Think Again Quotes

“When someone becomes hostile, if you respond by viewing the argument as a war, you can either attack or retreat. If instead you treat it as a dance, you have another option—you can sidestep. Having a conversation about the conversation shifts attention away from the substance of the disagreement and toward the process for having a dialogue. The more anger and hostility the other person expresses, the more curiosity and interest you show. When someone is losing control, your tranquility is a sign of strength. It takes the wind out of their emotional sails. It’s pretty rare for someone to respond by screaming “SCREAMING IS MY PREFERRED MODE OF COMMUNICATION!”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“What if we were quicker to make amendments to our own mental constitutions?”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“In a heated argument, you can always stop and ask, “What evidence would change your mind?” If the”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“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?”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“Confidence is a measure of how much you believe in yourself. Evidence shows that’s distinct from how much you believe in your methods. 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.”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“Racing cars that are just spinning their wheels in a garage rather than racing. You open that garage door, and man, those people will take you somewhere”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“I’ve seen it in my own classroom year after year: my students’ final exams have surprisingly few eraser marks, but those who do rethink their first answers rather than staying anchored to them end up improving their scores.”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“We have just enough information to feel self-assured about making pronouncements and passing judgment, failing to realize that we’ve climbed to the top of Mount Stupid without making it over to the other side.”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“Stop asking kids what they want to be when the grow up. They don't have to define themselves in terms of a career. A single identity can close the door to alternatives. Instead of trying to narrow their options, help them to broaden their possibilities. They don't have to be one thing. They can do many things.”
― Adam Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“Creating different versions of a drawing of story can encourage kids the value of revising their ideas. Getting input from others can also help them to continue evolving their standards. They might learn to embrace confusion and stop expecting perfection on the first try.”
― Adam Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“Reinforce freedom of choice: sometimes people resist, not because they are dismissing the argument, but because they are rejecting the feeling of their behavior being controlled. It helps to respect their autonomy by reminding them that it's up to them to choose what they believe.”
― Adam Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“One of the Latin roots of humility means ‘from the earth’ - It’s about being grounded: Recognizing that we’re flawed, and fallible.

Confidence is a measure of how much you believe in yourself. Evidence shows that it’s distinct from how much you believe in your methods. 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.”
― Adam Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“I noticed a surprising pattern. The students who struggled the most were the straight-A students—the perfectionists. It turns out that although perfectionists are more likely than their peers to ace school, they don’t perform any better than their colleagues at work. This tracks with evidence that, across a wide range of industries, grades are not a strong predictor of job performance.”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“Achieving excellence in school often requires mastering old ways of thinking. Building an influential career demands new ways of thinking.”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“In North American universities, more than half of STEM professors spend at least 80 percent of their time lecturing, just over a quarter incorporate bits of interactivity, and fewer than a fifth use truly student-centered methods that involve active learning.”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“When ideas survive it's not because they're true - it's because they are interesting. What makes an idea interesting is that it changes our weakly held opinions.”
― Adam Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“When ideas survive it's not because they're true - it's because they are interesting. What makes an idea interesting is that it changes our weakly heald opinions.”
― Adam Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“The purpose of learning isn't to affirm our beliefs; it's to evolve our beliefs”
― Adam Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“To be clear, I wouldn’t encourage anyone to stay in a role, relationship, or place they hated unless they had no other alternatives. Still, 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.”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“This pattern is called escalation of commitment. Evidence shows that entrepreneurs persist with failing strategies when they should pivot, NBA general managers and coaches keep investing in new contracts and more playing time for draft busts, and politicians continue sending soldiers to wars that didn’t need to be fought in the first place. Sunk”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“Inclusion at NASA is not only a way to increase innovation and engage employees; it directly affects safety since people need to feel valued and respected in order to be comfortable speaking up.” In”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“To prevent overconfidence in your knowledge, reflect on how well you can explain a given subject.”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“Progress is impossible without change; and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“THE WORST THING ABOUT BEST PRACTICES In performance cultures, people often become attached to best practices. The risk is that once we’ve declared a routine the best, it becomes frozen in time. We preach about its virtues and stop questioning its vices, no longer curious about where it’s imperfect and where it could improve.”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“To paraphrase the humorist Robert Benchley, there are two kinds of people: those who divide the world into two kinds of people, and those who don’t.”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“In a series of experiments, interacting with an empathetic, nonjudgmental, attentive listener made people less anxious and defensive. They felt less pressure to avoid contradictions in their thinking, which encouraged them to explore their opinions more deeply, recognize more nuances in them, and share them more openly. These benefits of listening aren’t limited to one-on-one interactions—they can also emerge in groups.”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“Ultimately, education is more than the information we accumulate in our heads. It’s the habits we develop as we keep revising our drafts and the skills we build to keep learning.”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“The power of listening doesn’t lie just in giving people the space to reflect on their views. It’s a display of respect and an expression of care.”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“We found that it was thinking about the arbitrariness of their animosity—not the positive qualities of their rival—that mattered.”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“By agreeing with the argument against her in her cover letter, she preempted knee-jerk rejection, demonstrating that she was self-aware enough to discern her shortcomings and secure enough to admit them.”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know