Fireware-Essentials thinking - Fireware Essentials Updated: 2024

Cultivating critical thinking skills should be a top priority for any business that wants to succeed in today’s complex and rapidly changing world.

According to the World Economic Forum, “analytical thinking, creativity, and flexibility will be among the most sought-after skills” by 2025, yet few companies invest in such training.

Critical thinking is an essential skill that enables individuals to analyze, evaluate, and synthesize information to make informed decisions. In today's fast-paced, complex, and dynamic work environment, critical thinking is more critical than ever before. It is crucial for organizations to prioritize critical thinking skills among their employees to make well-informed decisions and stay ahead in the competitive market.

Rapid technological advancements, globalization, and economic uncertainties have created complex challenges for most businesses. Critical thinking skills are essential to successfully navigating this complexity and uncertainty. Critical thinkers can examine challenges and opportunities three-dimensionally in the broader business context, and they can analyze relevant information to develop a plan of action to address it. Critical thinking enables employees to consider multiple perspectives and potential outcomes of different decisions, leading to better choices that are more likely to succeed.

The ability to evaluate information, data, and facts is important in making informed decisions. Employees who lack basic critical thinking skills may be prone to making decisions based on assumptions, biases, or incomplete information. That often leads to poor decisions. On the other hand, employees who possess critical thinking skills are better equipped to weigh options, analyze the pros and cons of each decision, and make decisions based on factual and reliable information. Such decisions can lead to better outcomes for the organization, resulting in improved productivity, increased revenue, and better customer satisfaction.

In addition to decision making, critical thinking is also essential to problem solving – a key capability for leaders every level.

In the workplace, issues can arise at any time, and managers must be able to identify, analyze and address these problems quickly and efficiently. Critical thinking skills can help leaders identify the root cause of the problem and evaluate different options to solve it. This process can lead to innovative and effective solutions to complex problems that may have otherwise been overlooked or dismissed.

Finally, critical thinking is vital for effective communication in the workplace.

Employees who can analyze and evaluate information can communicate it effectively to their colleagues and superiors. Critical thinking skills enable employees to articulate their ideas, share their opinions, and offer constructive feedback, leading to improved collaboration and team productivity. Employees who lack critical thinking skills may struggle to communicate their thoughts effectively, leading to misunderstandings, miscommunication, and conflicts.

Businesses of every size must prioritize the development of these skills among their employees to enable them to make informed decisions, solve complex problems, and communicate effectively.

The cultivation of critical thinking skills in the workplace requires investment in training and development programs that equip employees with the necessary tools and techniques to analyze and evaluate information effectively. But the result will be a more efficient, innovative, and productive workforce that can navigate complex challenges and drive success for the organization.

Chōkdee Rutirasiri

Chōkdee Rutirasiri is a designer, technologist, and educator. He utilizes a human-centered approach to designing systems and solutions that are inclusive, equitable, holistic, and sustainable. He has over 25 years of experience and has designed solutions for K-12, higher education, health and human services, healthcare, population health, human resources, arts and museums, financial services, manufacturing, government, technology, startups, and nonprofits.

Currently, Chōkdee teaches Innovation Through Design Thinking at Boston College; is a member of the Equity Innovation Lab at BC School of Social Work; and Associate Director/Head of UX at the Broad Institute at MIT and Harvard.

The $151 million cash-only deal will net WatchGuard shareholders $4.25 per share and is expected to close during the fourth quarter, subject to shareholder approval. WatchGuard employees holding about 5.8 percent of the company's outstanding shares have already indicated their support for the acquisition, according to the Seattle-based vendor.

"We believe that this transaction is the right decision for our shareholders, customers, partners and employees," said Ed Borey, chairman and chief executive officer of WatchGuard, in a statement.

WatchGuard has been a takeover target for the past several months. In February, San Francisco-based Vector Capital Corporation purchased 9.4 percent of WatchGuard and inquired about purchasing the rest of the company. But in April, WatchGuard announced it had hired Wachovia Securities to examine "strategic alternatives". In late May, Vector offered $5.10 per share, but then cut the bid to $4.65 per share a month later, citing "due diligence".

