The relationship between critical thinking and the decision making process within an organization deserve careful consideration. Several questions come to mind when analyzing this relationship. Can an organization or manager make good decisions without employing critical thinking? What are the benefits of being a critical thinker? Does possessing the aptitude and inclination to utilize critical thinking always yield good decision making? What exactly is critical thinking? For that matter, what is meant by good decision making? What factors affect the decision making process? Is the process of making decisions important, or should we only concern ourselves with the final outcome when evaluating decisions. We will try to answer these questions by looking at how others have defined these terms and relationships, as well as, examining our own work environment to see if these processes are present and working. .
Each of us is inundated with information on a daily basis. We are presented with facts and opinions from television, newspapers, books, and more recently, the Internet; people state their thoughts and ideas expecting us to accept them - sometimes without question. A thoughtful person must choose how to respond to what they see and hear. A passive approach would be for a person to accept what they are being told without careful consideration. This passive approach basically allows others to make decisions for them. It ignores all personal experiences that may contradict what is being conveyed. The other person's opinion automatically becomes their own. A more active option involves taking charge of one's thought process in a skillful manner and to apply intellectual standards upon them. It consists of asking questions in an effort to discern fact from opinion; and to eliminate emotions that may allow bias and prejudice to influence decisions. This is critical thinking and it belongs to the category of higher-level thinking skills.
