Analytical abilities are the ability to analyze various life phenomena, not freely, but strictly using logical methods, abstracting from small, insignificant details. Often, people endowed with talents do not use them at all in their real lives, while less talented, but more persistent people, as a rule, achieve success. Analytical abilities are also a kind of talent, and it can be developed by giving yourself food for thought.
How to test your analytical skills?
In order to test how capable you are of independent analysis, often all you need to do is take an analytical ability test - any of those that you can find on the Internet. You can test yourself in an easier way.
In ordinary life, when analyzing reality, a person needs to consider all the circumstances in parts, separately from each other, compare the options, their pros and cons, and only after that make a general conclusion. You can test yourself by taking any educational text and working with it for 10-15 minutes.
The main technique for understanding educational text is the ability to ask questions about it. If your analytical skills are at a high level, then you can easily: break the text into semantic parts, formulate its general main idea and obtain some new knowledge from it. If you managed to do this easily, then you have mastered analytical activities, and if difficulties arise, then this area is worth developing.
How to develop analytical skills?
Now you can easily choose one of the training centers where they are ready to teach you not only analytical skills, but also success, entrepreneurial art and self-acceptance. At such a training, you will most likely be offered tasks for analytical skills, and in the form of a situation to which you need to quickly respond. Training in this way is interesting, easy and gives excellent results.
However, such a center cannot be found in every locality. You can independently come up with various controversial situations and find ways out of them, as well as imagine how they are likely to develop further. This is best done in pairs with a like-minded person, the effect will be better and it will be more interesting to do.
In addition, you can take a very simple route and solve logical problems, which also contribute well to the development of analytical skills. For example:
By solving problems regularly, you will easily develop the desired personality quality.
If the chosen profession corresponds to the mentality, a person reaches unprecedented heights in his career, it is easier for him to achieve goals, and his merits become more significant.
- Humanitarian. Before making a decision, a person first imagines everything and tries to feel it. Here, the emotional way predominates in understanding the world around us. When studying any phenomenon, an individual passes everything through himself. Those with a humanitarian mindset are more theorists than practitioners.
- Synthetic is a universal mindset. People, as a rule, have good abilities to comprehend both mathematical and humanities. The advantage may go in one direction, in which case it is necessary to pass a special aptitude test.
- Analytic mind. It is characterized by continuous mental work of the brain. Gives the ability to connect links into logical chains of the thought process and reason correctly.
Let's take a closer look at the latter.
Analytical mindset - what does it mean?
Analytical skills are the art of thinking logically and correctly expressing your ideas. A person with this type of thinking is able to collect all the facts, analyze them and lay out a chain from them leading to the correct conclusion, leading to the most accurate conclusion.
Analytical mindset - what is it? This is not just the ability to reason and express your opinion - you need to build a logical conclusion. Usually, a reflective person reacts emotionally to any twists of fate, using intuition, which does not obey logic. Emotions are different from logical scientific knowledge. An individual whose thoughts have a strong emotional coloring and is succumbing to instincts cannot arrange facts in the right direction without error. This is illogical thinking, hence the disparity of opinions about the same event.
No, this does not mean that people with analytical thinking are not susceptible to emotions and instinctive behavior. Their brains are designed in such a way that when making decisions, processing and analyzing facts, they do not use emotions and intuition. And yet, an analytical mindset - what does it mean?
Let's reveal the essence of the term
In simple words, it is a natural gift, but it can be developed. Just first you need to decide whether you need it. As a rule, an analytical mindset is necessary for people who are engaged in science, writing, medicine, various investigations, lawyers, accountants, political scientists, and so on. The product of their labor will be examined by other people, so the result must be flawless and error-free.
Thus, we have lifted the curtain on the question of what an analytical mindset means. Let's say you decide to develop these abilities, let's figure out how to do it. Or maybe they already exist? How to recognize them?
Analytical mindset - what does it mean and how to define it?
There are many tests. But you shouldn’t hope that there will be a 100% result, because, having a mathematical mind, you will successfully complete tasks with puzzles, but gaps in your knowledge of the Russian language will give a disappointing assessment of the level of your analytical abilities. There are no universal tests. It is better to seek help from a specialist who will help you understand this issue step by step.
Try to determine their presence using a simple practical exercise. It is necessary to take any text and try to break it into fragments, grasp the idea, recognize the intent of each part, and learn something new for yourself. If any difficulties arise during the training, analytical skills need to be developed.
How to do it?
In simple words, you need to train your brain. The left hemisphere is our logic and analytical abilities. Therefore, in order to strengthen it, you need to work on increasing the load on the right side of the body. These are physical exercises and, of course, solving various problems.
The right hemisphere is our emotions, intuition. Responsible for fantasy. And in order to develop this part, you need to include all thought processes when performing tasks.
You need to work every day. There are exercises that will help you build, trace and compare your thought process with the way of thinking of another person.
- After listening to your opponent’s opinion, which does not coincide with yours, try to mentally share his point of view and arrange events in such a way that the logical chain leads to conclusions similar to his conclusions. This way you can identify the rough edges in his presentation of the position, and perhaps you will find mistakes in your own.
