No matter what kind of organization you work for, in today’s world you are expected to apply a range of thinking skills in carrying out your duties. You work by thinking. The more effectively you think and the better prepared you are mentally, the more productive and positive you will be. Whatever it is that you do, the quality of thinking that goes into the delivery of your work will determine how effectively you are able to solve the problem for an employer/customer.
David asachewartz asserts: where success is concerned, people are not measured in inches, or pounds, or college degrees, or family background, they are measured by the size of their thinking.” Simply put, your thinking equals your result. The reverse is also true, you’re your result equal your thinking. The level to which you are able to deliver the bet solutions depends on your ability to think up the solutions in the first place, and your ability to think up these solutions determines our rewards.
The greatest resource you have is the mind, your thinking tool. Consequently, one of the best investments you can make is to learn how to use this powerful tool to produce valuable solutions that employers/customers need. It is often said that Nigeria, our country is blessed with human and natural resources. But on a close observation, you will see that that statement is not entirely true. Nigeria as a nation is blessed with abundant natural resources and a lot of human beings. For human beings to transit into human resources, their thinking capacity needs to be engaged and enlarged.
You can either be an effective thinker or a faulty thinker. Every faulty thinker can transition into an effective thinker.
HOW TO BECOME AN EFFECTIVE THINKER
- Change your thinking attitude: In most case, the reason people engage in self-sabotaging thought pattern is because they have not learned the approaches, skills and techniques that will help them through problems. Ignorance of effective approaches to solving problems can be crippling, resulting in faulty or low-level thinking.
- Exercise your mind: becoming an expert in your filled and continually upgrading your skills is like working on your physical fitness. If you stop exercising for any period of time, your body becomes softer and weaker. A very important aspect to exercise your mind is to feed it with lots of good and relevant information. Mind-storming, six universal questions and the five why’s are also good techniques to help us become a better thinker.
ACTION EXERCISES
- Write down the opportunities you will enjoy if you solve the problems facing an employer/customer
- Buy at least one book a year that will teach you usable skills and techniques to enhance your ability to think and solve problems
- Write down real problems your employer/ customer needs to solve and apply your mind to solving them.
You must invest conscious effort to learn and use various thinking skills and techniques is you are to become a thinker that is highly sought after for solutions. You must recognize your mind as the most important assets. It is your greatest capital in the market place. Think about this.
Author: Judith Duru
