PDF Summary:Think Again, by Adam Grant

You likely believe that precise knowledge is valuable and that maintaining strong beliefs shows integrity. Yet social scientist and Wharton professor Adam Grant disagrees, arguing that reconsideration, or the ability to reconsider your views, is much more valuable than knowledge or loyalty to your beliefs.

Grant’s research shows that knowledge and expertise often confine you to narrow ways of thinking that limit your potential. He argues that instead of pursuing expertise, you should practice and pursue reconsideration because it opens new doors of learning and self-awareness—and, as a teachable skill, reconsideration is something you can develop, share with others, and apply to your life and work.

In this guide, we will explore Grant’s research on this topic, provide alternative perspectives from other thinkers and scientists, and discuss psychological research that both supports and challenges Grant’s conclusions.

(continued)...

Piaget says people dislike this feeling of disequilibrium so much that they avoid it by forcing new information into their existing frameworks instead of creating new ones. Piaget’s theories can explain why people engage in the Conviction-Assumption cycle—it’s much easier to follow a cycle of mental certainty that validates your existing knowledge than it is to engage in the more complex process of creating new mental frameworks that challenge your thinking.

Method #2: Finding a Balance Between Doubt and Confidence

As you engage in the Reconsideration Process and examine your ideas, it is important to improve your ability to reconsider by learning to balance confidence and doubt. Grant points out that having too much confidence in your beliefs and abilities makes you too assured that all your views are correct, but too much doubt makes you fearful and unable to act.

When your doubt and confidence are balanced, you have faith in your abilities and can acknowledge that you may have more to learn—you’re neither stuck in your convictions nor paralyzed by self-doubt. Grant says there are several ways to balance your level of doubt and confidence:

Be Honest About Your Abilities

Have a realistic understanding of your capabilities. When you consider yourself capable of handling a task or mastering a concept, you run the risk of becoming too self-assured and too focused on what you already know. As a result, you don’t think about your weaknesses or knowledge gaps, which will make it difficult for you to improve your skills or integrate new information.

(Shortform note: One challenge to being honest about your abilities is that it’s easy to overlook certain areas. You can combat these blind spots by creating an exhaustive list of your strengths and weaknesses and then organizing these qualities into categories such as “interpersonal,” “intellectual,” and “emotional.” This allows you to acknowledge and analyze your attributes without becoming overwhelmed by a disorganized list.)

Acknowledge Your Limitations

Acknowledge your limitations positively—without putting yourself down. Instead, Grant encourages you to make an effort to view your weaknesses as opportunities to learn, grow, and improve yourself.

Introduce Positive Self-Talk Into Your Inner Dialogue

The ability to overcome negative self-talk tendencies is crucial to staying positive about your limitations—if your instinct is to beat yourself up over weaknesses or mistakes, it’s nearly impossible to see them in a positive light. Psychologists recommend overcoming this tendency by consciously introducing more positive self-talk into your inner dialogue. For example, while working on a project, praise yourself for everything you do right instead of focusing on what’s going wrong.

Going a step further, if you can identify points in your day when you know you’ll be highly conscious of your limitations, create a plan to help guide yourself through these moments of doubt—what response can help you to manage your anxiety and combat your tendency to be self-critical? For example, when you know you will be in a stressful meeting, remind yourself ahead of time to avoid negative self-talk (“I should have known that!”) and instead engage in positive self-talk that reframes the moment of doubt as an opportunity (“I’m going to learn something new today!”).

Discover Your Knowledge Gaps

Put together all the information you have about a subject and try to explain it to another person—if they have trouble understanding you or seeing the logical connections in your arguments, that’s a strong indication that you may need to do more research into the topic.

(Shortform note: Grant suggests that you put together a full summary of what you know about a topic to fully assess your knowledge base. However, researchers have found that it’s not actually necessary to go through this entire exercise to discover your lack of knowledge. Typically, when people reflect on what they are able to explain about a subject, they immediately back down from an overconfident position.)

Method #3: Consider Complexity

As you practice reconsideration, you must also learn to consider complexity—elements or considerations that add nuance to your beliefs or conclusions.

Grant asserts that assuming that you have a complete understanding of a topic causes you to believe that your views apply in every circumstance and that there are no other valid interpretations. These beliefs dismiss the complexity of the issue at hand—the many circumstances or applications that might challenge your viewpoint. For example, you may believe that your neighborhood grocery store is charging too much for their goods without considering why they might do this—perhaps they’re forced to charge higher prices to keep up with their rising cost of rent.

On the other hand, Grant says, acknowledging the complexity of a situation initiates the Reconsideration Process: When you consider the many nuances of a problem, you cast doubt on your conviction that you have a complete understanding of the issue, which inspires you to consider new questions.

(Shortform note: In Factfulness, Hans Rosling builds upon Grant’s warnings about overly simplistic thinking. Rosling argues that we are attracted to simple, reductive ideas and one-size-fits-all solutions. He warns that this instinct leads people to embrace all-encompassing ideologies and worldviews that distort and whitewash the complexity and nuance of the real world. Experts and activists, warns Rosling, can be especially prone to this kind of thinking, believing their expertise in a subject gives them a reason to put it to use everywhere. This leads them to overstate problems and propose their pet solutions as the cure-all for complex and nuanced global challenges.)

