How do you think

We are often asked to reflect on 'what we think'.  But, rarely, on how we think.

Many of us are charged with making improvements, with innovation, with important planning and decision-making.  How we think - and how well we think - is therefore important.

Yet most of us don't know.  We think how we think - how we have always thought.  We haven't had thinking lessons.  We developed our thinking processes based on our education - but, even there, there were no lessons on thinking.

So, we may think illogically, with bias, with pre-conceived (perhaps out-of-date) notions and on the basis of insufficient or imperfect information.  If we have the occasional 'flash of brilliance', we congratulate ourselves - forgetting that the rest - the majority - of our thinking is far less than perfect.

So, perhaps it is time to do some basic research (reading) about critical and creative thinking - and start to think about how you think, why you think like you do - which leads to why you behave like you do. It might change what you do (because you've changed why you do it).

You might thank yourself for putting in the effort. So might your employees - and your shareholders.