Rethinking...

"Think Again" is an insightful and thought provoking book by Adam Grant and well worth the read.

Adam explains that we should all make a long list of areas where we’re ignorant for example art, financial markets, fashion, chemistry, food, why British accents turn American in songs and why it is impossible to tickle yourself….

“Recognizing our shortcomings opens the door to doubt. As we question our current understanding, we become curious about what information we are missing. That can leads us to new discoveries, which in turn maintain our humility by reinforcing how much we still have to learn.”

“If knowledge is power, knowing what we don’t know is wisdom.”

He explains that barriers to challenging ourselves to what we know could be ego, predictability, belonging, self-worth and vulnerability. Grant refers to Phil Tetlock, who wrote that we spend a disproportionate amount of time thinking like preachers, prosecutors and politicians. "When I think like a preacher, we believe that we found the truth, and my job is to proselytize it. When I think like a prosecutor, I think my job is to win my argument or prove my case and that means somebody else is wrong. And those two modes, can be huge barriers to rethinking. If I am preaching or prosecuting, it means I am right, you are wrong, and I get to stand still. I get to freeze my beliefs and my knowledge, and I have to force you to change. And anybody who does not, is a sinner or an idiot…The politician mindset is about trying to win an audience’s approval. That means I am lobbying and campaigning for your support. And I might look flexible when I do that because I have to tell you what you want to hear, but the danger of that is I’m not actually changing what I think I am just changing what I say.”

Phil said people gain a lot of currency in the world by thinking like scientists but talking like preachers. There is not anything inherently wrong with preaching. It is also what makes people like Simon Sinek such a master communicator. Adam and Simon had a bunch of conversations about how Simon is a preacher and Adam is a teacher, and it is sort of a nice complementarity where they are both incomplete. Preaching is highly effective when you are trying to inspire an audience, when people are receptive to your message. The more that you are conveying emotion, the more that you are bringing gospel to the table, the more people are moved.

Thinking like a scientist is not what we think it is, it is not about walking around in a lab coat or carrying a bunch of test tubes. It is about saying if your mindset is to be a scientist, then your goal is not to be right or wrong in a given conversation. "Your goal is not to trump at the party line of your tribe. Your goal is to get closer to the truth, to discover knowledge…To be a life-long learner and to be guided by curiosity as opposed to conviction. If that is our mentality, when we start to form an opinion, it is a hunch. It’s a hypothesis to test."

“You have to be brave to test what you have convinced yourself is true. It can lead to disappointment and heartbreak, rethinking and regret, and the need to make amends and the need to reset and a ton of work. Rethinking is for the fainthearted…”