By: Don Monistere

The Impact of Critical Thinking

Don Monistere, CEO and President of General Informatics, shares what it means to be purposeful with your thought process and how critical thinking drives powerful results.

Last week, I had the good fortune of speaking at a conference on critical thinking and the impact that it can have in business and your life. Some of you may have read one or more of my “Enhanced” series of books, and I spend quite a bit of time talking about critical, purposeful thought. In fact, I would argue that since the age of about 14 years old and then even more aggressively at age 20, I have sought out to learn how people become “smart.”

To be clear, I didn’t set out to “get smarter” or to “know things,” I sought out to learn how to think about things I didn’t know. As it turns out, what I found is that there are few people who are “naturally smart” and intelligence not only is something that can be obtained, but it is also a skill that could be taught. Lucky for me, because I was not “naturally smart,” but I was naturally curious, and this disposition provided me with more opportunities to learn than any other single thing in my life.

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Intelligence is the ability to acquire knowledge and skills and apply them to manipulate one’s environment. I like this definition, and I recently found out that some people take exception to the thought that you could use your intelligence to manipulate, but manipulation is not always a negative thing. Especially if the thing you are manipulating is positive for you and those around you. Does this mean that you should be careful with what you believe should be manipulated? You bet! And, if your intentions are not in alignment with what the Holy Spirit or the Universe wants for you and those around you, not only is it difficult to achieve a higher state of thought, but the outcomes are also rarely, if ever, lasting.

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Critical Thinking is defined as an intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action. Now, that is a mouthful, and the thing I think we should point out is that both Intelligence and Critical Thinking speak of ACTION and SKILL! Conclusion? Intelligence takes work! And sometimes the work is to decide not to think with your own unique personal orthodoxy, but with the orthodoxy of others.

 

Diversity of thought is not just recommended to become a critical thinker; I believe it is required. If you only see things from your own context or personal orthodoxy, and never look at it from the point of view of someone of a different mindset, then you are practicing the laziest form of thought.

Consider the following as the steps to Critical Thinking:

  • 1

    Pinpoint the issue with laser like accuracy
  • 2

    Collect the data that will become information
  • 3

    Scrutinize the data for accuracy and examine it for opinion
  • 4

    Change your context by removing personal orthodoxy or emotion
  • 5

    Decide what is relevant
  • 6

    Self-evaluate
  • 7

    Draw & explain conclusions
If you think critically with purpose, and remove personal orthodoxy, you will create intelligence!

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Meet the Author: Don Monistere

Don Monistere is an Entrepreneur, Published Author and Accomplished Executive. Monistere is the CEO and President of General Informatics. Monistere joined the General Informatics team in 2020 and has been actively growing its reach since. General Informatics is one of the fastest growing IT services providers in the Southeast and is considered the leading IT partner for businesses, schools, government agencies, and for the financial and maritime industry. Monistere has been involved in Information Technology since the early 90’s. Having served as the CEO and President of Vista Information Systems from 1993 to 2008, at TekLinks from 2008 to 2018 serving as the President the last two years, before being Acquired by CSpire. Monistere continued to serve as Senior Vice President at CSpire until 2019. Monistere then served at ibml as a member of their Executive Leadership team and Chief Operations Office. Monistere is the author of Enhanced Life Performance and Enhanced Executive Performance and is currently in the process of releasing his third book of the series, Enhanced Corporate Performance. Monistere has been an active member in the community with his philanthropic pursuits with education performance in City Schools and continuous contribution to the National Association of People Against Bullying. Monistere earned a Bachelor of Science in Management with a Minor in Economics from Southeastern Louisiana University and a Master of Business Administration from Aspen University.

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