I read this the other day while reviewing one of ansrsource’s GEM courses for the Critical Thinking InstituteTM, and it stopped me cold:
“The reason critical thinking is difficult is because we are constantly pressured to accept the status quo—in business and in life. Questioning assumptions can be controversial. Being the one person in the room who questions the accepted wisdom takes sharp reasoning skills, courage, and confidence.”
It was describing me: always questioning, always bucking the status quo, always the one to raise my hand and say, ‘But wait, have we thought about X [where X is typically a far-fetched but still plausible outcome we should be designing for or against]?’” Maybe you feel the same way I did when you read the quote, or maybe it reminded you of one of your colleagues?
I had never thought of critical thinking as courageous before, but I do know that it is exhausting. For critical thinkers, for colleagues who may think less critically, and for supervisors who may be more deadline-driven than their direct reports and more invested in the status quo—critical thinking can be rather draining.
Companies often say that they want critical thinkers on their team. In fact, they may even crow about their organization’s ability to problem-solve creatively or adapt to ever-changing market forces. The fact is, managing critical thinkers takes a lot of energy. Supervisors may be less excited about their team’s ability to think critically than the organization claims to be.
When looking through the “critical thinking is courageous” lens, my 25-year career makes a lot more sense. Regardless of what organizations claim on social media, when I’ve had supervisors who valued my questioning nature, I’ve been a happy employee. When my questions—no matter how valid—were perceived as a hinderance to getting work done, I was frustrated and so were my supervisors.
I was thinking about all of this one day last month when my daughter walked into the kitchen and hit me with a barrage of questions about why she couldn’t do something she wanted to do. I noticed how tired I felt. How frustrated I was that she wouldn’t take no for an answer. How she seemed to have a new piece of evidence to prove her point every time I shot down the last piece of evidence.
Is this what it felt like to manage me? And more urgently, is this why I’ve been so tired since having kids?
But then the next day, my daughter approached me holding her cell phone in my face and complaining that someone she follows on social media was using a false equivalency when trying to convince their followers not to get vaccinated. My daughter blew me away with her ability to parse what she was hearing. To be skeptical. To ask the right questions.
Yes, I am tired. But I am tired because I have raised a critical thinker. And I’d happily be tired for the rest of my life if that means my daughter will ask questions, not just of me, but of what she sees and hears and reads and of what is asked of her. Being tired isn’t the worst thing in the world. And being surrounded by critical thinkers can be the best!
Does any of this sound familiar to you? Are you a natural critical thinker? Or is it a skill you want to develop? Do you manage people who seem to always be pushing back and slowing down the workflow? Have you considered giving their questions more attention and room to percolate rather than redirecting them to their tasks to maintain the status quo? Yes, critical thinkers can be difficult to manage and raise, but this is a worthy trade-off when you consider that a few extra questions today can help save a lot of time, money, and stress tomorrow.
