Critical Thinking & Business Improvement Methodologies

Critical Thinking, CT, is an art and a science proven by the mysterious, artful, and scientific approach that critical thinkers displayed throughout history. It is also proven by failures, which resulted from missing an element or more of CT.
Business improvement methodologies such as Six Sigma and 5 Whys to identifying root causes of defects, business process variations, and other problems are insufficient without CT because CT could guard the judgment from biases, bad data, wrong interpretation, and fallacies in reasoning. Furthermore, CT has the capacity to explore the context of situations, and to provide a broad platform for understanding patterns, consequences, and risks. This may explain the mystery behind the wide variations between successes and failures in the initiation and implementation of Six Sigma initiatives across industries.
Jim Phillips, chairman and executive director of FedEx Institute, recalls his conversation with Bill Gates: “In the early days I was having lunch with Bill Gates, and we were talking about how hard it was to find people, and he said he was having great success with philosophy students”. They think logically (Sherard, 2002). In a survey published by CNN, CT and problem solving were two of top 5 competencies hiring managers look for in employees. Technical proficiency, team building, and customer service were the other three (Castellini, 2006).

References
Scott Sherard, July, 2002, Memphis Business Journal, Technology center to serve as hub for U of M academics
http://www.bizjournals.com/memphis/stories/2002/07/22/story3.html, Last visited Dec 26, 06
Richard Castellini, Jan 2006, More to see pay increase in 2006, CNN Web Site: http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/Careers/01/04/cb.aol.survey/index.html, Last visited Dec 26, 06