- Analyze any situation. Come up with many options for getting out of it, several possible favorable solutions.
- Read novels and detective stories, where halfway through, try to figure out the criminal.
- Solve logical and mathematical problems, puzzles, puzzles, and crosswords. It's entertaining, exciting and useful.
- Watch educational TV programs, videos on the Internet on geography, history, and some scientific channels. Listen to political debates. Follow the dialogue, how the speech is structured, what arguments are given.
- Play chess, checkers, billiards.
A trained analytical mind is like a natural thought process in which you don’t have to strain your brain. There is no trace of any intellectual load. Then you can consider that you have acquired this unique gift.
What else will help in developing analytical skills?
There are a lot of special trainings that help with this. It offers models of situations from which you need to find a way out and propose a solution. And based on the answer, his behavior is corrected; the specialist works to develop thinking. The classes are interesting and relaxed.
Improvisation role-playing games are successfully practiced. There is no time to think about the decision. You need to describe your thoughts momentarily. After which a collective analysis is carried out.
If you can’t attend trainings, you can invite a friend with analytical thinking to visit and do the same exercise with him.
You can practice on your own in complete silence. It is necessary to project some situation in your thoughts and come up with ways out of it. After which you need to analyze your thought process and the actions performed in your imagination. You can practice with friends.
So, we have understood the concept of “analytical mindset” and what it means. Forgetful individuals who find it difficult to concentrate and complete a task need to develop their memory and improve mental activity.
How can we improve it? Expert advice:
- A healthy, full sleep is necessary, at least seven hours, and under heavy loads, you need to set aside time for rest during the day.
- You should not start the work process immediately after eating; a short break is necessary.
- Instead of a cup of coffee, it is better to do morning exercises. This is a charge of vivacity and energy.
- "Reminder". This exercise will allow you to use all types of memory if you constantly remember and scroll in your head, and also speak out loud, for example, a plan of affairs for the day.
Ability to analyze
In their resumes, all applicants indicate various skills and achievements, as well as personal characteristics. A popular point is having an analytical mind or analytical abilities. Unfortunately, not everyone realizes that these are two slightly different concepts. Fundamental differences:
Analytical abilities are the tendency to identify cause-and-effect relationships and establish a logical chain between various elements of information.
An analytical mindset is a feature of the human psyche. It makes it possible to demonstrate or develop abilities to perceive the environment. That is, those with an analytical mindset tend to analyze ongoing processes; most often these are people of technical professions.
Of course, you need to realize that there are abilities:
If we look at analytical skills from this perspective, it becomes obvious that all people are analytical. At the same time, a developed right hemisphere of the brain makes a person a humanitarian or a creative person. But the left gives an innate ability to be an analyst; such people are said to have an analytical mindset. Here you need to realize that every person can develop abilities for any activity.
For which specialists are analytical skills important?
To get a more complete answer to this question, just look at the requirements for candidates for various positions on the website bidbi.ru. Almost every company wants to see an employee with mental flexibility, organization, and analytical skills. This is most valued in professions such as:
Analysts or auditors;
Software specialists.
HR managers say that having analytical skills is indispensable for people who work with large amounts of information every day. Their role is to predict, analyze, and work through various situations. This mindset usually involves working with piles of paper documents (reports, summaries, invoices) or computer programs. Analysts have much less contact with clients.
Is it possible to build a career without such abilities?
Absolutely yes. For managers at various levels, self-improvement should be something familiar and mandatory. Absolutely everyone can develop analytical skills. The main thing is the pursuit of your goal, the presence of ambition and the readiness to learn.
Before developing any abilities, you need to check their availability. The best way to discover an analytical mind is a test. There are quite a lot of them on various Internet resources or in books. To develop analytical abilities, it is enough to try to establish cause-and-effect relationships of any action you perform. Ask yourself questions often:
“Why did I make this decision?”
“What are the consequences of my choice?”
“Could you have done it differently?”
“Did my decision have a positive impact on the work of the department, team, or company?”
Try to analyze your actions and actions. Over time, this will become a habit, and you will stop noticing how successfully you demonstrate your analytical abilities.
You can also attend various trainings from specialists in the field of psychology. Such actions will not be in vain, the result will be noticeable from the first lessons.
Should such personal qualities be included in a resume?
In fact, an experienced recruiter will immediately notice that this is a resume of a person with an analytical mind. In such a document, everything will be orderly and to the point, without unnecessary information that is in no way relevant. You need to directly report this only if this item is indicated in the requirements for a candidate for the position. If not, then the applicant must make the decision himself.
How to check whether a candidate for a position has analytical skills?
First of all, you should carefully review your resume. As mentioned above, it will be filled out clearly and structuredly, without errors, typos and other unnecessary details.
Assessment. A common practice during which the applicant is asked to solve a certain situation related to his future activities. While answering, the recruiter must monitor how the candidate builds a logical chain and whether he is confused in his actions, thoughts, and words. A person with an analytical mind will solve the problem, as they say, by putting everything “into order.”
