Think Again

Adam Grant in his groundbreaking book, “Think Again” walks the audience through an interesting journey of learning, unlearning, and rethinking. This book consists of interesting examples, studies and a bunch of the author's personal experience; why we need to let go of knowledge and opinion that no longer serve us. As well as how we should equip ourselves with flexibility rather than consistency to thrive in a fast paced world we live on. All in all, it is a great book to enhance our lives, mindsets, as well as leadership skills.

“Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.” – George Bernard Shaw.

The crucialness of adaptation to changes and rethink was illustrated beautifully on the fable of BlackBerry. Adam Grant analyzes the journey BlackBerry had and in retrospect he concluded what caused the organization to thrive also become the reason for their failure. Being good at thinking makes us worse at rethinking, and the brighter we are the harder it is to see our own limitations is among the reasons why good thinkers might be more vulnerable to adjust course. Hence the cognitive blind spot is something we all need to be reminded of and try to be aware of it. Strong leaders engage their critics and make themselves stronger. Weak leaders silent the critics and make themselves weaker. According to research, CEOs of poorly performing firms that indulge flattery and conformity become overconfident and instead of changing course they stick with their existing strategy plan which sets them on a collision course with failure. We learn more from people who challenge our thought process rather than those who affirm our conclusions.

“If knowledge is power, knowing what we don't know is wisdom” – Adam Grant

How to debate effectively has been covered in an interesting fashion. We usually fall under one or more of below four modes when we debate: preacher, prosecutor, politician, or scientist. We go to the preacher mode when our beliefs are questioned. Prosecutor when we recognize flaws in other person reasoning. And going to politician mode when we want to convince the audience. He illustrates why the first three modes are not only inefficient but detrimental especially when the stack is high. Scientist mode is the most useful mode that we could use for a debate. Within scientist mode you must be aware of the limits of your understanding, expect to doubt what you know, be curious about what you don't know and update your views based on your data. Debating on scientist mode it is more on intellectual ground rather than emotional one.

Adam Grant articulates how debate champions and effective debaters convey their message and how we can learn from them. What it takes to win a debate and how experts treat debate as a dance rather than a war is narrated in multiple stories with some element of surprises. Finding a rhythm is a first move on effective debates. Finding a common ground and representing your case. Also, strong debaters do not dilute the strong arguments with weak ones is something that Adam Grant illustrated with multiple studies. Asking questions is among the strongest tools within a debate. How to construct your question and who delivers it make a huge difference on the outcome of the debate. Sustain talk which is a commentary to keep the status quo versus change talk which refers to the tendency to make an adjustment is among other techniques the author discussed within this book.
“Exhausting someone in argument is not the same as convincing him” – Tim Kreider

Several biases and syndromes have been analyzed within the book, chief among them: Confirmation bias, Desirability bias, Binary bias, Imposter syndrome, Armchair Quarterback syndrome, Anton syndrome and Dunning–Kruger effect. These are and more are the main reasons why we need to revisit our perceptions and rethink our positions. Adam Grant has performed an interesting interpretation of Imposter syndrome and how within significant cases it was among the reasons for improvement. And provide more sense of humility and being grounded. On the other hand, how Armchair Quarterback syndrome could give false confidence and eliminate the need to improve. Detaching your present from your past and detaching your opinion from your identity are techniques that could widen our horizon and be less vulnerable to the biases around us. Basing our identity based on your values rather than opinions could give us a slight age.

“People who are right a lot listen a lot, and they change their mind a lot. They wake up and reanalyze things and change their mind. If you don't change your mind frequently, you're going to be wrong a lot.” – Jeff Bezos

The psychology of constructive conflict is another interesting topic which has been covered in depth within this book. It has illustrated the relationship conflict in comparison with the task conflict. Compare the disagreeableness versus agreeableness and elaborate the need for a challenging network to bring us to the next level. Interesting result of several studies revealed in this section how task conflict is essential for innovation and how relationship conflict could be detrimental for the project and organization in large. When there is a task conflict there is Intensity rather than hostility and the argument is mainly about how rather than why.

“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.” _ Adam Grant

Outcome and Process accountability have been covered in later chapters of this book. It elaborated what is psychological safety and who it needs to be mixed with accountability for the best result. As Adam Grant put it, when there is psychological safety but not accountability people tend to stay in their comfort zone and when accountability but not safety people tend to stay silent and within their anxiety zone. Learning zone is when psychological safety will be combined with accountability. The importance of disagreeable people within the organization have been highlighted. Especially disagreeable givers which they do not criticize because they're insecure but because they care. Rethinking is more likely to happen in learning culture that the growth is the core value.


“Presented with someone else's argument, we're quite adept at spotting the weaknesses,” journalist Elizabeth Kolbert writes, but “the positions we're blind about are our own.”

When 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. The purpose of learning is not to affirm or believe but to evolve them. And change your mindset from prove yourself to improve yourself. We don't have much luck on changing others minds If we refuse to change ours. One of the suggested approaches to be able to change our mind is listing down the condition in which you are going to change your mind, stay on course.