Steps to be a Critical Thinker: Pathway to the Mind of a Crisis Manager

Any action taken by a crisis manager or the crisis management team during the implementation or construction of the crisis management plan needs to be done so using a reflective and analytical thought process. Critical thinking is that thought process in which the individual deliberately and actively engages in the careful acquisition of information, then carefully analyzes and evaluates that gathered information. In order to be a successful critical thinker, the individual has to forget all about themselves during the aforementioned stages then, if applicable and absolutely necessary, apply their own social constructs to the situation at hand before sharing their decision. The mind is the most powerful weapon in any arsenal and, in order to be successful, you are required to have a team of critical thinkers on your crisis management teams. Think of them as your legion of whom who will analyze your disaster carefully, aside from their own personal beliefs, to create the best scenario outcome. If you wish to successfully utilize any of the information provided by the previous blogs, you must develop your skills as a critical thinker.

Everyone has the potential to become a critical thinker – but it doesn’t just happen because you will the gift into existence. “Most of us are not what we could be. We are less. We have great capacity. But most of it is dormant; most is undeveloped” (Elder & Paul, 2015). To become all that we can be mentally, we need to take cognitive steps to develop our minds so that one day we can become unconsciously competent critical thinkers. Because critical thinking itself is self-guided, meaning you have to set your superego and heuristic methodologies aside, it is only natural to start off your own development. 

Elder & Paul (2015) provide nine steps that an individual must take before achieving some plateau of critical thought:

1.         Use “Wasted” Time.
2.         A Problem A Day.
3.         Internalize Intellectual Standards.
4.         Keep An Intellectual Journal.
5.         Reshape Your Character.
6.         Deal with Your Ego.
7.         Redefine the Way You See Things.
8.         Get in touch with your emotions.
9.         Analyze group influences on your life. 

To develop through these skills we must accept the fact that there are some serious flaws in the way we process information and then we must act out on that understanding. For example, every time you are scrolling through Facebook, Instagram, or Snapchat – every hour spent playing some sort of video game – is time wasted. You are not developing your own mind, but instead exploring the thoughts of someone else’s. You may think this sort of engagement is a great way to kill time – but that’s just it, you’re killing time. Can you fathom how many hours you have wasted throughout your life where you could have otherwise learned a language, skill, or something else that could have set you apart from the rest? Begin by reflecting on your day to day actions, evaluate those actions, and see where you could improve. This reflection is the first step to developing critical thought. Anyone can critically analyze another, it takes something else entirely to analyze yourself. 

The next step builds upon the prior: try to solve a problem a day. This step is two-fold. After analyzing the problems with your day to day activities, figure out ways to solve them. Second, choose a problem that everyone is debating and endeavor for a solution aside from your own social constructionism. For example, say you are against abortion because you associate a terrible experience or your religious teachings with the subject. You are not engaging in a critical thought based conclusion. Instead you are actively applying your own cognition to the subject for a result. Try to include other matters when you are engaging in decision making. A great place to begin is by studying various ethical theories. Then you can apply those studies to each situation. To build upon the earlier abortion example briefly, say you applied either Kant’s Moral Theory or Aristotle’s Ethics to the concept of abortion.  Consider what form of mortality an embryo is, human or not, and, if you applied A.E. then you can conclude that abortion is ruining the pursuit of happiness for another individual, therefore it is unethical, and shouldn’t be allowed. But if you apply Utilitarianism, then you may come to a different conclusion. However, either conclusion had resulted from critical thought, which is vastly different from the regurgitated opinions based on loose facts that you will find on social media feeds. A problem a day. By exercising your mind you will develop as a critical thinker. You then evaluate your own conclusions and monitor your conclusions over time. 

As you can see each step requires you to make some sort of change within yourself that in turn affects the mind and how you think. You can learn more about enhancing your ability to think critically by following this link. The takeaway exists in fact that in order to be an effective crisis manager, the individual needs to know that they are not all they can be. In order to achieve such a plateau, the individual needs to expand on their ability to think critically. This ability is required in crisis management situations.

References

Elder, L., & Paul, R. (2015). Critical Thinking in Everyday Life: 9 Strategies. Retrieved February 26, 2017, from http://www.criticalthinking.org/pages/critical-thinking-in-everyday-life-9-strategies/512

Leigh, M. (2015, December). Critical Thinking in Crisis Management. Retrieved from http://www.epcresilience.com/EPC/media/Images/Knowledge%20Centre/Occasionals/Occ15-Paper-DEC-2015.pdf

Kraut, R. (2001, May 01). Aristotle's Ethics. Retrieved February 26, 2017, from https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-ethics/

Johnson, R., & Cureton, A. (2004, February 23). Kant's Moral Philosophy. Retrieved February 26, 2017, from https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-moral/