Tests. A good, but not always effective way. For verification, various tests are used to check the level of intelligence, highlighting an extra object or word in a logical chain, and so on. However, this method does not provide a guaranteed result. You cannot do without additional questions, because the applicant simply will not be able to demonstrate his skills to the fullest.
Psycholinguistic analysis. The recruiter asks a question and carefully monitors the applicant’s speech. The answer should contain a complete sequence of actions, other possible solutions to the problem, and a conclusion.
Communication skills without analysis
You can often come across the opinion that personal qualities such as communication and analytical skills are incompatible. This is true to some extent. After all, analysts will not immediately say what they think. They initially form the answer in their heads, and only then voice it. Quite the opposite is the case with sociable people.
For companies, it is important that an applicant has both qualities. What should those who lack communication skills do? The answer is obvious - develop them. Rhetoric or public speaking courses will help a specialist develop such abilities. It is important to understand here that “learning” to speak as an analyst is much easier than becoming a creative person. These are exactly the opposite qualities. Good luck!
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Analytic skills
Analytical abilities are the ability to analyze various life phenomena, not freely, but strictly using logical methods, abstracting from small, insignificant details. Often, people endowed with talents do not use them at all in their real lives, while less talented, but more persistent people, as a rule, achieve success. Analytical abilities are also a kind of talent, and it can be developed by giving yourself food for thought.
How to test your analytical skills?
In order to test how capable you are of independent analysis, often all you need to do is take an analytical ability test - any of those that you can find on the Internet. You can test yourself in an easier way.
In ordinary life, when analyzing reality, a person needs to consider all the circumstances in parts, separately from each other, compare the options, their pros and cons, and only after that make a general conclusion. You can test yourself by taking any educational text and working with it for a minute.
The main technique for understanding educational text is the ability to ask questions about it. If your analytical skills are at a high level, then you can easily: break the text into semantic parts, formulate its general main idea and obtain some new knowledge from it. If you managed to do this easily, then you have mastered analytical activities, and if difficulties arise, then this area is worth developing.
How to develop analytical skills?
Now you can easily choose one of the training centers where they are ready to teach you not only analytical skills, but also success, entrepreneurial art and self-acceptance. At such a training, you will most likely be offered tasks for analytical skills, and in the form of a situation to which you need to quickly respond. Training in this way is interesting, easy and gives excellent results.
However, such a center cannot be found in every locality. You can independently come up with various controversial situations and find ways out of them, as well as imagine how they are likely to develop further. This is best done in pairs with a like-minded person, the effect will be better and it will be more interesting to do.
In addition, you can take a very simple route and solve logical problems, which also contribute well to the development of analytical skills. For example:
- Five diggers dig a 5 m ditch in 5 hours. How many diggers will it take to dig 100 m of a ditch in 100 hours? (ANSWER: the same amount).
- People who came to one village were often surprised by the local fool. When given a choice between a 50-cent coin and a five-dollar bill, he always chose the coin, even though it was worth ten times less than the bill. Why did he never choose a bill? (ANSWER: they would stop giving him money).
By solving problems regularly, you will easily develop the desired personality quality.
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Analytical skills and ways to develop them
What are analytical skills? When we consider that a person has an analytical mind, this implies that his reasoning is logical and structured. This kind of thinking allows you to collect all the facts received, analyze them, build a clear sequential chain and draw conclusions that in most cases will be correct. Thus, analytical skills are the talent to think logically.
Are analytical skills a gift of nature or the result of training?
Experienced teachers will say with confidence that the peculiarities of thinking appear in early childhood. Some kids enjoy composing fairy tales and fables, while others fall into a stupor when they hear the task of drawing a fantastic animal. At school, exact sciences (algebra, physics) are easy for an analyst, but in a literature lesson the teacher may be extremely dissatisfied with such a student. Analytical skills are the ability to calculate connections between objects and phenomena (even if they are not obvious), differentiate important and minor details, apply methods of deduction (from the general to the particular) and induction (vice versa, from the particular to the general).
Employers and HR specialists value the analytical mindset of job seekers. If a person has developed analytical skills, it is guaranteed that this will help him in the profession of a marketer, logistician, economist, IT specialist, etc. Of course, an analytical mind is a genetic feature of each individual person. But the skills of constructing a logical thought chain and analyzing any situation can and should be developed.
How to develop an analytical mind
To learn to think logically, constant training is necessary. Just as our body constantly requires physical activity, our brain needs “tasks.” You can use the training methods below. In any case, even if you practice for a few minutes every day, there is a chance to train your brain and develop the necessary skills.
Many people ask what results can be achieved, will a typical humanist be able to become a person with amazing analytical thinking? First of all, two factors need to be taken into account:
- level of skill development before the start of classes;
- potential (maximum level), which is determined by genetic characteristics.
You can’t jump over your head, but everyone can significantly improve logical thinking and unlock their natural potential. So how to develop analytical skills?
Step 1: Take Every Opportunity to Learn
When talking with people who have a different point of view from yours, try to arrange the available facts so that the resulting conclusions are similar to the conclusions of your opponent. Over time, you will learn to find inconsistencies in both your and other people's reasoning and come to the truth.
