Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

by Adam M. Grant

Yet in a turbulent world, there’s another set of cognitive skills that might matter more: the ability to rethink and unlearn.

We favor the comfort of conviction over the discomfort of doubt, and we let our beliefs get brittle long before our bones.

Under acute stress, people typically revert to their automatic, well-learned responses.

Discarding your equipment means admitting failure and shedding part of your identity.

Despite these shared experiences, we live in an increasingly divisive time.

This book is an invitation to let go of knowledge and opinions that are no longer serving you well, and to anchor your sense of self in flexibility rather than consistency.

hallmark of wisdom is knowing when it’s time to abandon some of your most treasured tools—and some of the most cherished parts of your identity.

Progress is impossible without change; and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything. —George Bernard Shaw

As we think and talk, we often slip into the mindsets of three different professions: preachers, prosecutors, and politicians.

We go into preacher mode when our sacred beliefs are in jeopardy: we deliver sermons to protect and promote our ideals. We enter prosecutor mode when we recognize flaws in other people’s reasoning: we marshal arguments to prove them wrong and win our case. We shift into politician mode when we’re seeking to win over an audience: we campaign and lobby for the approval of our constituents. The risk is that we become so wrapped up in preaching that we’re right, prosecuting others who are wrong, and politicking for support that we don’t bother to rethink our own views.

The entrepreneurs who had been taught to think like scientists, in contrast, pivoted more than twice as often.

they take their time so they have the flexibility to change their minds.

In psychology there are at least two biases that drive this pattern. One is confirmation bias: seeing what we expect to see. The other is desirability bias: seeing what we want to see.

After all, the purpose of learning isn’t to affirm our beliefs; it’s to evolve our beliefs.

What set great presidents apart was their intellectual curiosity and openness. They read widely and were as eager to learn about developments in biology, philosophy, architecture, and music as in domestic and foreign affairs.

If knowledge is power, knowing what we don’t know is wisdom.

Research shows that when people are resistant to change, it helps to reinforce what will stay the same. Visions for change are more compelling when they include visions of continuity. Although our strategy might evolve, our identity will endure.

Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge. —Charles Darwin

Anton’s syndrome—a deficit of self-awareness in which a person is oblivious to a physical disability but otherwise doing fairly well cognitively.

In driver’s training we were taught to identify our visual blind spots and eliminate them with the help of mirrors and sensors. In life, since our minds don’t come equipped with those tools, we need to learn to recognize our cognitive blind spots and revise our thinking accordingly.

In theory, confidence and competence go hand in hand. In practice, they often diverge. You can see it when people rate their own leadership skills and are also evaluated by their colleagues, supervisors, or subordinates.

The best bishops are the ones who didnt want to be bishop

The opposite of armchair quarterback syndrome is impostor syndrome, where competence exceeds confidence.

They found that in many situations, those who can’t . . . don’t know they can’t. According to what’s now known as the Dunning-Kruger effect, it’s when we lack competence that we’re most likely to be brimming with overconfidence.

As Dunning quips, “The first rule of the Dunning-Kruger club is you don’t know you’re a member of the Dunning-Kruger club.”[*]

It’s when we progress from novice to amateur that we become overconfident. A bit of knowledge can be a dangerous thing.

“Arrogance is ignorance plus conviction,”

Confidence is a measure of how much you believe in yourself. Evidence shows that’s distinct from how much you believe in your methods.

Her confidence wasn’t in her existing knowledge—it was in her capacity to learn.

This is why ive hired Bekah twice

The first upside of feeling like an impostor is that it can motivate us to work harder.

Second, impostor thoughts can motivate us to work smarter.

Feeling like an impostor puts us in a beginner’s mindset, leading us to question assumptions that others have taken for granted.

Third, feeling like an impostor can make us better learners.

“I have come to welcome impostor syndrome as a good thing: it’s fuel to do more, try more,” Halla says. “I’ve learned to use it to my advantage. I actually thrive on the growth that comes from the self-doubt.”

sociologist Murray Davis argued that when ideas survive, it’s not because they’re true—it’s because they’re interesting.

To paraphrase a line attributed to Isaac Asimov, great discoveries often begin not with “Eureka!” but with “That’s funny . . .”

He said that in his eighty-five years, no one had pointed that out before, but yes, he genuinely enjoys discovering that he was wrong, because it means he is now less wrong than before.

Attachment. That’s what keeps us from recognizing when our opinions are off the mark and rethinking them. To unlock the joy of being wrong, we need to detach. I’ve learned that two kinds of detachment are especially useful: detaching your present from your past and detaching your opinions from your identity.

Over time, though, rethinking who you are appears to become mentally healthy—as long as you can tell a coherent story about how you got from past to present you.

Who you are should be a question of what you value, not what you believe.

On Seinfeld, George Costanza famously said, “It’s not a lie if you believe it.” I might add that it doesn’t become the truth just because you believe it.

After all, it doesn’t matter “whose fault it is that something is broken if it’s your responsibility to fix it,” actor Will Smith has said. “Taking responsibility is taking your power back.”

“The absence of conflict is not harmony, it’s apathy.”

The clearest sign of intellectual chemistry isn’t agreeing with someone. It’s enjoying your disagreements with them. Harmony is the pleasing arrangement of different tones, voices, or instruments, not the combination of identical sounds. Creative tension makes beautiful music.

We learn more from people who challenge our thought process than those who affirm our conclusions.

Ernest Hemingway once said, “The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shock-proof sh*t detector.” My challenge network is my sh*t detector. I think of it as a good fight club. The first rule: avoiding an argument is bad manners. Silence disrespects the value of your views and our ability to have a civil disagreement.

Changing your mind doesn’t make you a flip-flopper or a hypocrite. It means you were open to learning.