Leading An Accounting Firm

4Critical Thinking: Creating Your Future

“Begin challenging your own assumptions. Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in awhile, or the light won’t come in.”

~ ALAN ALDA

Most people take thinking for granted; they give it no thought or time. But without training in thinking and logic, you can’t be thinking at your best. For the best leaders, making time to think is crucial to success. Microsoft founder Bill Gates says in his book Business @ the Speed of Thought, “Twice a year, I set aside all other issues to concentrate on the most difficult technical and business problems.”

In John Maxwell’s book, Thinking for a Change: 11 Ways Highly Successful People Approach Life and Work, he makes a convincing case that the ability to think sets man apart from other living things. The power of thinking lets you create your own destiny. You can choose to succeed through good, skilled thinking or be a failure by leaving this potent power untapped. Maxwell cites his “thinking chair,” where he regularly invests time in deep thought, with orders to everyone to not disturb him while he is in this chair.

Maxwell reasons that great thinking has to be cultivated and refined. He argues that you can become a great thinker only if you are willing to learn how to do it. His book reveals a number of ways of thinking that you can employ to change your life for the better.

For some busy leaders who get caught up in the daily urgency of partner, staff member, client, and ...