Analyze everything that happens to you. Imagine different options for the outcome of certain events depending on your action or inaction, imagine several options for the development of the situation.
Step 2. Practice
How to develop an analytical mind with the help of books? Read detective stories! Classic novels about Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, and Mrs. Marple are ideal for these purposes. Try to figure out the criminal together with the detective, building logical chains. Another fun way to develop analytical skills is to solve daily problems from the Fun Mathematics collections.
Step 3. Build logical chains
Set problems and try to solve them using logic. For example, the task: determine the number of preschool institutions in your city in 20 minutes, provided that you do not know the reliable answer to the question, and also will not use the Internet, reference books and the help of friends to solve this problem. Set problems and try to solve them using logic.
Possible solutions:
- city population;
- percentage of preschool children;
- percentage of children not attending preschool education;
- average number of children in the group;
- average number of groups in kindergarten;
- number of kindergartens in the city.
Standard algorithm for solving any problem
- Set a goal.
- Gather as much information as possible.
- Identify primary connections.
- Anticipate options for the development of events, create a working hypothesis.
- Test your hypothesis.
- Take action.
People with an analytical mindset are distinguished by their ability to solve a large number of logical problems without experiencing much intellectual stress. If building algorithms and establishing connections between objects has become fun for you, rather than hard mental work, consider that you have developed analytical abilities. The video shows some exercises.
Development of analytical skills
What are analytical skills? Is it possible to develop them? How are analytical skills used in solving practical problems? How to improve the efficiency of work that requires an analytical approach? We will consider these questions in this article, the main goal of which is to outline specific steps and identify tools that will help you do your work faster and better, applying and developing your analytical skills.
Let's start by defining the concepts.
Analysis (analytical approach) is:
Isolating and studying the essential parts that have the most noticeable impact on the subject/phenomenon/problem under consideration
Ignoring irrelevant details
Determining the relationships between the identified significant components
Analytical skills - the ability to apply an analytical approach to solve specific problems.
The need to apply analytical skills in such activities as science, education, product and technology development, and strategic planning is probably beyond any doubt. Are these skills needed, for example, for a marketing specialist or a customer service manager?
Let's look at this example.
The customer service department receives a complaint from customer “A”:
“We ordered 20 packages of product “X”, but only 15 were delivered to us.”
The department manager checks order and shipment information and determines whether the product is in stock. Yes, that’s right - an order for 20 packages, 15 were delivered, the product is in stock. The manager apologizes to the client and agrees on the terms of additional delivery. Problem solved.
The customer service department receives a complaint from customer “B”:
“We ordered product ‘X’ and they delivered product ‘Y’.”
The department manager checks order and shipment information. Yes, everything is correct - product “X” was ordered, “Y” was delivered. The manager apologizes to the client and agrees on the terms of additional delivery. Problem solved.
In both cases, the problem was resolved quickly and the client was “more or less” satisfied.
And no analytical skills were required. Right? Correct, but not quite.
The “operative” solution to the problem shown may be effective in the short term. But such an approach, which does not take into account the causes of the problem, turns out to be completely untenable in the long term. With this model of work, our manager will be doomed to constantly correct errors in the supply department. While the use of an analytical approach will help him understand and eliminate the causes of these errors. This will lead to a reduction in the number of complaints and an increase in the quality of service.
Thus, in any type of activity, the use of analytical skills allows you to find solutions to a problem that eliminate the very cause of its occurrence.
Is it possible to develop analytical skills? Yes, just like any other skill.
Of course, there are two factors to consider here:
The person's current level of skill development
The limiting level of skill development (potential), set genetically
The greater the gap between these two levels, the more effective efforts to develop the skill will be.
We will look at two main approaches to developing analytical skills and, accordingly, increasing the effectiveness of analytical activities:
rice. 1. Two approaches to developing analytical skills
The function of exercises can be performed by any professional tasks that you solve using an analytical approach. This could be budgeting, sales analysis, assortment planning.
Of course, formal exercises can also be used to develop analytical skills. For example, one of the exercises we use in training is “Logical Chain”:
Exercise “Logical chain”
Assignment: determine the number of secondary schools in your city.
Time to complete - 20 minutes.
You need to create a logical chain, the links of which will be information stored in your memory or data derived from it. You cannot use any additional sources (books, reference books, magazines, the Internet, TV, calling a friend). Moreover, it is better to create not one chain, but several, and compare the resulting estimates.
Possible chain option:
City population
What percentage of the total population are school-age children?
Average number of students per class
Average number of classes in school
Number of schools in the city
And, of course, the classic version of exercises for developing analytical skills is business cases.
As can be seen from Fig. 1, competent use of tools allows you to dramatically enhance your natural abilities and achieve outstanding results.
We will begin our review of tools with the Situation Analysis Algorithm.
Algorithm for analyzing a problem situation:
Goal, performance criteria
Model of the situation: key factors, relationships
Solutions options - Working hypothesis
Hypothesis testing - Information
Let's discuss the elements of the algorithm in more detail.
