Ashley Knudson

My Renaissance
Business Foundations
Critical Thinking in Work and Management
In life, as in business, individuals must go through trial and error to achieve success.
These victories will come from many experiences and mistakes and the knowledge that is to be
gained from each one is imperative to moving forward as a more experienced and knowledgeable
professional. The largest challenge for individuals to tackle is the ability to think critically.
Once a person has gained much experience in critical thinking their ability to identify situations
and issues and problem solve sky rockets. The ability of being an in tune critical thinker is one
of great value and it is a skill that can always be improved upon.
Critical thinking is the ability to detect all error. When a person can use their ability to
critically review and think about a subject in multiple ways and from many angles, the individual
possesses the stature to problem solve by using several different methods. This method of
thinking allows for the human mind to see through falsehoods and create solutions to unknown
and known issues. As I have entered the workforce and higher education my opportunities and
my abilities for critical thinking have expanded and become a daily pursuit and innovation.
As a youngster in the real estate and mortgage industries my learning curve came earlier
than I had planned or expected. Working with professionals who had years under their adult
work belts to practice and experience different situations where thinking critically was incredibly
important to their work load and their clients; I was behind but also enjoyed the experience of
seeing it with my own eyes. It was interesting to me to witness but not understand that their way
of thinking was so involved and diverse and they always had several solutions when to a young
me it seemed that there was only one.
Critical thinking is so very important in every aspect of life and the world of
communications. If more people in the world and even here in our own country were aware and
possessed the ability to think critically we might be living in a different world. What would
happen if today, seven out of ten people in the world all of the sudden possessed and avidly used
their ability to think critically? Can you imagine what the world would be like? Would there
still be third world countries? Would we still experience disease and poverty and hunger and
terrorism? What would come of religion and politics? Critical thinking is a master key for a
persons brain to construct ideas and solutions and equations that could change the world as we
know it, could change the average standard of living all over the globe.
Using critical thinking allows humans to detect and register type I and type II errors. A
type I error occurs when something is untrue or false in reality and the perceiver accepts the
falsehood as true. A type II error occurs when something is true in reality and the perceiver
rejects the truth. If even humans naturally had the ability to register these two common errors

and not completely comprehend how to think critically, the overall errors declining in the world
would be astounding. Detecting truth and falsehood from one another has the ability to save
lives, end racism, reduce terrorism; the possibilities are endless of what could come from simply
being able to tell the difference.
As I have moved up in my position in real estate and into upper management I came to a
stage where I would have the opportunity to learn and detect falsehood and truth and learn to
think critically and speak to others with respect. I worked alongside other office managers, area
managers, corporate and with the owner of my company. It was embarrassing when one of my
superiors or even colleagues would call me out on my errors or my inability to think through and
filter the things I would say out loud. At first it was kind of funny and cute and immature that I
had yet to learn to control what came from my head to my mouth. As I moved up in ranks and
soon enough had the entire flagship office under my management it was time I listened more
than I spoke and kept certain things to myself and took the initiative to problem solve my way
through things.
Being able to recognize and learn the abilities to think critically, problem solve and detect
type I and type II errors has improved my position not only in my work place but in all aspects of
my life. Learning to incorporate critical thinking allows me to be more proactive and efficient
and a greater part of our management team. Having experience with these abilities also allows
me to work with my team and help them understand and educate them on how to use and
improve these skills when dealing in our work place. Now that I have been promoted to running
the financial side of the business and managing all commissions for our entire brokerage I have
the chance to apply my skills and error detection in a whole new way. Each time I am allotted a
new task I have another opportunity to exploit and use and assess my abilities to think critically
and problem solve. As my hands are more full each day with more important tasks it is my
responsibility to teach and help improve upon my office assistants skills so that they are problem
solvers and critical thinkers and they will not need me as much if they can learn to do it on their
own.