Critical Thinking and Personal Environmental Scans


How to Get an MBA in Life


 

Everyone is understandably excited to get on with the more exciting part of business and life. And of course, I am talking about strategically planning. If you are not thinking, planning, acting and eating strategically, then you are simply wasting time. I have been told that during meetings, my humor was very strategic, and I was even pleased to hear it. But there are other things in life other than money and strategic planning, even though both are very important for various reasons.

 

Before we can enter the realm of strategy, we have to cleanse our bodies and sharpen our minds. This means we have to hone our critical thinking abilities. Once again, this seems like a bit of a cliché, and we would ask, what is critical thinking and why do we need it?

 

There are a number of definitions, but suffice to say that critical thinking is really any application of a system to examine an issue or problem. Our first step of eight in our critical thinking enlightenment, or CTE is the need to investigate and research an area. The advent of the Internet makes this a relatively easy matter. However, how often have you been in a strategic planning session when someone suggests that generally speaking, competition is going up in a certain area and that this is a strategic issue to be listed on a general brain storming issue for a SWOT analysis. Everyone generally meekly agrees at this rather trite statement. Of course competition is increasing. Others are always trying to invade or evolve into the space that you are occupying either in business or in life. However, without the necessary analysis, the statement does not really mean anything. You really have to work to find the data that indicates how many new competitors, or how many new products are entering your strategic position. In life, this might equate to traveling more miles to work or to the kids activities. It would be far more helpful to try and quantify the situation. Another example is retirement income. We are always reading that we should not rely upon our employers to provide the necessary retirement income. But if you examined this issue in any depth, you might find out that it is really not true. You should really determine the extent of all of your potential assets before deciding on a retirement plan.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Conducting a Character Home Tour

Conducting a Character Home Tour Our neighborhood association encourages residents to conduct house tours once a year as a fundraiser. Eager sightseers normally came in couples. So as to not generalize interest between the various genders, I will simply use gender neutral identifiers and name the people interested in the architecture “wives” and those feigning interest in the tour “husbands”. We presently own a historic character home. Apparently, no one ‘has’ a character home due to the permanent nature of such a home and the ephemeral nature of owners. These homes have their own nature and personalities and you ignore them at your peril. My wife searched for a home that would allow us to merge our household and her parents. Her mother was elderly and had arthritis while the father cared for her. The home’s 12 by 2 inch fir joists easily accommodated the weight of four fridges, four washer dryers and three hot water tanks.     I accepted the delegated ta...
Read more

Cars: an unrequited love affair

Cars: an unrequited love affair Most people love cars. So much of our persona can be wrapped up in the way we transport ourselves. Most males fondly remember their first vehicle. Even if it was a piece of turd. If you had a turd in high school, you were the boss. The Sunbeam Alpine became my first vehicle. Fire engine red with fins and a 1600 cc engine. An elastic held on the front bumper. Stopping suddenly meant that the bumper bounced up and down a few times. I cannot remember why I used an elastic. It was likely an emergency fix and it was all that I had around. Inertia prevented me from replacing the elastic with some wire which would have been a far better fix. I purchased a spirometer that allowed me to ensure the volume intake of both carburetors balanced perfectly. I did this religiously without knowing if this made any difference at all. It did not matter since I attended to what I perceived its needs were. We made each other complete. English cars do not fare w...
Read more

GoogleLaw and Creative Destruction of the Legal Profession

GoogleLaw and Creative Destruction of the Legal Profession Google and Artificial Intelligence may not be the end of the legal profession, but boy, can you see it from here. I anticipate encountering what Schumpeter euphemistically called creative destruction. Innovation destructs archaic business models and creatively releases capital to be deployed elsewhere. A benign description of being out on the street with your law degree. Perhaps too hyperbolic, but for example Google has made a database of Federal and State case law and legal journal articles available via its  Google Scholar  search.  In their defense, lawyers can now purchase on Amazon the “ Please Do Not Confuse Your Google Search With My Law Degree” coffee mug.  For a simpler DIY approach, YouTube displays over 146 videos on Family Law. This also includes shuffle playlist for greater variety. For comparison, A.I. factors into over 38% of regular enterprise planning for mainly customer int...
Read more