1 Purpose, performance criteria
Before you start researching a situation, you need to determine what the purpose of this research is and what result you want to get. At this stage, it is important not only to formulate a goal, but also to understand what the criteria for its implementation are, to determine with the help of which indicators you can find out how successfully the task is being accomplished.
Company X is engaged in the production and sale of products Y.
The company is on the verge of bankruptcy - the number of clients has decreased, sales volume has decreased, and there are not enough funds in the accounts for current expenses.
The purpose of the analysis: to understand the reasons for the current situation, to determine the actions necessary to bring the company out of the crisis.
Criteria for achieving the goal: the planned steps must provide certain planned indicators for such parameters as:
Cash flow
At this stage, you perform the first operation specified in the definition of the analytical approach - “dividing an object, phenomenon, problem into its component parts.”
For company “X” from our example, the following components can be distinguished:
Now you should move on to collecting information describing the problem situation, structuring it according to the identified areas.
A tool that will be very useful at this stage is the MECE principle.
MECE principle - Mutually Exclusive, Collectively Exhaustive
(Mutually Exclusive, Jointly Exhaustive - WISI).
This principle requires that the components that you highlight when analyzing a problem satisfy two conditions:
There should be no intersections between the parts (they should be mutually exclusive)
If you put all the parts together, the problem will be described completely (the parts are jointly comprehensive)
3 Situation model: key factors, relationships
The goal of this stage is to create a simplified model of the problem situation and move from the chaos of a huge number of facts with uncertain relationships to a system with a small number of understandable patterns.
From the variety of collected facts, you are required to highlight the most important ones from the point of view of completing the assigned tasks. Key factors are the factors that have the greatest impact on the criteria for achieving the goal (in our example, this is the impact on turnover, profit and cash flow).
4 Solutions options -> Working hypothesis
After building a model of a problem situation, you are ready to begin searching for solutions that will lead to achieving your goal.
For example (for company “X”):
Increased turnover can be achieved by expanding the range, reducing prices, improving product quality, expanding distribution, increasing advertising support, etc.
Each solution option must take into account all the criteria for achieving the goal, that is, in our case, in addition to increasing turnover, the conditions for increasing profits and optimizing cash flow must be met.
From several solution options, the one that best satisfies all the given criteria should be selected as a working hypothesis.
5 Hypothesis testing -> Information
At this stage, you assume that the working hypothesis you have chosen is the optimal solution to improve the situation. How can I check this? You need to start collecting and processing information again to confirm or refute the assumptions on which your chosen solution is based.
If the data you obtained in the previous step matches your expectations, the working hypothesis becomes the result of your analysis - you have identified a set of actions that should lead to achieving the goal. The final test of your recommendations will be putting them into practice and monitoring key parameters (turnover, profit, cash flow).
If the data obtained does not meet your expectations, you should return to step 4 (Solution options -> Working hypothesis), again consider possible options, formulate the next working hypothesis and move further along the algorithm.
Another tool that increases the efficiency of analytical work.
The SWOT analysis technique was proposed by Professor Kenneth Andrews in 1963.
The abbreviation stands for as follows:
The subject of a SWOT analysis can be a company, a working group, a proposed solution, etc.
rice. 2. SWOT analysis factors
Strengths and Weaknesses are internal characteristics of an organization that it can influence.
Internal factors include:
Opportunities and Threats are related to the characteristics of the external environment; the organization cannot directly influence them.
External factors include:
SWOT analysis provides you with a ready-made structure for your research.
In fact, two main operations specified in the definition of the analytical approach have already been performed:
Dividing an object, phenomenon, problem into its component parts
Identification of essential parts that have the most noticeable impact on the subject/phenomenon/problem under consideration
All you need to do is fill the proposed structure with specific data and analyze the resulting model.
A convenient tool for visualizing the entire analysis process and especially the stage of identifying key factors and relationships.
An example of a Logical Tree is shown in Fig. 3.
You start building it from top to bottom, placing the goal of analysis in the topmost rectangle. Accordingly, each next level of the tree consists of directions/actions that contribute to achieving the goal.
rice. 3. Logical tree
The number of levels for each branch of the tree is determined by the level of detail you need. By building a logical tree, you will receive not only a visual model for analysis, but also a ready-made diagram for presenting its results.
In this article, we briefly examined two approaches to developing analytical skills and increasing the effectiveness of analytical activities.
Of course, the tools we talked about are only a small part of what is successfully used in the analysis process.
You can learn more about this topic on the website www.colloquium.ru
Ethan Rasiel, "The McKinsey Method." Moscow, Alpina Business Books, 2005
Analytical skills are one of the key ones. There is a ton of information everywhere and it is growing exponentially. Even if your field of activity is not related to this, the skill will be useful to every person. In addition to direct benefits, it brings indirect benefits: it develops memory and logic. These two parameters are called one of the first when it comes to mental abilities. Today, it is important for any person to be able to effectively cope with incoming information and draw the right conclusions.
Not all ways to develop analytical skills will be of interest to you personally. However, you can choose the ones that are most suitable and practice them every day.
