Critical Thinking

The most important skill you can have?  Critical thinking.

A friend recently sent me an article she had read about the importance of critical thinking skills.  The article discussed the failure of many businesses to engage in critical thinking, describing it as “an organized and disciplined way of thinking logically with clarity and precision by using an approach that’s fair and accurate and focusing on information that is relevant.”

It further broke down the components of critical thinking into four subtopics:
• Strategic thinking. This requires leaders to assess the business climate and make the right decisions about where a company is going.
• Creative thinking. Creative thinking is essential for problem-solving and growth. “If you think about it, everything that you touch, every building that you walk in started with creative thinking,” Hagemann said. “So it’s imperative that we have great creative thinkers in our leadership.”
• Problem solving. Problem solving is being able to assess a problem, cut it down to the bare bones and deal with it as quickly as possible, she said.
• Decision making. decision making is a often a test of character and being able to make tough decisions and have the willingness to be held accountable. “That intellectual fortitude and courage is also a very important piece,” she said.

I’m sure it is not entirely a surprise that critical thinking is, well, critical in business.  But how do you go out and hire employees who are critical thinkers and how do you train your current employees to think more critically?  I have an answer for both of these questions.

You must remember that the onus is management to train and develop your team to become more critical thinkers.  When I was managing a Bank of America branch, I had to face this task head on.  At the time, the bank had developed a deep focus on utilizing the teller team as the front line for recognizing sales opportunities and deepening the bank’s relationship with it’s clients.  One of the branches I managed had a great team, but they had never been challenged by management to seek out these sales opportunities.  The team was good, to a person they were intelligent, dedicated employees who wanted to be successful.  They just didn’t know how.

I started out by working behind the teller line with them.  During transactions, I showed them how to take a look at the customer’s accounts while they were processing the customer’s transaction.  I taught them what things to look out for- large dollar amounts in a savings or checking account, mortgage loans with a low balance or high credit card balances.  I taught them how to ask the right questions to customers as a part of their normal conversation to try and uncover opportunities.  It took time and one-on-one interaction with my employees, but they learned and they got better.  The results were amazing.  After two quarters, we had increased product sales by 38% and had reached 100% of the banking center’s sales goals, and we continued to do so for my remaining time at that banking center.  Even better, though, was that the center continued to be successful after I left, proving that it wasn’t just my presence at the bank that had caused the success, but that I had helped develop the critical skills in the employees that allowed them to continue their success even after I moved on to another banking center.

The point here is that I spent time with them and taught them what to look for.  After a customer left, I’d dialogue with them and bounce ideas off of them to help them better understand what we were looking for.  It didn’t take long before they knew exactly what to look for and because they knew their customers better than anyone else, they could easily probe to find even more opportunities.  Customer has an 18 year old getting ready to leave for college?  Student accounts and online banking!  Customer is trying to pay off credit card debt?  Possible consolidation loan opportunity.  It was amazing what they were able to accomplish with just a little direction and instruction and coaching.

So that is how you develop critical thinking in the employees you already have, but how do you hire good critical thinkers when you are looking to hire new employees?  I’ve got three ideas:

1.) Engage your team.  Again, your team knows what works and they know a lot more people than you do by yourself.  Make sure they are on the lookout for good team members to add to your organization.  I am of the opinion that if you find the right person, you should hire them regardless of whether or not you have an open job requirement.  The right people make or break an organization.  Why let that person go somewhere else when you NEED them working for you?

2.) Always be on the lookout for talent.  If I were starting a company right now, I can think of about a half-dozen people off the top of my head right now who I would recruit to come and work for me.  Some of them might say no, but the people I’m thinking of are those stars who really love a challenge and would be willing to work their butts off for a new startup.  You should always be in the mode where you are hiring.  People will leave your organization for all sorts of reasons and you never want to be stuck relying on the resumes that come in from Human Resources as your only source of potential candidates.  Did the guy at the mall who helped you with your shoes impress you with his attentiveness and customer service?  Give him your card, sit down and have a cup of coffee with him.  He might well be the next valuable member of your team.

As a post-script to that, building your own team makes the unit incredibly strong.  When you pull someone into your team because you recognize their talent and potential, you are hiring someone who will be more dedicated to you and harder working than the average candidate.

3.) When you get to the interview, ask questions that will require critical thinking of the candidate.  I participated in several interviews when I was hiring people at Bank of America and the one thing I could not stand was the standard interview trope, “Where do you see yourself in five years” and “What are your strengths and weaknesses”?  Even what many hiring managers consider to be “better” questions are still junk.  “Tell me about a time you were challenged at work.”  “How do you work under pressure?”  Seriously, any job-seeker worth his salt will have a canned response to your canned question and if he’s a half-decent employee, he’ll see right through your boring interview to the boring desk job behind it.

Try this on for size. “What do you know about (my company)?”  Has the candidate done her homework?  Do they know anything about the company, position or industry?  If not, you know you’re probably not looking at someone with the passion to do the job the way you want it done.

“What would you do during your first 90 days on the job?”  What does this answer tell you about the candidate?  Is this someone who wants to come in and “fix” everything right away?  Or is this a more thoughtful candidate, who plans to observe before jumping right in?  Will she build relationships?  This question can help you determine whether the candidate is a good fit for your organization along with giving you a good idea of how she approaches projects.

How do you personally define and measure success?
This is a two-part question.  The first part is intended to help you determine the candidate’s view of himself, and how much he has thought about what exactly success means.  The second part is to gain insight into how the candidate would measure success in your organization.  Most people have an idea of what success is but very few have a defined way to measure it.  Even if the candidate hasn’t thought about it before now, a thoughtful and well-reasoned answer will be a sign of a quick thinking, analytical employee.

What tools or habits do you use to keep organized?  Everyone says they are organized, but take a look at the desks of the people you work with to see if they really are organized or not.  Asking for specific examples of how the candidate stays organized will allow you a peek into what to expect from this person on the job.  If they can discuss actual, specific methods (like Getting Things Done), you probably have a good applicant on your hands.

What accomplishment in your career to date are you most proud of?  I had to think about this one for a minute.  I’ve had numerous successes during my career.  All of the ones I am most proud of involved being a part of a team.  My study abroad experience at the Berlin School of Economics popped into my head.  Of all of the projects I have ever completed, this one was probably the most challenging and time consuming.  I also thought about going into underperforming bank branches and teaching them how to be top performers.  But the one I settled on was very recent- completing and analysis of moving the Procurement process to paperless.  I spent a week working on a team that broke down the Procurement process from start to finish and we figured out a way to do the whole thing without paper.  Right now, we generate between 150 and 200 pieces of paper for a new contract and anywhere from 2-100 pieces of paper for each purchase order.  We spend hours putting the files together and even longer trucking these documents all over the facility to get signatures.  The team developed a way to eliminate all of this by making the process paperless, and in doing so estimated we could save the company a pretty big chunk of change.  That is what I love- improving the process to make everyone’s life easier and saving the company money at the same time.

Get the candidate to think “we can’t do that.”  This one is great for testing their critical thinking skills.  You want to pose a problem in which the easy answer is “we can’t do that.”  The average candidate will look at the situation and say that it can’t be done.  The great candidate will imagine some scenario where it can be done or will offer alternatives and trade-offs.  This is the type of person you are looking for if you want critical thinking skills.