Now that a deal has been reached, WatchGuard can focus on responding to the market faster, says Carl Mazzanti, CEO of eMazzanti Technologies, a Hoboken, N.J.-based solution provider. "[WatchGuard] is no longer in an uncertain state and [the acquisition] should deliver the market confidence that management and WatchGuard's backing just got drastically more sophisticated," said Mazzanti.

However, it will take some time for WatchGuard to repair the damage that has occurred over the past year related to issues with its Fireware Pro appliance, said one partner, speaking on condition of anonymity. Problems with the Fireware Pro operating system and the WAN failover feature in version 8.0 have negatively affected WatchGuard's image in the channel and have likely cut into the vendor's sales, the source added.

Watchguard officials recently told CRN that Version 8.3 of Fireware Pro, unveiled June 22, addresses problems with the product.

In WatchGuard's first quarter earnings call in May, the vendor reported a net loss of $4.1 million, or $0.12 per share, in Q1 2006 compared to a net loss of $1.3 million, or $0.04 per share, in the previous quarter, and a net loss of $3.9 million, or $0.12 per share, in Q1 2005.

After closing Monday trading at $3.73, WatchGuard shares had rebounded .40 to $4.10 at the close of Tuesday trading.

Dan Neel contributed to this report

The facts on water point to a universally acknowledged crisis: More than 1 billion people lack access to safe drinking water; 6,000 children under age 5 die every day from water-related diseases; half the world’s hospital beds are filled because of water-related diseases; and 2.7 billion people lack access to hygienic sanitation facilities that prevent contamination and provide dignity.

There is no dearth of technological solutions to this tragedy. Yet successful projects to solve rural water problems require approaches other than technology—community organization, education, behavior change, ownership transfer, and long-term monitoring. These approaches, although necessary, create a complexity that has hampered our ability to take any solution to scale. Even with billions of dollars of funding over decades, we have not been able to reduce the size of the water crisis.

But the drinking water crisis can be solved. The Peer Water Exchange (PWX)—a technology platform I conceived and built for Blue Planet Network (BPN, formerly Blue Planet Run Foundation, or BPRF)—has used a network approach to manage diverse solutions to and resources for the global water crisis. PWX is a decentralized network and decision-making system that can effectively and transparently scale up the management of thousands of projects without a bureaucracy. Over the past six years, 73 small and large organizations around the world have proved that the PWX platform works.

We are small now, but our goal is ambitious: By 2027, we aim to provide safe drinking water to 200 million people. This will require $8.5 billion in funding and the management of 200,000 projects over 20 years.

TODAY’S FUNDING MODEL

To resolve the water crisis successfully, we need a healthy dose of criticism about current funding models and the disadvantages they create for solving social issues.

Management in the North: Foundations and NGOs are experts at raising money, but they find it hard to oversee small remote projects. BPRF was able to create a new global athletic event to build awareness of the water crisis, but managing projects in 14 countries was a challenge with no easy solution. Although I was a funder, was I really the right person to decide on projects? Wouldn’t using existing field expertise result in better decisions?

Fundraising in the South: Implementers are experts in their fields, but they spend significant time on fundraising and managing donors and donor agencies. A large fraction of energy can be spent in beautifying an application or report instead of executing a project.

Reporting: Funding agencies spend time and resources on reporting, which often involves repackaging reports from the field. Raw data are hidden, and only a tiny fraction of activity is reported.

Failures and learning: The entire philanthropic chain reports only good things and is unwilling to share mistakes, so no one learns from them.

Monitoring: Site visits are often a photo op and usually expensive. At BPN, we constantly balance the cost of travel with the cost of funding another project. Monitoring can and should be a learning, sharing, and teaching experience.

Cooperation and sharing: Implementers do not cooperate or share enough. They compete for resources and funding, which results in North-South communication instead of South-South dialogue.

All the points above contribute to the main problem with today’s practices: lack of scalability. Even if we increased investment in the water sector using the current model, not all the money can be absorbed and put to effective use. We need a new approach, one that is scalable, efficient, and collaborative, combining transparency with effectiveness—one that attracts the vast investment commitment that this crisis demands.

WATER THINKING

The core problem when we look at the water crisis is the lens through which we structure it, which I call Vaccine Thinking. This lens has developed over centuries as a result of a string of scientific and industrial successes. It has culminated in a mindset that is now deeply ingrained in our psyche and completely integrated with our educational, economic, and governmental systems. Vaccine Thinking seeks to find and deploy a single universal solution, a solution that can be mass-produced. It is used in projects to provide village-level electricity and in efforts like One Laptop per Child. But Vaccine Thinking has been unable to solve problems such as the water crisis, poverty, and climate change.