Grant suggests several methods for adding complexity to a topic:

Consciously Look at Different Angles

There can be different ways of interpreting the information available about a topic, and your point of view will become more nuanced if you consider different viewpoints. Making a conscious effort to look at these angles makes you open to new perspectives.

(Shortform note: Psychological research has found that looking at different points of view helps you to absorb different perspectives, develops social bonds, and reduces stereotyping as you learn to relate and empathize with how other people see the world.)

Question Your Understanding

Ask yourself if you fully understand the topic—look into different resources to ensure you are up to date on the latest research and have a full picture of the topic.

(Shortform note: In seeking a full picture of the information available about a topic, you may find that you end up with an overwhelming, unusable amount of information. To avoid this, experts recommend categorizing the information you collect so that it’s easy to use and implement. They suggest three categories: broad knowledge you need to have on the subject, basic facts that you need to remember, and ways to apply the information.)

Avoid Stereotypes

As you consciously add complexity to your knowledge base and your daily interactions, you will also get better at avoiding stereotypes: general qualities you assign to a type of person or group based on assumptions or biases. Stereotypes often stem from a lack of awareness about the complexity of the perspectives of others.

Grant suggests thinking hypothetically about what you would be like if you had a different background—you’ll likely come to realize that the experiences of others are much more complex than you’d assumed. He suggests some “hypotheses” to examine, such as: Could I be wrong about how I think about this group of people? Is it really true that all X people do Y? How does their background differ from mine, and how has that informed the different ways we live?

This sparks the Reconsideration Process—you realize that your stereotypes are incorrect, seek correct information about different groups, and come away with a nuanced understanding of them rather than a stereotype.

(Shortform note: Grant’s exhortation to consider what your experiences would be like if you belonged to a different group or came from a different background can be seen as an exploration of the concept of empathy. In Biased, social psychologist Jennifer Eberhardt explores racial bias across a range of institutions, including schools, and suggests empathy-based strategies to combat it— including empathy training for teachers, building trust between teachers and students, and framing feedback as an expression of faith in a student’s ability to do better.)

Identify Your Existing Stereotypes

Grant wants you to reconsider your stereotypes by embracing complexity and considering the experiences of others, but to do this, you first have to identify what your stereotypes are. It is hard to accurately assess your existing stereotypes, so you might find it helpful to use an objective method of testing. Project Implicit (a resource put together by the University of Virginia, the University of Washington, and Harvard University) offers Implicit Association Tests that help you identify your prejudices and biases.

Part 3: Teach Others to Reconsider Their Views

Now that you have a solid understanding of reconsideration and have learned how to practice it in your own life, you can confidently and competently teach others these skills so they can re-examine their beliefs, engage in open-minded thinking, and learn about new ideas.

In this chapter, we’ll discuss some different opportunities to show others how to practice reconsideration: in educational settings and during disagreements in your personal and professional life.

Teaching Opportunity #1: Education

A vital way to help others apply reconsideration in their lives is to teach the concept in schools and other educational settings. Grant says that when you take on the role of an educator (perhaps as a parent, co-worker, friend, or mentor), it is important to make reconsideration central to how you educate others so they can examine their beliefs and be open to new ideas.

Being an Educator in Everyday Life

While Grant primarily discusses reconsideration in formal educational contexts like schools and universities, there are many ways that you can take on the role of educator in your daily life. In Everyone a Teacher, author Mark Schwen says it is important to realize that you are frequently teaching when you interact with others. Understanding this can help you see that you are an educator, even if it may not be in a professional capacity.

By respectfully challenging your coworkers to reexamine their thoughts about a particular project and explaining why you think an alternative approach might be better, you are being an educator. Likewise, when you explain to your child how one of her choices may have unintentionally hurt others and that she should reconsider how she approaches similar situations in the future, you are acting as a teacher.

Bringing Reconsideration Into the Classroom

Grant critiques traditional education methods such as lecture and memorization as inadequately challenging students to think independently. These methods teach students to repeat the information they learn but not how to engage meaningfully with the material. As a result, they don’t develop adequate critical thinking skills. Instead of lecture and memorization, Grant advocates for an active-learning approach that encourages students to question their thinking and engage curiously and meaningfully with other people’s ideas.

(Shortform note: Grant argues that lectures fail to instill the necessary critical thinking skills students will need to succeed as independent adults and are therefore a suboptimal teaching method. However, some experts argue that lectures can be an effective pedagogical tool for explaining basic facts and concepts. Lectures should be seen as part of an overall educational strategy that complements other teaching methods that are better at helping students apply concepts. These other methods can include active participation, asking questions, or breaking the class into small groups for discussion.)

Suggestions for Active Learning and Reconsideration in the Classroom

Grant provides some suggestions for encouraging active learning and reconsideration:

One method is to assign projects that involve multiple drafts with peer feedback (feedback that a small peer group provides)—having students complete multiple drafts shows them that they may need to make mistakes and reconsider their ideas several times in order to meet the project goals.

