I think thinking is a basic skill. The older I get, the more I realize it isn’t.
Early in my military career, I learned to stop chasing symptoms and start looking for root causes. A single fault could be produced by several different systems. Before we ever reached for a tool, we had to ask ourselves, What are all the possible causes?
That lesson stayed with me.
One of the biggest mistakes experienced technicians make is allowing experience to become certainty. We become convinced we’ve seen this problem before and dismiss other possibilities. Sometimes the newest technician, with a completely different perspective, sees what everyone else overlooked.
I’ve found that people aren’t much different.
Many things present as one thing but are actually another. The first explanation isn’t always the best one, and the loudest answer isn’t always the right one. Learning to ask better questions has made me slower to judge and quicker to listen.
Perhaps that’s the real skill.
Not having all the answers, but having the humility to consider there may be more than one.
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Memoirs of Madness 
Magnus, the first thing that came to mind when I read your post was “critical thinking“.
If I may, I think that “thinking” is relatively easy. That’s the skill that most anybody can do. To me, the one that’s difficult to master – the one that most people think they can do and they really can’t – is critical thinking.
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My family always had this problem. They were/are unable to say they don’t know the answer to a question. I was always afraid to admit ignorance. It took me years to accept that I don’t know (or need to know) the answer to everything. It’s quite liberating!
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Paint, draw, make jewlery, know what someone is about before they say a word. First explanation, loudest answer not always the right one. So vey very true, and something I’ve taken into consideration often when someone becomes blustery.
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