Critical and Creative Thinking Winter

GMGT 7200 A01_CRITICAL AND CREATI VE THINKING_WINTER 2015

ASSIGNMENT #01_CRITICAL THINKING AND SELF REALIZATION

Mistakes are the foundation lessons of life, an when I think about the most crucial decision making mistake that I committed in my professional life, it takes me back to 2010 when I was working as a Planning Engineer for Daelim Construction Company in Saudi Arabia. As a part of the productivity enhancement program, engineers working at each project were asked to come up with a spreadsheet program to systematically measure the productivity at different levels of organizational hierarchy. At that time, I was leading a team of twelve planning engineers and every one of us was enthusiastic because the winning team would receive a holiday package to Bahrain.

Having seen a similar software in my previous organization, my thinking was prejudicial and biased, and I wasn't having an open mind to absorb suggestions raised by my subordinates; moreover, my egocentric nature dominated others to do what I believed was right. I knew that most of the team members disagreed with me, but being a conformist in my thinking made me believe that my program would be the best. Two weeks after we submitted the project, I was disappointed to know that the management didn't approve our program, but what made me more frustrated was the fact that the selected software encompassed some of the ideas put forward by my fellow engineers. I realized my mistake and discovered the fact that if I had comprehended suggestions form my colleagues in the process, our program would have been the best.

Years after the incident, when I think about it in the perspective of what I understood from my critical thinking lessons, the situation could have been handled immaculately. As per Paul and Elder " Critical thinking is, self-directed, self-disciplined, self-monitored and self-corrective thinking and required rigorous standards of excellence and mindful command of their use. It also embraces effective communication and problem solving abilities and a commitment to overcome our native egocentrism and sociocentrism". After understanding the requirements of a cultivated critical thinker I had a self realization that I was not communicating effectively with others to find solutions, I was not thinking open-mindedly with alternative thoughts brought forward by my coworkers, I did not come to well-reasoned solution by testing them against the current requirement and context, and I didn't had a systematic approach in analyzing and evaluating my thoughts about the problem in hand.

If the same situation arises again my perspective would have been entirely different: I would indisputable kept away my egocentric thinking and would embrace abstract ideas and