Solve math problems
This is one of the best ways to improve your analytical skills. Mathematics is very logical and mathematical problems and problems are structured.
- Solve problems involving mental arithmetic.
- Do this every day.
- Solve problems from everyday life and do not use a calculator.
- Go through to level up these skills.
Love brain games
These games will help improve your brain skills. Plus, it's fun, which means you'll get even more benefits from the exercises.
- Download to your phone or tablet.
- Solve crosswords, sudoku and logic puzzles.
- Play chess.
Join a discussion club or reading group
A competent discussion of a certain topic helps improve logical and analytical abilities, as well as develop critical thinking.
A book club is a great way to discuss the same book. It’s great when one text allows you to draw several very different conclusions. After all, debating is also a skill that helps develop analytical skills.
Create a large database
The more you read, study and absorb, the larger your database of information to work with when needed.
- Read a wide variety of literature: philosophy, science, religion, fiction.
- Attend lectures and conferences.
- Sign up for training classes in your city.
Take time to think
Building a database is a great strategy, but it is not enough. You need to take time to digest all the information and reflect on what you have learned. Most people who strive to improve themselves read a lot, but never stop and analyze what they read.
- Remember in detail what the book or article was about.
- Consider several ways to solve one problem. Why is one method better than another? Prove your point.
- Avoid the simplest solution. Often it turns out to be true, but do not deny yourself the pleasure of thinking about the problem deeper and more carefully.
Expand your worldview
This process must not stop. Accustom yourself to the fact that you need to expand your worldview every day.
- Think about other ways of understanding the world. Consider it from a political, philosophical, scientific and religious point of view.
- Try to understand points of view that you often ignore.
- Surround yourself with people who are different from you.
Look for connections
Undoubtedly, many things in our daily life are connected with each other. By understanding and establishing these connections, you can realize a lot of things and draw reasonable conclusions.
- Think about things in terms of cause and effect. Are you absolutely sure what is first and what is second? Sometimes what is considered an effect is actually a cause and vice versa.
- Think about the similarity of things and events, look for analogies, come up with ideas.
- Think about human history. What cycles, patterns and trends are you noticing?
Pay attention to details
You need to know the big picture, but without understanding the details, you cannot draw correct conclusions or weigh the pros and cons. Constantly move between a specific event and the situation as a whole.
We wish you good luck!
In people with a penchant for analysis the upper eyelid is slightly lowered. In people with a tendency to act instantly the upper eyelid is barely visible.
This was, for example, Andrew Jackson, who defeated the British in the fleeting battle of New Orleans with the help of pirates. His portrait appears on the twenty dollar bill.
These people can perfectly understand for themselves and explain to others the possible causes and consequences of certain events.
A person with weakly expressed analytical abilities, more impetuous, as a rule, rushes ahead, without making it too difficult for himself to think. Such people make good nurses or orderlies - they rush forward and pull a wounded person out of a car that is ready to explode, without wondering how it was possible to have an accident at a speed of 25 km per hour.
Strong analytical skills
Weak analytical skills
How to deal with people with an analytical mind?
Before asking them to do anything, give them all the background information.
They only need to explain something once.
Analytic mind
With people prone to instant action, you need to behave as follows:
Don't irritate them with lengthy explanations.
Expect a quick, immediate response from them.
Try to take advantage of the fact that such people will go ahead until they get what they want (although sometimes this may seem ruthless).
Weak analytical skills.
Charm.
Those with clear, sparkling eyes attract anyone to them. They are always lively and energetic.
People with dull eyes most likely lead a dull life, and it’s not interesting to be around them.
Fortunately, this trait is one that you can develop in yourself. Look at yourself in the mirror and think about what you love most, and your eyes will immediately sparkle. You will see that they radiate charm, magnetism, charm. After all, our eyes are the “mirror of the soul.”
It is good to appoint such people to positions where you need to have the gift of getting along with other people.
What to do if a person does not have charm and charisma?
Be glad it's not you.
When going to him, take a good book with you.
Such people “bloom” if you talk to them about what they love.
6. Seriousness.
In the life of every person there is a place for both the funny and the tragic, but serious people with deep-set eyes They seem to only see the serious side of everything. They take themselves just as seriously. Those around them feel this and try to place responsibility on them, despite their age. Such people take life very seriously. They love to enjoy other people's humor more than to make them laugh themselves.
Don't expect any humor.
Set serious goals.
Rely on his sense of responsibility.
People whose eyes are shallow are more relaxed, animated and less focused. Almost all of them are carefree and much easier to change the everyday mood to a festive one.
Your jokes will resonate.
You can behave more freely.
Concern.
Concern is evident in the gaze. When something puts pressure on a person, he feels uneasy, you can notice a “glassy look.” The eyes may also be bloodshot and inflamed. The skin and eyes are dry and shiny.
Don't take his actions to heart.
Wait with your suggestions for a while.
Do everything in your power to help this person get out of this state, be courteous.
The opposite state - complete agreement with oneself and relaxation - is manifested in a calm, pleasant look, the eyelids are slightly moistened. 
