Critical Thinking in Business

Everyone has a native ability to think logically and critically; but many people, including many small business owners, have never had the training or practice to develop this capacity. Fortunately, it is an ability which people can easily master, and the small business owner who has the capacity to see things from the points of view of his customers is already well on his way. Instead of seeing things from his own point of view or those of his customers, he now has to analyze situations without a "point of view," critically, in terms of the essential facts only. Based on these essential facts, he can determine if any action should be taken and what action.

The key thing about critical analysis is that it has to take place in the absence of personal wants or desires. The owner of the business will have all kinds of hopes and desires regarding his business, but often the facts will not support them. Critical analysis, instead of starting with, "I want this - how do I get there?" starts with, "This is what we have - what can we do?" It's clear how this is the opposite approach to the one intuitively taken by many people in response to challenges. The advantage of the latter is that the success rate is much higher.

A typical situation for the small business owner is one where a potential customer doesn't make a purchase and says that the product is of poor quality. A typical reaction is to make changes to the product, often changes which the owner wanted to make anyway. This may be positive, but it isn't the action which should result from a critical analysis. The essential fact here is not that the product is of poor quality, but that a customer has criticized the product. There are at least three explanations possible: the product could be bad; the product could be good but the customer ill-informed; or the customer might have been in a bad mood. Since the three explanations would result in different actions, the only reasonable action to be taken is to find out more. In a business framework, it would probably be best to wait until the customer comes in again or another customer makes the same comment. They could then be asked what they meant.

If the same customer had criticized the product, saying he couldn't make it work, the small business owner might have dismissed this. It sounds like a problem that's hard to fix and it's only one customer. Yet, the essential fact here is that the product did not work for this customer. It's clear that the problem is with the product and therefore changes in the product would be justified.

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