Why critical thinking matters more than ever

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February 10, 2026 | 12:00am

Every now and then, an inspiring story comes out on the Internet that’s magnetically shared by people with breathless clickbait like “Must read!” or “This will change your life.”

Take the case of this 40-year-old unemployed man who applied for a janitorial post at a large multinational, only to be rejected because he didn’t have an email or social media presence.

Crushed but determined, he used his last ten dollars to buy apples, sold them door to door and — through grit, hustle and a plotline worthy of Netflix — he became the owner of the biggest fruit warehouse in his locality. When he tried to get a fire insurance for the warehouse, a sales agent asked him for his email address, and he delivered the punchline:

“If I had an email address, I’d still be cleaning toilets!”

It’s a wonderful story. Inspiring. Humorous. But untrue. This untrue story continues to circulate because it carries powerful lessons about opportunity, reinventions and the surprising ways success sometimes happens to people who are determined to succeed not because of technology, but because of its absence.

Critical thinking

Now, let me test your critical thinking skill. Without such skill, anyone could be easily misled by the workers, other managers, customers and other people. So, what did you miss from this story? What makes it fictional?

One, many companies, especially multinationals hire their janitors through a service provider that has the expertise, experience and complete equipment to do the job.

Two, job applicants don’t get past security without being challenged. Normally, they’re flagged down at the door after phoning HR.

Besides, in this high-technology environment, HR people don’t entertain job applicants in a face-to-face set-up, at least for the first two steps of the hiring process for efficiency and security reasons.

Three, even if a multinational has a vacancy for a toilet cleaner, these roles are informally filled through referrals.

Four, for a non-desk job like that, employers would settle for the applicant’s mobile numbers. And five, what’s the use of an email when some people who can’t afford smart phones would settle with the old Nokia 3210? However, beneath this uplifting story lies a strange modern anxiety.

Why are we too technology-dependent to validate a person’s worth?

Now, you may know what I’m driving at. As you may imagine, critical thinkers don’t accept anything offered to them.

They ask questions before offering answers or accepting a situation. They tend to separate facts from opinions. Also, they resist false dilemmas. And they would change their mind as soon as they see foolproof evidence.

Here’s a workplace problem: You’re an operations manager of a manufacturing plant. A long-time machine operator who is one of the consistently, high-performing workers is asking for a work-from-home set-up to care for an aging parent. It’s the first time you encountered such request. It’s difficult because all the materials, tools and equipment that everyone is using is located in the factory.

You’ll risk losing this valuable employee if you say no. What do you do? Of course, you’ll weigh all consequences. Can you identify competing values like being fair versus being compassionate versus results? What’s the possibility of its adverse effect against team morale and precedent?

Do you acknowledge uncertainty instead of forcing a neat answer? A critical thinking boss might say: “I’m torn between being fair and keeping a high-flyer. I want to study this carefully.”

Critical thinkers usually ask these questions:

Overall, what’s the invisible information in this problem? What’s the evidence? What are your pro and con biases with the concerned worker? How can you explain your decision to the team? What would convince you that you’re wrong?

What assumptions are you making?

If you can’t give a convincing answer to these questions, then that’s a red flag or you may have found the critical thinking ceiling.

The solution

Critical thinking skills can give you fewer knee-jerk reactions; clearer trade-offs and less drama, more logic. A highly-skilled critical thinker doesn’t avoid mistakes. Rather, they avoid repeating them. If you would want to reduce mistakes in decision-making, you have to slow down on thinking when speed feels tempting.

Going back to our story, most hiring managers would remark – “if you don’t have an email, you don’t exist!” It sounds exaggerated, but that’s the truth. In today’s corporate world, the email address has become a digital passport. No email? No job application, no onboarding, no pay slips.

This dependency creates a blind spot. We forget that millions of people earn an honest living without keyboards, cloud drives or inboxes overflowing with unread newsletters. Skills are not distributed by Wi-Fi signal strength.

And an email address doesn’t automatically make a person reliable, professional or capable. If it did, spam bots would be running Fortune 500 companies. So, what’s my answer to the predicament of the factory manager? Can a machine operator work from home? The answer is no but you don’t have to be rigid. You can change or deconstruct the worker’s job.

The better question is not whether the job can be done remotely, but which parts truly require physical presence. And which can shift to analysis, planning, documentation or problem-solving. A time-bound reassignment, say three months, turns an emotional request into a workable decision, provided performance metrics are clear from the start.

Rey Elbo is a quality and productivity enthusiast. Email your story to [email protected] or DM Facebook, LinkedIn, X or via https://reyelbo.com. Anonymity is guaranteed even to those without an email.