8. Prone to accidents. 
One can observe a certain relationship between the predisposition to accidents and the fact that the axis of one gaze is higher than the axis of gaze of the other.
Be extra careful when driving, etc.
Melancholy.
A sad, melancholic look occurs when a strip of protein is visible under the iris. This indicates that this person has some unresolved problem.
Give him the opportunity to unwind. Tell me who could help.
You shouldn't expect genuine fun from him.
You should not hire such a person or start an affair with him until he solves his problems; otherwise his problems will become yours too.
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Page creation date: 2016-02-13
Most employers highly value candidates' analytical ability, and for some positions, having this quality is a primary requirement. Not everyone is born with an analytical mindset, but everyone has analytical abilities to one degree or another, and, if desired, they can develop them independently.
In the “Personal Qualities” column of their resume, applicants quite often indicate the presence of analytical abilities/an analytical mindset. Moreover, they do not always realize what difference exists between these two concepts. Analytical abilities - a person’s tendency to identify significant connections and relationships between various elements of information. An analytical mindset is an ability of the human psyche that allows him to demonstrate and develop the ability to analytically perceive the surrounding reality. Anna Luzina, company HR manager RU-CENTER, believes that analytical abilities presuppose a person’s ability to analyze a specific situation and build a holistic image of it, and for people with an analytical mindset, the process of analysis occurs constantly, which is why they most often have a technical education.
All people are capable of analysis to one degree or another; this is a property of our thinking.
Any ability, innate or acquired, is, first of all, a person’s predisposition to something, certain inclinations. From this point of view, all people are capable of analysis to one degree or another; this is a property of our thinking. But at the same time, not everyone has an analytical mind. Scientists have found that if the right one is dominant of the two hemispheres of the brain, then the emotional sphere predominates in a person, and if the left one is dominant, the analytical one. This is a congenital trait.
According to Pavel Tsypin, HR manager of the agency Vanguard PR, the analytical mindset is a more global and “psychological” phenomenon that characterizes a born scientist, analyst. Analytical abilities are something local, something that almost every person has and differs only in the degree of development. You can talk about low, medium or high analytical abilities, but you either have an analytical mind or you don’t.
“Catch” the recruiter’s attention
You can determine to what extent a person is capable of analysis already at the stage of getting to know his resume. As a rule, people with an analytical mindset can clearly see the structure of their resume, all logical connections are spelled out, there is a certain “order” in the presentation of information, and there is no “extra” information in any section. Everything is directed and sharpened to achieve a single goal - to attract the attention of the recruiter and receive an invitation to an interview.
In the cover letter that is attached to the response to the vacancy, such applicants, having analyzed and correlated the description of the open position and their own competencies, competently present their professional achievements and skills, mentioning in passing their weaknesses. This allows them to stand out from other candidates.
Do you have analytical skills? Prove it!
The process of interviewing applicants in most companies follows this pattern: first, the candidate’s compliance with the minimum requirements of the vacancy is confirmed, then his professional skills and competencies are clarified. “The analytical mind is very difficult to define, let alone measure. It can be confused with erudition, or it may not be noticed at all due to the applicant’s anxiety,” states Elena Gubanova, business trainer 3R Recruitment Company. During an interview, some specialists may present themselves ineffectively. Therefore, to identify an analytical mindset, recruiters use a number of special tools:
- conducting an assessment
- use of various tests
- psycholinguistic analysis
Candidates are asked to solve a non-standard problem or play out a situational case, and then are asked to explain how they came to the final solution, that is, they conduct a short assessment.
A person can have synthetic thinking - both communication and analytical abilities are well developed.
Tatiana Fedorova, HR Director Moscow School of Management "Skolkovo", asks candidates to solve a typical problem. Based on the answer, you can check several aspects of having an analytical mind or analytical skills. Firstly, what type of data does the applicant choose for analysis, secondly, how does he structure it to obtain a result, and thirdly, what conclusions does he draw based on this information. Ivanova Yulia, recruitment agency consultant "VIZAVI Consult", says: “The most common way to test a candidate’s analytical abilities during an interview is the Case Interview. Case types are standardized. When a candidate answers questions, it is necessary to pay attention to the sequence of construction of phrases, the structure of conclusions and conclusions, and the presence of “stucks”. You can ask the candidate to solve several logical problems, and then ask him to explain the options for solving them. Thus, we will be able to trace the candidate’s logical chain of reasoning, evaluate the vision of the task as a whole, the ability to sort things out, the absence/presence of a holistic vision, and so on.”
Some recruiters use tests in their work to identify the analytical abilities of candidates (for example, the Amthauer test (for intelligence level), highlighting an extra word in a chain, etc.). However, not all employers are inclined to trust the results of test tasks. According to Nadezhda Bobrova, director of the human resources department of an international automobile holding "Atlant-M"(St. Petersburg), firstly, tests cannot give a 100% forecast, secondly, the candidate at the interview is in a state of stress (to one degree or another), therefore, he will not be able to fully demonstrate his abilities, which will be revealed, for example, during an internship.
