HBR Guide to Critical Thinking | Harvard Business Review Press

 

This is one of the books under the HBR Guide to series, and it comes in a handy pocketbook size.

It isn't a guidebook in the sense of a step-by-step on how to think critically, but a collection of essays about critical thinking.  Tips such as questioning one's assumptions, using data where appropriate and finding innovative solutions can be found in the essays.  The contents are much inline with what I thought critical thinking is.  While HBR publications are for me like taking mini business modules, I do wonder about the applicability of the tips and tools in organisations where the culture is quite distinct from American business culture. 

Which leads me to a critical thinking module I took at an institute, where students were taught to use checklists to read an academic essay to judge its soundness and relevance.  Prior to that module, I was rather keen to understand how institutes are teaching critical thinking now, because it is a very important asset that equips students with, well, how to think critically, rather than merely regurgitating what they learnt in school.  It was rather disappointing to experience that critical thinking in that institute was merely about using checklists to read academic essays.  I hope that students from that institute do not go away thinking that THAT is all to critical thinking.