Think Again Quotes

“Beware of getting stranded at the summit of Mount Stupid.”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“Seek out information that goes against your views. You”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“Define your identity in terms of values, not opinions. It’s easier”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

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

“Acknowledging complexity doesn’t make speakers and writers less convincing; it makes them more credible.”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“It’s when audiences are skeptical of our view, have a stake in the issue, and tend to be stubborn that piling on justifications is most likely to backfire. If they’re resistant to rethinking, more reasons simply give them more ammunition to shoot our views down.”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

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

“how to improve at finding common ground, he offered a surprisingly practical tip. Most people immediately start with a straw man, poking holes in the weakest version of the other side’s case. He does the reverse: he considers the strongest version of their case, which is known as the steel man. A politician might occasionally adopt that tactic to pander or persuade, but like a good scientist, Harish”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“much luck changing other people’s minds if we”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“Rackham put it, “A weak argument generally dilutes a strong one.” The more reasons we put on the”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“They don’t disagree just for the sake of it; they disagree because they care. “Whether you disagree loudly,”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

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

“Asking open-ended questions Engaging in reflective listening Affirming the person’s desire and ability to change”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“Although no more than 10 percent of Americans are dismissive of climate change, it’s these rare deniers who get the most press. In an analysis of some hundred thousand media articles on climate change between 2000 and 2016, prominent climate contrarians received disproportionate coverage: they were featured 49 percent more often than expert scientists. As a result, people end up overestimating how common denial is—which in turn makes them more hesitant to advocate for policies that protect the environment. When the middle of the spectrum is invisible, the majority’s will to act vanishes with it. If other people aren’t going to do anything about it, why should I bother? When they become aware of just how many people are concerned about climate change, they’re more prepared to do something about it.”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“Honest argument is merely a process of mutually picking the beams and motes out of each other’s eyes so both can see clearly,” Wilbur once wrote to a colleague whose ego was bruised after a fiery exchange about aeronautics.”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“When people reflect on what it takes to be mentally fit, the first idea that comes to mind is usually intelligence. The smarter you are, the more complex the problems you can solve—and the faster you can solve them. Intelligence is traditionally viewed as the ability to think and learn. Yet in a turbulent world, there’s another set of cognitive”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

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

“That’s the armchair quarterback syndrome, where confidence exceeds competence.”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“Process accountability might sound like the opposite of psychological safety, but they’re actually independent. Amy Edmondson finds that when psychological safety exists without accountability, people tend to stay within their comfort zone, and when there’s accountability but not safety, people tend to stay silent in an anxiety zone. When we combine the two, we create a learning zone. People feel free to experiment—and to poke holes in one another’s experiments in service of making them better. They become a challenge network. One of the most effective steps toward process accountability that I’ve seen is at Amazon, where important decisions aren’t made based on simple PowerPoint presentations. They’re informed by a six-page memo that lays out a problem, the different approaches that have been considered in the past, and how the proposed solutions serve the customer. At the start of the meeting, to avoid groupthink, everyone reads the memo silently. This isn’t practical in every situation, but it’s paramount when choices are both consequential and irreversible. Long before the results of the decision are known, the quality of the process can be evaluated based on the rigor and creativity of the author’s thinking in the memo and in the thoroughness of the discussion that ensues in the meeting.”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“We don’t just hesitate to rethink our answers. We hesitate at the very idea of rethinking.”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“Psychologists find that passions are often developed, not discovered.”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

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

“If we’re insecure, we make fun of others. If we’re comfortable being wrong, we’re not afraid to poke fun at ourselves. Laughing at ourselves reminds us that although we might take our decisions seriously, we don’t have to take ourselves too seriously. Research suggests that the more frequently we make fun of ourselves, the happier we tend to be.”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“Of course, it’s possible that second answers aren’t inherently better; they’re only better because students are generally so reluctant to switch that they only make changes when they’re fairly confident. But recent studies point to a different explanation: it’s not so much changing your answer that improves your score as considering whether you should change it. We don’t just hesitate to rethink our answers. We hesitate at the very idea of rethinking. Take an experiment where hundreds of college students were randomly assigned to learn about the first-instinct fallacy. The speaker taught them about the value of changing their minds and gave them advice about when it made sense to do so. On their next two tests, they still weren’t any more likely to revise their answers.”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“When people reflect on what it takes to be mentally fit, the first idea that comes to mind is usually intelligence. The smarter you are, the more complex the problems you can solve—and the faster you can solve them. 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.”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“Progress is impossible without change;1 and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“People who are right a lot listen a lot, and they change their mind a lot,” Jeff Bezos says. “If you don’t change your mind frequently, you’re going to be wrong a lot.”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“humility. The antidote to getting stuck on Mount Stupid is taking a regular dose of it. “Arrogance is ignorance plus conviction,” blogger Tim Urban explains. “While humility is a permeable filter that absorbs life experience and converts it into knowledge and wisdom, arrogance is a rubber shield that life experience simply bounces off of.”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“Research suggests that the more frequently we make fun of ourselves,36 the happier we tend to be.”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“I’m entitled to my opinion.” I’d like to modify that: 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.”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know