Maxim Lukichev, executive director of an IT company "Prime Group", says: “The presence of an analytical mind and analytical skills can be tested by asking the candidate to talk about his previous work experience: his previous position and responsibilities can clearly demonstrate the presence of these qualities.” Some recruiters closely monitor the applicant’s speech, the sequence of phrase construction, the structure of conclusions and conclusions, highlighting defining moments of the career path, reaction to “inconvenient” questions, as well as the speed of answers to questions and the pace of speech. Thus, they use psycholinguistic analysis to identify the candidate’s ability to analyze the situation as a whole, set priorities and systematize information.
Communication or analytical skills
There is an opinion that people who are prone to constant analysis suffer from a lack of communication skills, since before expressing their opinion on something, they need some time to build in their minds several options for the possible development of events in order to choose the most, in their opinion, suitable. And conversations with people, especially with clients and partners, require quick reactions and “lively” communication.
Employers highly value applicants' analytical skills.
Pavel Tsypin, like most experts, believes that from a psychological point of view, communication skills and analytical abilities are not mutually exclusive qualities. Communication skills can be developed - it is enough, for example, to take a course in rhetoric. Svetlana Giatsintova, HR director of the company "I-Teco", says: “Of course, a person may have more pronounced either analytical or communication abilities. But this does not mean at all that if you have analytical skills, you lack communication skills. In modern psychology there is a concept - synthetic thinking, which means that a person has highly developed both qualities.” A striking example is marketers who, along with the ability to collect, analyze and process information about the market, need the ability to effectively communicate with the public and clients. Or recruiters, who, on the one hand, must analyze information about the labor market and its individual sectors, and on the other, interview candidates and negotiate with client companies.
According to Nadezhda Bobrova, if a person has good communication skills and knows how to establish positive connections with the external environment, then he often also has analytical abilities, since he knows how to identify and select the necessary and significant (to achieve specific goals) methods of communication. The expert believes that “it is more likely to separate analytics and creativity, since these are polar categories. When thinking outside the box, we can talk about the creativity of the employee. An analytical mindset presupposes the presence of administrative abilities, which is contrary to creativity, and analytical abilities are also present in creative people, but to a lesser extent.”
Who needs analytical skills?
Employers highly value applicants' analytical skills. In many job advertisements, this quality is required along with mental flexibility, attention to detail, a systematic approach to work, observation, and high organization. According to experts, all these qualities are most valued among managers, specialists working in the field of sales, in particular sales development, IT specialists, marketers, economists, analysts, logisticians, and consultants.
Svetlana Giatsintova believes that analytical skills are required, first of all, for specialists working with large volumes of information. These people must be able to collect, structure and analyze data, predict and model various situations, taking into account the influence of various components, and assess their significance for any events. However, intuition plays a very important role, that is, the ability to use accumulated experience.
An analytical mindset involves more communication with computer programs and paper documents than with people. It also happens, however, that a person has worked in client-oriented positions for many years, and then realized that this is not exactly what he wants to do. As well as vice versa.
A career without analytical ability
Most managerial positions require managers to have analytical skills and a penchant for long-term planning. If you want to achieve career heights and take a leadership position, then you simply need to develop them.
However, Pavel Tsypin believes that career growth is possible without pronounced analytical abilities, for example, in the humanitarian field. But, of course, not where they are primary: in top management or in the financial field. In addition, with some effort, you can develop these qualities in yourself - if you have motivation.
Svetlana Giatsintova is of the following opinion: if a specialist does not have analytical skills, but strives for career growth, he should consider positions where the manager is required to be able to take responsibility, quickly make decisions, quickly switch from one task to another, and so on.
As a rule, if you want to achieve career heights and take a leadership position, then you simply need to develop analytical skills.
“Career growth in itself implies professional improvement, which means a conscious need to master new areas and develop new competencies. So why not develop your analytical skills? Of course, you don’t need to sit down to textbooks that are distracted from business. There's simply no time for this. But it’s enough just to accustom yourself to think about the causes and consequences of this or that action or decision every time, says Anastasia Shupletsova, recruitment consultant, recruitment agency Delogys Group. - Even if you do not have a penchant for analytical skills, career growth is still possible; when positioning you, you need to focus on other personal qualities. And it’s unlikely that you will want to engage in strategy and analysis, because we usually like what we do best.”
How to develop analytical skills?
Experts say that if you have enough desire, you can “move mountains.” Developing the ability to analyze incoming information is a completely realistic and achievable goal. At the moment, many training centers offer programs for the development of analytical abilities, but it often turns out that life itself becomes the best “teacher” in their development. According to Maxim Lukichev, “to develop the ability to analyze, you need to immerse yourself in various situations and try to find ways out of them.”
Tatiana Menshova, business coach at 3R Recruitment Company, believes: “If a person managed to obtain a financial and economic specialization and began to manage first one and then several parallel business processes, this means that he is actively developing his thinking process. Playing checkers, chess, computer games, mastering a complex musical instrument, learning a foreign language, especially English, presuppose the presence of analytical thinking and contributes to its development.”
