Confusing Critical Thinking with Negativity

I love development within an organization. It challenges and inspires me to attempt to make things better. I previously wrote about three activities every organization and everyone in the organization must do to be healthy; growth, maintenance and development. (Read that post HERE.) Each of us tend to specialize or prefer one of those activities and mine is development. Development, by the way, is often the one neglected by organizations and/or leaders. We tend to push growth and then we attempt to maintain the growth. Over time, however, growth stalls unless things are developed (made better).

Development involves asking questions, thinking how things can be made better and desiring consistent improvement.  The problem for developers is that we get push back from those that prefer growth or maintenance. (Or those who operate out of fear or insecurity. I wrote about that HERE.)

As I see it, we often confuse critical thinking with negativity. I realize some people don’t know how to think critically without being negative, and some people can never celebrate the moment, but because of that, we often think of the word criticism and automatically take it personal. We develop turf wars over our areas. Fear keeps us from being open to critique. Critical thinking, however, when used correctly, is an effort to think towards making things better for the good of the organization and everyone on the team, not attacking a particular person or program.

Whenever people reject evaluation, I’m always tempted to ask:

• What are you afraid of people finding out if they question your decisions?
• What fear is causing you to avoid critical thinking?
• If you want improvement, how will it come if you don’t critique/evaluate?

Don’t be afraid to think critically about your area or allow others on your team to help you do so. Your best days may be still to come, but you won’t realize them unless you think critically about the opportunities before you. Welcome them…even when they appear difficult or uncomfortable.

What do you think about when you hear the words critical thinking?