To address the water challenge we need to use a different lens—one that allows us to structure the problem differently, to examine many diverse and partial answers and processes, and to set up new expectations of results. The water crisis does not have a universal solution. There are many solutions, and they all involve a behavior change to deliver results. To deploy diverse solutions we need a new mindset, one I call Water Thinking.

Vaccine Thinking differs from Water Thinking as follows:

Dosage: Vaccine Thinking creates a one-time solution, a single dose, or projects involving a single set of transactions. Water Thinking creates a lifetime supply, requiring many different transactions, including preparatory and follow-up.

Point of impact: One cannot deliver water, unlike vaccines, to people. It has to be delivered to households or communities. Administering community-level solutions requires going to the site, bringing people together, and coordinating activities.

Solution type: Vaccines are universal—the same vaccine applies to all genders, ages, and races. Solutions to water supplies, especially in rural areas, are localized in climate, geography, culture, gender relations, and political structure.

Knowledge transfer: Vaccines involve no transfer of knowledge about how the vaccine works or how it was developed. Successful solutions for water in rural areas require knowledge transfer. Why water purity is important and how to establish a good source of water and keep it clean are questions whose answers need to be ingrained into a population as part of any water project.

Ownership transfer: Vaccines involve no transfer of ownership. Solutions to rural water problems need to be owned by the community for long-term success. In fact, if the community is not organized or does not desire to be self-sufficient, solutions are bound to fail.

Changes in behavior: Vaccine-based cures require no change in behavior. Social problems demand many changes in behavior. Water solutions need changes in water usage, hygiene, sanitation practices, and protection of the water supply.

Metrics: The metrics along the vaccination process can be captured easily. Solutions to water are very hard to quantify. For example, diarrhea rates are unlikely to go to zero immediately after the implementation of a project, but will produce good trends over time, often with spikes that may contradict progress.

Risks and failures: Our society accepts the risks and failures involved in creating a vaccine. We have the patience to keep funding cures for AIDS, cancers, and other diseases. Yet with small water projects we are very risk averse and respond negatively to failures. This drives behaviors that often misrepresent results, or focus on the successes only, both of which lead to the loss of much learning.

Funding and project size: For vaccines, we are able to centralize our funding. For social development projects in rural areas, the money has to be delivered in small chunks, something large institutions are not equipped to do. The management of thousands of small projects is one of the challenges of scale and requires us to think differently from our large funding mentality.

THE PEER WATER EXCHANGE

The Peer Water Exchange was deployed in 2006 to tackle today’s unscalable funding approach and apply Water Thinking. We have been using the Internet, especially Web 2.0 technologies, to manage projects in a way that minimizes bureaucracy, increases transparency, enables collaboration, improves effectiveness, and delivers results efficiently. Just as eBay and Craigslist do not deliver the same products to all consumers, but allow millions of different transactions, we do not manage projects with one approach or template. We also manage and coordinate interactions before, during, and after project implementation.

In PWX, work is assigned to leverage core competencies. Investors are in charge of fundraising and can focus on systemic issues. They evaluate proposals, seek and study trends, and act on them. Implementers—experts in their field—review each other’s standardized applications for funds, instead of spending time applying for funds. Reviewers, who are other applicants, funders, or third parties, can critique the approach, ask questions, and offer suggestions. We see this happen repeatedly: Reviewers want to share their experience and help others succeed. Collaboration and learning are part of the process. Independent third parties can participate to observe and monitor projects.

PWX has been using Web 2.0 models of social and collaborative knowledge development networks for six years now. The network has grown through referrals; as more organizations join PWX, more resources are added to manage more work, and collaboration increases along with the knowledge base. Last year we introduced a set of business intelligence software tools for the water sector.

PWX continues to evolve. It is currently the only scalable, map-driven, and completely transparent platform in the water sector, as well as the only participatory decision-making system where applicants weigh in on funding decisions. The next step is to build out the first social development exchange—where all transactions are tracked, knowledge is disseminated, and people come together to solve global crises.

Water Thinking and PWX can tackle and solve the water crisis. My hope is that it also will energize society by showing that collective action is a way to solve many of our social problems.

