Commentary: UB Viewpoint - Help employees make smart decisions

How many times have you declared in frustration to someone who works for you, Why didn't you think before you did that?

Poor decisions and ill-advised actions cost organizations untold millions of dollars and lost productivity.

Seeing what happened to Howard Dean in Iowa, it could even cost someone an election.

Sadly, too many people - analysts, managers, salespeople, front- line employees and even policy makers - have not learned how to think critically. Their professional education has failed them.

Education seems to be more and more focused on practical skills and prescriptions for action, rather than on developing the intellectual capability to think logically and make smart decisions through analysis, judgment and decisiveness.

Is all hope lost? I think not, if we encourage adults to pursue lifelong learning through liberal arts education.

Originally, students learned critical thinking by studying the lessons of history, philosophy and literature. Today it's different.

The University of Baltimore Yale Gordon College of Liberal Arts, like other liberal arts colleges across the nation, has developed a vibrant new generation of innovative programs and teaching methods which do not assume that analytical capability automatically emerges as students take courses.

Faculty members have designed new curricula and both online and face-to-face teaching strategies to develop strong analytical and communications skills.

The focus is on making sense of complexity and on learning how to both find and use evidence and apply knowledge to new problems and unscripted solutions.

Integrative and culminating learning through capstone courses and field studies provide reality-based proof of intellectual capability at both the undergraduate and graduate levels.

Additionally, intellectual capability and critical thinking are applied to important community problems and issues to develop social and civic responsibility using internships, service learning and field-based projects.

Diversity and global movements - both in and out of class - help students to cross boundaries to communicate effectively and work collaboratively and act interdependently, all if which are important skills for success in today's organizations.

What can you do to help yourself and your employees make smarter decisions and fewer costly mistakes?

Encourage the pursuit of lifelong learning through the innovative liberal arts programs of today.

We are expected to live 20 to 30 years longer than the past generation. Most of us will extend our work lives in order to afford these additional golden years.

To live productively requires us to extend our intellectual capability and our knowledge of the world around us, and to apply it to the betterment of our society, our work and our personal lives.

Support tuition reimbursement for liberal arts education, reward those who continue their education to attain undergraduate and graduate degrees and take time to learn the importance of a broad- based liberal education.

Larry Thomas is the interim dean of the University of Baltimore Yale Gordon College of Liberal Arts and professor and chair of the Department of Government and Public Administration. He is a recognized authority in administrative law, public management, program evaluation and performance measurement.

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