{"id":17891,"date":"2020-01-10T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-01-10T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.planview.com\/empowering-teams-by-fostering-critical-thinking-skills\/"},"modified":"2020-01-10T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2020-01-10T06:00:00","slug":"empowering-teams-by-fostering-critical-thinking-skills","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.planview.com\/empowering-teams-by-fostering-critical-thinking-skills\/","title":{"rendered":"Empowering Teams by Fostering Critical Thinking Skills"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Decentralized leadership offers a lot of benefits, such as increased decision velocity, faster reaction times and more targeted actions and projects. Empowering teams to take greater control of their direction and decision making requires greater critical thinking in the workplace. Unfortunately, however, according to a major survey of over 60,000 managers<\/a>, it is precisely critical thinking and problem-solving skills that are most absent from graduates, with 60% finding it to be lacking in new hires.<\/p>\n

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So, how can managers and organizations bridge this apparent skills gap between the need for critical thinking in the workplace and the capacity of employees to actually perform it? The obvious solution is to seek to empower the teams by improving their problem-solving skills<\/a> and increasing their capacity to manage issues and their workload independently.<\/p>\n

How to Improve Your Team’s Critical Thinking Skills<\/b><\/p>\n

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  1. Assess Your Team’s Current Performance<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Before beginning to implement change, it is necessary to find out where your team currently is in terms of critical thinking skills so you can better address their needs. In a recent article in the Harvard Business Review, Matt Plummer, the founder of an online coaching service, identified four phases for assessing the level of critical thinking capacity<\/a> among employees:<\/p>\n