Do you agree? What challenges do you face when assessing new hires for their critical thinking skills?
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Agree wtih the content here….organizations need to develop a critical thinking culture that will ensure all new hires and existing employees are evaluated against this ability. the question is how do business leaders decide that their assumptions are wrong, in the face of an information overload, and how does one draw the right set of conclusions?
Joseph, Hr Manager, IT
the Kodak example should warn organizations for what happens when they do not have the right set of decision makers to drive the business.
Joseph: what I understand is, the very art of critial thinking entails seiving through multitude of info and identifying assumptions about the solutions you have ome up with. If those assumptions are invalid, then your solutions will not be legitimate and optimal for the business.
Joseph – Sometimes what helps leaders is awareness and acceptance that there may be flaws in their decision making process and biases. Awareness is critical so they know how to work around their weaknesses like faulty assumptions, emotional biases and prejudices, inability to assimilate thoughts when faced with information overload. What is important to then understand is if organizations are providing that platform to leaders to understand their strengths and weaknesses in thinking
I agree with you Tanmay, But the employee who actually had the innovative Idea of critical thinking would not usually work as a employee, he would like be a entrepreneur. In that situation finding employees is really difficult for HR
Hi Devika, I am not sure if I agree to the thought that critical thinkers would prefer entrepreneurship. Had that been really true, we would have far less examples of entrepreneurs whose businesses failed because of flawed decision making. Critical thinking, according to me, is an overarching skill that helps professionals and entrepreneurs equally.