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

Calcified ideologies are tearing American culture apart.

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.

A 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.

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.

One is confirmation bias: seeing what we expect to see. The other is desirability bias: seeing what we want to see. These biases don’t just prevent us from applying our intelligence. They can actually contort our intelligence into a weapon against the truth.

Thinking like a scientist involves more than just reacting with an open mind. It means being actively open-minded. It requires searching for reasons why we might be wrong—not for reasons why we must be right—and revising our views based on what we learn.

If we’re certain that we know something, we have no reason to look for gaps and flaws in our knowledge—let alone fill or correct them.

The goal is not to be wrong more often. It’s to recognize that we’re all wrong more often than we’d like to admit, and the more we deny it, the deeper the hole we dig for ourselves.

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.

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

That was a common mistake in 2016. Countless experts, pollsters, and pundits underestimated Trump—and Brexit—because they were too emotionally invested in their past predictions and identities. If you want to be a better forecaster today, it helps to let go of your commitment to the opinions you held yesterday.

Research suggests that the more frequently we make fun of ourselves, the happier we tend to be.[*]

yes, we’re entitled to hold opinions inside our own heads. If we choose to express them out loud, though, I think it’s our responsibility to ground them in logic and facts, share our reasoning with others, and change our minds when better evidence emerges.

relationship conflict—personal, emotional clashes that are filled not just with friction but also with animosity.

task conflict—clashes about ideas and opinions. We have task conflict when we’re debating whom to hire, which restaurant to pick for dinner, or whether to name our child Gertrude or Quasar.

too many leaders shield themselves from task conflict. As they gain power, they tune out boat-rockers and listen to bootlickers. They become politicians, surrounding themselves with agreeable yes-men and becoming more susceptible to seduction by sycophants.

When we choose not to engage with people because of their stereotypes or prejudice, we give up on opening their minds.

a practice called motivational interviewing. The central premise is that we can rarely motivate someone else to change. We’re better off helping them find their own motivation to change.

Listening is a way of offering others our scarcest, most precious gift: our attention. Once we’ve demonstrated that we care about them and their goals, they’re more willing to listen to us.

When we succeed in changing someone’s mind, we shouldn’t only ask whether we’re proud of what we’ve achieved. We should also ask whether we’re proud of how we’ve achieved it.

Along with outcome accountability, we can create process accountability by evaluating how carefully different options are considered as people make decisions. A bad decision process is based on shallow thinking. A good process is grounded in deep thinking and rethinking, enabling people to form and express independent opinions.

In too many organizations, leaders look for guarantees that the results will be favorable before testing or investing in something new.

Rethinking is more likely when we separate the initial decision makers from the later decision evaluators.

When we dedicate ourselves to a plan and it isn’t going as we hoped, our first instinct isn’t usually to rethink it. Instead, we tend to double down and sink more resources in the plan. This pattern is called escalation of commitment.

“I think it’s one of the most useless questions an adult can ask a child,” Michelle Obama writes. “What do you want to be when you grow up? As if growing up is finite. As if at some point you become something and that’s the end.”[*]

Identity foreclosure can stop us from evolving.

For the record, I think it’s better to lose the past two years of progress than to waste the next twenty.

In hindsight, identity foreclosure is a Band-Aid: it covers up an identity crisis, but fails to cure it.

A successful relationship requires rethinking.

Whether we do checkups with our partners, our parents, or our mentors, it’s worth pausing once or twice a year to reflect on how our aspirations have changed.

Psychologists find that the more people value happiness, the less happy they often become with their lives.

when we’re searching for happiness, we get too busy evaluating life to actually experience it.

we spend too much time striving for peak happiness, overlooking the fact that happiness depends more on the frequency of positive emotions than their intensity.

when we hunt for happiness, we overemphasize pleasure at the expense of purpose.

A fourth explanation is that Western conceptions of happiness as an individual state leave us feeling lonely. In more collectivistic Eastern cultures, that pattern is reversed: pursuing happiness predicts higher well-being, because people prioritize social engagement over independent activities.

“You can’t get away from yourself by moving from one place to another.”

Our happiness often depends more on what we do than where we are. It’s our actions—not our surroundings—that bring us meaning and belonging.

when it comes to careers, instead of searching for the job where we’ll be happiest, we might be better off pursuing the job where we expect to learn and contribute the most.

To adapt an analogy from E. L. Doctorow, writing out a plan for your life “is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.”

It takes humility to reconsider our past commitments, doubt to question our present decisions, and curiosity to reimagine our future plans.