Rajesh Shah is a founding member of the Blue Planet Network and the designer and leader of the Peer Water Exchange. He has more than 25 years of experience in strategy and technology consulting, finance, and operations, in nonprofits, startups, and for-profits.

Read more stories by Rajesh Shah.

Whether you find yourself in the C-suite or on the factory floor, positive thinking at work is a very powerful skill. Not only does a positive attitude help you overcome adversity, but it also increases coping abilities, increases feelings of joy, enhances the immune system and improves financial success. For example, one landmark study by Dr. Martin Seligman at the University of Pennsylvania found that optimistic sales professionals outsell their pessimistic counterparts by 56%. According to Shawn Achor, author of The Happiness Advantage, “We become more successful when we are happier and more positive. For example, doctors put in a positive mood before making a diagnosis show almost three times more intelligence and creativity than doctors in a neutral state, and they make accurate diagnoses 19% faster.” In another survey, optimists were 40% more likely to get promoted over the next year, six times more likely to be highly engaged at work and five times less likely to burn out than pessimists.

Positive thinking isn't something people are just born with. Instead, it is something that you can learn over time. You can exercise your positivity muscle just as easily as your abs at the gym. But to reap the benefits of positive thinking at work, it takes consistent practice. So let's look at five small ways to embrace a positive attitude that can make a big difference in the workplace.

Practice gratitude

Research shows that employees are motivated to do their best when they feel appreciated. Not only that, but gratitude at work creates a domino effect within the organization. Showing appreciation towards someone will likely inspire them to "pay it forward" and thank others. For example, instead of starting a meeting with boring introductions, ask people to share something they are grateful for. You can also recognize employees who go out of their way to help a co-worker. Another idea is to create a 10-day gratitude challenge. That way, you can encourage employees to express gratitude through small daily actions. For example, one day, you might ask employees to do something nice for a co-worker and another day, you could ask them to write down five things they appreciate about their boss. The possibilities are endless.

Celebrate small wins

Rather than waiting for the end of the quarter or performance review time, celebrate small wins along the way. Try to focus on progress rather than perfection. Set a goal and then take the smallest step imaginable towards achieving it. By focusing on more minor achievements rather than the end result, you become motivated by perceiving progress.

Recognize your team

Connecting with others in a meaningful way helps you to cultivate positive thinking at work. One way is by emailing a co-worker and thanking them for their help or support. Public shout-outs are another effective recognition technique. That's because acknowledging your teammates in a public forum inspires and motivates people while rewarding specific team members for a job well done. You can do this at a company meeting, through an email newsletter, or even via a Slack channel dedicated to building camaraderie and boosting morale.

Treat co-workers with empathy

Given the events of the last two years, there is no such thing as showing too much compassion at work. Avoid miscommunication by clearly sharing what you’re feeling in the moment. If you are feeling stressed, let your colleagues know you have a lot on your plate and are struggling to keep up. That way, they will understand your perspective if you come across as tense or anxious. This is also a good time to check in with others. Take a few minutes out of your day to ask someone how they are and if there is anything you can do to help. If you get an email that seems blunt or aggressive, don't assume the person is that way intentionally. Try to deliver them the benefit of the doubt by thinking the best instead of expecting the worst.

Focus on what you can control

If you are a perfectionist or micromanager, you may have trouble relinquishing control at work. But letting go of things you cannot control is essential to remain happy and productive. You can't be responsible for how other people behave, but you can control how you react. In fact, there will be times when all you can control are your attitude and the effort you put in. When you feel anxious, ask yourself what you are afraid will happen. Often, the worst-case scenario isn't as bad as you might think. It also helps to develop healthy mantras like, "I can do this," or "I can handle it." Affirmations like these will help you combat self-doubt and keep you mentally fit.

Positive thinking at work helps decision-making, facilitates interaction and increases resiliency. While it doesn't ensure that everything will go your way, it will help put obstacles into perspective. Positivity also has an impact on others. That's because it's infectious and, over time, can influence your co-workers. So instead of waiting for your work culture to change, take matters into your own hands. By putting these strategies into practice, you’ll soon see how you are able to change the world and the people around you.

Feeling stuck and not sure it’s time to make a career shift? obtain my free guide: 5 Signs It’s Time to Make a Bold Career Change!