Think Again
Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know by Adam Grant
🚀 The Book in 3 Sentences
Conviction of our beliefs and ideas are often admired.
But we actually need to develop the ability to rethink and unlearn. To think again.
Rethinking needs to be a regular habit. We need challenge networks and a learning culture in order to facilitate this.
🎨 Impressions
There was lots of diagrams and visual representations to illustrate points. Interesting, concisely told experiments and studies and told the full picture on the benefits of rethinking. This book focused on understanding the importance of rethinking, there were minimal actionable takeaways.
How I Discovered It
I listened to a 2 hour podcast with Adam Grant with Jay Shetty on these topics - it was a great listen and was keen to read more. Also, I have long been a believer that we need to challenge our views more and change our minds to be more right in the long term.
Who Should Read It?
Everyone who wants to appreciate the true value of rethinking and unlearning. Business leaders to avoid making mistakes by holding old opinions and ideas. Teachers, so we can improve rethinking in the classroom. Managers to understand how to create a prosperous rethinking environment.
✍️ My Top 3 Quotes
If knowledge is power, knowing what we don’t know is wisdom.
We listen to views that make us feel good, instead of ideas that make us think hard.
We favour the comfort of conviction over the discomfort of doubt.
📒 Summary + Notes
The Skill of Rethinking and Unlearning
We often think of intelligence as the smarter you are, the more complex problems you can solve and the faster you can solve them. Intelligence is traditionally viewed as the ability to think and learn.
Yet, in a turbulent world, there's another set of cognitive skills that might matter more: the ability to rethink and unlearn.
There are deep forces behind our resistance to rethinking. Questioning ourselves makes the world more unpredictable. It requires us to admit that the facts may have changed, what was once right may now be wrong. Reconsidering something we believe deeply in can threaten our identities, making it feel we have lost part of ourselves.
We love to keep hold of our opinions and knowledge. Psychologists call this freezing and seizing. We favour the comfort of conviction over the discomfort of doubt. We laugh at people who use Windows 95, but yet we still cling onto opinions formed in 1995, instead of ideas that make us think hard.
Our ways of thinking become habits that can weigh us down, and we don't bother to question them until it's too late. Expecting your squeaky breaks to keep working until they fail on the freeway, Believing the stock market will keep rising after analysts warn of an impending real easts bubble. Assuming your marriage is fine despite your partners increasing emotional distance. Feeling secure in your job even though some of your colleagues have been laid off.
Most of us take pride in our knowledge and expertise and in staying true to our beliefs and opinions. That makes sense in a stable world, where we get rewarded for having conviction in our ideas. However, we live in a rapidly changing one, so need to spend more time rethinking than we do thinking.
A Framework
Rethinking is a skill set and mindset.
As we think and talk we fall into one of these mindsets: preacher; prosecutor; politician.
Preacher: we go into this mode when out sacred beliefs are in jeopardy, We deliver sermons to protect and promote our idols.
Prosecutor: when we recognise flaws in other peoples reasons we marshal arguments to prove them wrong and win our case.
Politician: when we are seeking to win over an audience, we campaign and lobby for the approval of our constituents.
We get so wrapped up in preaching we are right, prosecuting to others who are wrong and politicking for support, we don't actually bother to rethink our own views. And the brighter you are, the harder it can be to see your own limitations. Being good at thinking can make you worse at rethinking.
The Scientist: We should aim to think like a scientist. Thinking like a scientist involves more than just reacting with an open mind. It means being actively open-minded. Searching for a reason why we might be wrong, and revising our views based on what we learn. In scientist mode changing your mind is a sign of intellectual integrity. It is a step towards the truth. We shift in the face of a sharper logic and stronger data.
Humility
Humility is often misunderstood - it is about being grounded and recognising we are flawed and fallible. Confidence is a measure of how much you believe in yourself. Evidence shows that is distinct from how much you believe in your methods. You can be confident in your ability to achieve a future goal but maintain humility to question whether you have the right tools in the present. That is the sweet spot of confidence.
Arrogance leaves us blind to our weaknesses. Humility is a reflective lens to help see clearly. Confident humility is a corrective lens: it enables us to overcome those weaknesses.
The Joy of Being Wrong
Our wrong opinion is often shielded in filter bubbles, where we feel price when we only see information that supports our conviction. Then our beliefs are sealed in echo chambers where we only hear from people who intensify and validate them.
Evolving out identity can leave you feeling derailed and disconnected. Though over time rethinking who you are appears to become mentally healthy - as long as you can tell a coherent story about how you got from the past to present.
You need to be determined to reach the correct answer in the long run - but this means being open to stumbling, backtracking and rerouting in the short run. People who are right a lot, listen a lot and change their mind a lot. if you don't change your mind frequently your going to be wrong a lot.
A Challenge Network
rethinking depends on a challenge network - a group of people we truth to point out our blind spots and help us overcome our weaknesses. Their role is to activate rethinking cycles by pushing us to be humble in our expertise, doubt our knowledge and be curious about new perspectives.
Ideal members are disagreeable, fearless about questioning and holding us accountable to think again.
Asking people to explain their convictions activated a rethinking cycle. They noticed gaps in their knowledge, doubted their conclusions and became less extreme. And were more curious about alternative options.
Convincing Others
We don't have much luck changing other peoples minds if we refuse to change our own. Convincing other people to think again is about establishing whether we have the right motives in doing so. When we concede that someone else has a good point, we show we are scientists trying to get to the truth.
When people ignore advice, it may not be because they disagree but because they are resisting pressure that someone else is controlling their decision. To protect their freedom, instead of giving commands and recommendations, say something like 'here are a few things that have helped me - do you think they may work for you?'
The moment people feel we are trying to persuade them our behaviour takes on a different meaning. We need to have a genuine desire to help people reach their goals.
Creating a Learning Culture
Rethinking needs to become a regular habit. Rethinking is more likely to happen in a learning culture where growth is the core value and rethinking cycles are routine. In learning cultures it is the norm for people to know what they don't know; doubt their existing practices and stay curious about new routines to try out. Evidence shows that in learning cultures, organisations innovate mote and make fewer mistakes.
In performance cultures, people often become attached to best practices. The risk is once we have declared a routine is the best, it becomes frozen.
Organisational learning should be an ongoing activity, but best practices implies it has reached an end point. We might be better off looking for better practices.
