To accurately record minutes, it’s essential to think critically and respond quickly. Minutes should document the factual elements of the meeting, remaining free from personal biases or judgments. While we could dedicate an entire session to critical thinking, here are some foundational concepts.
Critical thinking involves the mental process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analysing, synthesizing, and evaluating information to arrive at conclusions. Essentially, it requires using a systematic approach to examine a problem, explore multiple alternatives, and select the most effective solution.
Let’s look at a simple example. You’re working on a project with a team of co-workers. You are at lunch one day when one of them comes up to you in a complete panic and says, “I’ve heard that the CEO isn’t happy about our approach! If we don’t change course, we’ll all be fired soon!”
A non-critical thinker might accept this statement at face value and react. A critical thinker would look at the different parts of their co-worker’s statement and evaluate it objectively, considering both the statement’s correctness and relevance.
One of the key ideas behind critical thinking is logic. If your argument is logical, a reasonable person should be able to follow your line of thinking and reach the same conclusion – or at least see how you got there.
Let’s take an example. Suppose that I give you these two statements:
- All fruit is good for you.
- Apples are fruit.
What conclusion would you come to? Apples are good for you. Even if you disagree, you should be able to see how I arrived at my conclusion. (A good critical thinker, however, would want to see some proof for those two statements!)
