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

by Adam M. Grant

Once we hear the story and accept it as true, we rarely bother to question it.

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

the best strategists are actually slow and unsure.

In psychology there are at least two biases that drive this pattern. One is confirmation bias:23 seeing what we expect to see. The other is desirability bias:24 seeing what we want to see.

Thinking like a scientist involves more than just reacting with an open mind. It means being actively open-minded.27 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.

“The first rule of the Dunning-Kruger club is you don’t know you’re a member of the Dunning-Kruger club.”15fn2

When we lack the knowledge and skills to achieve excellence, we sometimes lack the knowledge and skills to judge excellence.

As we gain experience, we lose some of our humility. We take pride in making rapid progress, which promotes a false sense of mastery.

humility. The antidote to getting stuck on Mount Stupid is taking a regular dose of it. “

You can be confident in your ability to achieve a goal in the future while maintaining the humility to question whether you have the right tools in the present. That’s the sweet spot of confidence.

In one experiment, when students read a short article about the benefits of admitting what we don’t know rather than being certain about it, their odds of seeking extra help in an area of weakness spiked from 65 to 85 percent.

Remember that total beginners don’t fall victim to the Dunning-Kruger effect. Feeling like an impostor puts us in a beginner’s mindset,

feeling like an impostor can make us better learners.43 Having some doubts about our knowledge and skills takes us off a pedestal, encouraging us to seek out insights from others.

Discovering I was wrong felt joyful because it meant I’d learned something.

he said he refuses to let his beliefs become part of his identity.

If being wrong repeatedly leads us to the right answer, the experience of being wrong itself can become joyful.

“If the evidence strongly suggests that my tribe is wrong on a particular issue, then so be it. I consider all of my opinions tentative. When the facts change, I change my opinions.”

Agreeable people make for a great support network: they’re excited to encourage us and cheerlead for us. Rethinking depends on a different kind of network: a challenge network, a group of people we trust to point out our blind spots and help us overcome our weaknesses.

The first rule: avoiding an argument is bad manners.

Yet the experts did the exact opposite: They actually presented fewer reasons to support their case. They didn’t want to water down their best points. As Rackham put it, “A weak argument generally dilutes a strong one.” The more reasons we put on the table, the easier it is for people to discard the shakiest one.

The art of negotiation

The skilled negotiators rarely went on offense or defense. Instead, they expressed curiosity with questions like “So you don’t see any merit in this proposal at all?”

If they’re not invested in the issue or they’re receptive to our perspective, more reasons can help: people tend to see quantity as a sign of quality.11

The more the topic matters to them, the more the quality of reasons matters.12

In the hierarchy of disagreement created by computer scientist Paul Graham,18 the highest form of argument is refuting the central point, and the lowest is name-calling.

This is a fifth move that expert negotiators made more often than average negotiators. They were more likely to comment on their feelings about the process and test their understanding of the other side’s feelings: I’m disappointed in the way this

discussion has unfolded—are you frustrated with it? I was hoping you’d see this proposal as fair—do I understand correctly that you don’t see any merit in this approach at all? Honestly, I’m a little confused by your reaction to my data—if you don’t value the kind of work I do, why did you hire me?

Expert negotiator

Start making regular trips to a ballpark packed with people who share your loathing, and it’s only a matter of time before your contempt intensifies and calcifies. Once that happens, you’re motivated to see the best in your team and the worst in your opponent.

To activate counterfactual thinking, you might ask people questions like: How would your stereotypes be different if you’d been born Black, Hispanic, Asian, or Native American? What opinions would you hold if you’d been raised on a farm versus in a city, or in a culture on the other side of the world? What beliefs would you cling to if you lived in the 1700s?

Getting rid of stereotypes

A skilled motivational interviewer resists the righting reflex—although people want a doctor to fix their broken bones, when it comes to the problems in their heads, they often want sympathy rather than solutions. That’s what Betty Bigombe set out to provide in Uganda.

When we come across simplifying headlines, we can fight our tendency to accept binaries by asking what additional perspectives are missing between the extremes.

In polarized discussions, a common piece of advice is to take the other side’s perspective.

(1) “interrogate information instead of simply consuming it,” (2) “reject rank and popularity as a proxy for reliability,” and (3) “understand that the sender of information is often not its source.”

psychologically safe teams reported more errors, but they actually made fewer errors.

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

Think like a scientist. When you start forming an opinion, resist the temptation to preach, prosecute, or politick. Treat your emerging view as a hunch or a hypothesis and test it with data. Like the entrepreneurs who learned to approach their business strategies as experiments, you’ll maintain the agility to pivot.

top 30 tips-1

Define your identity in terms of values, not opinions. It’s easier to avoid getting stuck to your past beliefs if you don’t become attached to them as part of your present self-concept. See yourself as someone who values curiosity, learning, mental flexibility, and searching for knowledge.

Tip no.2

Seek out information that goes against your views. You can fight confirmation bias, burst filter bubbles, and escape echo chambers by actively engaging with ideas that challenge your assumptions. An easy place to start is to follow people who make you think—even if you usually disagree with what they think.

Tip no.3

Beware of getting stranded at the summit of Mount Stupid.

Tip no.4

To prevent overconfidence in your knowledge, reflect on how well you can explain a given subject.

Harness the benefits of doubt. When you find yourself doubting your ability, reframe the situation as an opportunity for growth. You can have confidence in your capacity to learn while questioning your current solution to a problem.

Tip No.5

Embrace the joy of being wrong. When you find out you’ve made a mistake, take it as a sign that you’ve just discovered something new.

Tip no.6

Learn something new from each person you meet. Everyone knows more than you about something.

Tip no.7

Build a challenge network, not just a support network. It’s helpful to have cheerleaders encouraging you, but you also need critics to challenge you.

Tip no.8

Don’t shy away from constructive conflict. Disagreements don’t have to be disagreeable.

Tip no.9

Practice the art of persuasive listening. When we’re trying to open other people’s minds, we can frequently accomplish more by listening than by talking.

Tip no.10

Question how rather than why. When people describe why they hold extreme views, they often intensify their commitment and double down. When they try to explain how they would make their views a reality, they often realize the limits of their understanding and start to temper some of their opinions.

Tip no.11

Ask “What evidence would change your mind?” You can’t bully someone into agreeing with you. It’s often more effective to inquire about what would open their minds, and then see if you can convince them on their own terms.

Tip no.12

Ask how people originally formed an opinion. Many of our opinions, like our stereotypes, are arbitrary; we’ve developed them without rigorous data or deep reflection.

Tip no.13

Acknowledge common ground. A debate is like a dance, not a war. Admitting points of convergence doesn’t make you weaker—it shows that you’re willing to negotiate about what’s true, and it motivates the other side to consider your point of view.

Tip no.14

Remember that less is often more. If you pile on too many different reasons to support your case, it can make your audiences defensive—and cause them to reject your entire argument based on its least compelling points.

Tip no.15