Analytical skills play a crucial role in growth, both an individual’s and an organization’s. Today, we live in a world driven by a beautiful amalgamation of technology and information. It enables exponential growth. But to achieve that, organizations must focus on developing analytical skills in their leaders and managers.
Let us take a step back here. What exactly are analytical skills, leaving aside the corporate jargon? How does it affect the day-to-day lives of a team? In the most basic sense, analytical skills are the ability to read, understand, and utilize a piece of information to make decisions. It goes in tandem with problem solving and decision making.
With organizations relying on information increasingly to make their processes more efficient and results more accurate, analytical skills have become essential in managerial candidates. They are assessed on the skills of deciphering patterns, brainstorming, data interpretation, theorizing, and making decisions based on the available data or information. For some problems, there are methodologies adopted universally while some require creative and critical thinking.
Now, let us look at the most essential analytical skills that your teams must have.
- Communication
Communicating effectively goes a long way in comprehending and organizing information. It helps in discussing your observations and patterns. Active listening is also an important part of communication. - Creativity
A creative outlook to the information available eases up the problem solving process. Furthermore, when it comes to an industry-wide problem, it also gives the organization a competitive edge. - Critical Thinking
Critical thinking involves analyzing the data with a certain proficiency in order to make a decision. It includes business analytics, correlation, benchmarking, data interpretation, and evaluating. - Data Analysis
Regardless of the project your team handles, they must be equipped with the skills and resources to capture and analyze a large volume of data. It includes reading, understanding, and organizing the data in a sensible format. Various methodologies are adopted for analyzing a given piece of information, ranging from SWOT, Credit & Cost Analysis, Industry Research, QA, ROI, etc. It depends on the desired outcome. - Research
The basis of good analysis is always solid research. Leverage experts and credible sources to fetch your information and data. Learn about the cause of the problem.
Next, comes the more difficult part. Developing these skills in your leaders and managers. While business schools take care of the necessary methodologies and techniques required to analyze data and organize information, it is the mindset that leaders must learn on how to approach the data in a creative and unique way, and the thinking pattern that could help them execute it more efficiently.
Here are a few ways to develop the analytical skills of your teams.
- Brainstorming
Make the teammates talk to each other and explain to one another what their observations are. Let them walk the rest of the team through their thinking process. It gets the creative juices flowing and helps people learn. - Case Studies
Let the teams read the case studies of problems solved by the organization previously, either by their own team or a cross-functional team. Then, make them explain in brief what made the other team solve the problem. - Play Immersive Games
Study suggests that games and simulations bring out the true behaviors of a person. It helps them look at things with a different perspective in a risk-free environment.
At SimuRise, we have developed the analytical skills of tens of thousands of corporate leaders across the world through game-based learning and business simulations. Our 90-min Analytical Skills workshop has been in high demand by organizations across several industries.
Essentially, we make them go through a highly engaging and challenging game on their computers. We follow the gameplay session with an elaborate debriefing tailored-fit to the organization’s requirements. And it has been a pleasure watching the magic unfold in front of our eyes every time we see them experience a mindset shift.
In addition to the multinational organizations inviting us for the workshops, we also empower other trainers and facilitators with the games and simulations in our portfolio. It allows them to conduct the programs for their clients, create a much stronger impact, and make more money.
If you would like to know more about the Analytical Skills workshop, write to us at marketing@simurise.com!
