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

by Adam M. Grant

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.

It requires us to admit that the facts may have changed, that what was once right may now be wrong. Reconsidering something we believe deeply can threaten our identities, making it feel as if we’re losing a part of ourselves.

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

We listen to views that make us feel good, instead of ideas that make us think hard.

Calcified ideologies are tearing American culture apart.

What if we were quicker to make amendments to our own mental constitutions?

Fires remove dead matter, send nutrients into the soil, and clear a path for sunlight.

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.

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.

We move into scientist mode when we’re searching for the truth: we run experiments to test hypotheses and discover knowledge.

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

our fragile egos. We’re driven to deny our weaknesses when we want to see ourselves in a positive light or paint a glowing picture of ourselves to others.

We don’t have to wait for our confidence to rise to achieve challenging goals. We can build it through achieving challenging goals.

Great thinkers don’t harbor doubts because they’re impostors. They maintain doubts because they know we’re all partially blind and they’re committed to improving their sight. They don’t boast about how much they know; they marvel at how little they understand. They’re aware that each answer raises new questions, and the quest for knowledge is never finished.

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

Values are your core principles in life—they might be excellence and generosity, freedom and fairness, or security and integrity. Basing your identity on these kinds of principles enables you to remain open-minded about the best ways to advance them.

When they define themselves by values rather than opinions, they buy themselves the flexibility to update their practices in light of new evidence.

They saw challenges to their opinions as an exciting opportunity to develop and evolve their thinking. The students who found it stressful didn’t know how to detach. Their opinions were their identities. An assault on their worldviews was a threat to their very sense of self. Their inner dictator rushed in to protect them.

They developed the courage to fight for their ideas and the resilience to lose a disagreement without losing their resolve.

Harmony is the pleasing arrangement of different tones, voices, or instruments, not the combination of identical sounds.

Their role is to activate rethinking cycles by pushing us to be humble about our expertise, doubt our knowledge, and be curious about new perspectives.

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

Acknowledging complexity doesn’t make speakers and writers less convincing; it makes them more credible.