Part 1 – Why is critical thinking important to a CPA organization?

It is easy for organizations to decide to focus on innovation within their firm but it is not easy to figure out how and what innovation strategy to follow. To want more innovation you need to develop your employees and this is when critical thinking and creativity come into view.

CPAs these days don’t just look for employees who are good with numbers, they also want someone who is good at decision making and problem solving and to get this skill instilled into their employees, bosses need to help their staff to become critical thinkers.

What is critical thinking?

Critical thinking as defined by the National Council for Excellence in Critical Thinking, 1987:

“The 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.”

Why is critical thinking important to a CPA organization?

Critical thinkers are the world’s best problem solvers. The AICPA lists “critical thinking skills” as one of the core competencies for CPAs and means that CPAs are great at strategic and critical thinking. But what about their employees? Studies have found that more than 55% of HR respondents think their employees lack the adequate critical skills needed. In a survey TalentLens, a Pearson business which publishes scientific assessments that are used globally to hire and develop the 21st century workforce, asked people the most important skill their employees will need in the next five years and found that critical thinking ranked as the highest – surpassing innovation and technical knowledge.

An intellectually evolved staff will improve the quality of work, will deliver it faster with little or no errors, thus resulting in happier clients for you, meaning more business.

Good decision making requires focus on relevant information and employees who are adept at thinking utilize critical thinking skills.

When employees are adept at critical thinking, they:

Follow organizations guidelines and respect goals
Become better at time management and prioritize even if they work on multiple projects
They collaborate better with their team
Have better research skills and are willing to come up with alternative solutions
Think flexibly, consider and explore multiple perspectives and think broadly about who else might be affected by the decision
Become more productive
Make assumptions due to which they are less likely to make mistakes
Don’t fall for generalization and avoid logical fallacies

It is important CPAs consider instilling critical thinking in their employees sooner rather than later as this creates a capable workforce.

We have told you the reasons why critical thinking is important to a CPA organization, to know on how do you make your employees better critical thinker read part 2.

Originally published Mar 18, 2018 12:03:00, updated Mar 17 2023

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