Lessons from “Think Again”
by Nino · 39 things on Twos
- Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know by Adam Grant
- Think like a scientist
- A scientist is always in a rethinking loop which enables discovery of new knowledge.
- If knowledge is power, knowing what we don’t know is wisdom.
- Develop confident humility
- Humility isn’t about lack of self-confidence. It’s about being grounded.
- Knowing that we are both flawed and fallible. Never losing sight of this reality. Confidence is about self belief.
- Detaching opinion from identity
- We should avoid becoming too attached to our ideas and our beliefs. We shouldn’t let it become part of our identity.
- When we let our ideas become part of our identity, we become hostile to the thought of being wrong.
- Argue about HOW and not WHY
- WHY conversations often get emotional and ego led, and people become dismissive of the others.
- Once you start discussing HOW, people start noticing the gaps in their knowledge and the flaw in their conclusions and become less argumentative.
- How to win debates and negotiate well
- Instead of attacking to weakest argument, acknowledge their best one.
- Focus on fewer but stronger points.
- Ask questions.
- Changing mindsets through motivational interviewing
- We can’t motivate people to change. We have a better chance helping them find their own motivation to change.
- Keys:
- Asking open ended questions
- Engage in reflective listening
- Affirming the person’s ability
- Dealing with polarized mindsets
- People operate with binary mindsets. Everything is black or white.
- The solution lies in breaking this oversimplified extreme view by introducing complexity and nuance.
- Rethinking for kids
- The practise of doing multiple drafts instead of just one, especially in creative projects.
- More drafts mean more rethinking, reworking, polishing and fine-tuning. Leading eventually to a higher quality output.
- Learning organizations
- Combining psychological safety and process accountability to create a learning zone.
- Developing a culture of questioning by encouraging people to always ask “how do we know“.
- Career planning and identity foreclosure
- We need to stop asking kids what they want to do when they grow up.
- The choice becomes part of their identity. We need to encourage them that careers are actions to take and not identities to claim.
- You live your life on auto pilot because you don’t know what to do with your life.
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