Common Sense: Get It, Use It, and Teach It in the Workplace

“He may have an MBA, but he’s got no common sense.” Assessments like that by a boss can stop a career dead in its tracks. Unfortunately, many believe that common sense is a trait you are either born with or you are not. This book dispels that myth. Through the pages of Common Sense: Get It, Use It, and Teach It in the Workplace readers will learn not only what common sense is, but how to acquire it and use it to enhance their careers, increase their confidence, and take better advantage of business opportunities.

Common Sense explores the use—and non-use—of common sense in the workplace and the world around us. It shows how you can become a person of great wisdom and good judgment by simply learning about all the ways people stumble in the thought process. Author Ken Tanner, a seasoned manager, consultant, and former regional vice president for two major U.S. restaurant chains, shows readers how to make better decisions, how to spot and avoid fallacious thinking, how to better assess ambiguous situations, and how to become a mature thinker with a knack for making the right move at just the right time.

Best of all, Common Sense shows how to teach this trait to others, especially subordinates and co-workers who can and will do nonsensical things unless you help them learn to reason through their decisions and actions quickly and confidently. The payoff? Your staff will make you look good, greasing the way for greater responsibility and opportunity. This book:

• Takes you through an understanding of the term “common sense”—what it means and what it doesn’t mean.
• Shows how fallacies create barriers to using common sense.
• Provides dozens of examples of the application (as well as rejection) of common sense in the business world and elsewhere.
• Shows how to teach common sense to others.

What you’ll learn

• What common sense is and is not How common sense affects your daily life
• How and why common sense leads to career advancement and opportunity
• How to instantly improve your image of having good common sense
• The many fallacies in thinking that can destroy common-sense thinking
• How to teach common sense to the people you manage and work with

Who this book is for

Common Sense: Get It, Use It, and Teach It in the Workplace is for managers and employees who want to capitalize on opportunities, make the most of their personnel, and become more valuable to their employers. You can’t get a degree in common sense, but you can still learn the discipline and teach it to others. Common Sense is an excellent choice for those who want to grab an advantage in the workplace through clear, rational thinking and a mature thought process.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1. What Is Common Sense, Anyway?
Chapter 2. Perception Is Reality
Chapter 3. Common Nonsense Based on Faulty Appeals
Chapter 4. Common Nonsense Based on Muddled Logic
Chapter 5. Urban Legends, Conspiracies, and Other Perversions of the Truth
Chapter 6. Decisions, Decisions, Decisions
Chapter 7. Commonsense Behavior in the Office
Chapter 8. Teaching Common Sense in the Workplace
Chapter 9. Understanding People
Chapter 10. When Common Sense Fails
Chapter 11. Coda