(Shortform note: In The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Patrick Lencioni argues that constructive peer feedback is crucial to team success. Lencioni writes that passionate, ideological conflict—rooted in substantive issues, not interpersonal hostilities—is necessary for teams to learn from past mistakes, take decisive action, and tap into the full team’s talent and experience.)

Teachers can also encourage students to share their passions—when students hear about the interests of their peers, they realize that other students have something to teach them and that they might benefit from the ideas of others.

(Shortform note: By sharing your passions with a group (at home, work, or school), you not only teach people about a topic, but you also form emotional connections that can spark creativity, rethink old assumptions, and catalyze a desire to learn more about that topic. Hearing other people talk about their passions can connect you emotionally, and sharing passions can spark mutual excitement and creativity.)

Finally, teachers can empower students to question widely accepted beliefs—Grant says that teachers should create lessons that debunk myths and challenge conventional thinking. For example, many people believe that violent crime is at an all-time high in major American cities. However, a self-directed lesson plan that teaches students how to analyze crime statistics over the past 40 years could show them that crime rates have actually fallen dramatically over that timespan. This would help students bust a widely held myth and teach them that many things that are widely assumed to be true don’t hold up to closer inspection.

(Shortform note: Some experts note that attempts to challenge people’s falsely held beliefs can actually backfire—when presented with contrary information, many people actually dig in and cling even more strongly to their original beliefs. One 2009 paper found that media attempts at political mythbusting, such as challenging people who falsely believed that former president Barack Obama was Muslim, had little to no effect in changing the minds of people who believed this to be true.)

Teaching Opportunity #2: Collaborative Disagreements

A second way to teach others reconsideration skills is through collaborative disagreement. Disagreeing collaboratively means that you and the other person have a natural give and take and maintain an openness to working together. Grant says that when you think of disagreement in this way, you can approach it as a fluid exchange of ideas—a generative and creative interaction rather than a combative argument.

(Shortform note: In The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Patrick Lencioni argues that it is actually the absence of conflict that is a hallmark of a struggling organization and dysfunctional culture. He writes that in an environment absent of trust, teams substitute artificial harmony for productive conflict, pretending to agree with one another to avoid the discomfort that comes with conflict. Without regular, healthy conflict, hostilities and tensions simmer just beneath the surface, coming out as personal attacks, sarcastic and biting remarks, and passive-aggressive undermining—none of which encourage reconsideration of beliefs.)

How to Have a Collaborative Disagreement

Grant says that the first step in teaching reconsideration through collaborative arguments is to frame the interaction as a healthy debate rather than a confrontation. Grant suggests that you say, “I would love to debate this issue with you.” This reassurance makes people understand that your goal is to explore ideas, not question their judgment or challenge their identity.

(Shortform note: Some other experts argue that before you can even attempt to reframe the discussion, you first need to make sure you’re physically calm. This puts you in a better position to have a calm, productive discussion: You’ll tamp down your natural “fight or flight” response and be less prone to misinterpreting the other person’s words as threats or taunts. To calm down, experts suggest practicing mindfulness (the state of being fully aware in the present moment) to tap into how your body is feeling. When you are aware that your body is tense, take steps to reduce your level of anxiety by lying down, taking a walk, or listening to music.)

Once you establish that your disagreement is a discussion rather than a fight, Grant suggests several techniques to demonstrate collaborative engagement to your counterpart.

• Express genuine interest in what the other person has to say. Expressing interest teaches the other person that their views are important and reassures them that they don’t have to take a defensive stance.
• Only present your strongest points. Present a small selection of strong arguments so you don’t overwhelm your partner and make them feel defensive. (Shortform note: Experts say you can identify strong arguments based on the evidence that supports the idea. If it lacks good evidence, it’s probably not a good argument.)
• Ask a lot of contemplative questions. When you ask questions, you encourage the other person to engage in question-oriented thinking, too. And because they’re now in question-asking mode, they may start to reconsider some of their beliefs leading them away from their more hardline stances.
• Express how you are feeling throughout the interaction. Expressing emotion teaches the other person that it is safe to be honest about how they feel. (Shortform note: Psychologist Carl Rogers suggests an additional way to make others feel safe in difficult conversations—expressing “unconditional positive regard” for them. In a specifically therapeutic context, this means maintaining a non-judgmental attitude no matter what the other person might say, letting them express all their emotions openly, and accepting them as they are.)

Practice Calculated Empathy

In Never Split the Difference, former FBI hostage negotiator Christopher Voss writes about concepts similar to those explored by Grant. Voss applies them specifically to the context of a negotiation. Crucial to Voss’s theory of negotiation is that good negotiators seek to build rapport, empathy, and trust with their counterpart, and don’t try to undercut or exploit them

Voss advocates using the technique of calculated empathy—understanding someone else’s feelings to get what you want from them. Calculated empathy gives you crucial insight into why someone is behaving the way they are. Ultimately, according to Voss, you need your counterpart to feel emotionally safe with you—you want them to see you more as a partner than an adversary. Voss outlines five calculated empathy techniques:

1. Active listening: Talk slowly and calmly to show that you’re concerned about how the other person feels.

2. Use the right tone: Use a light and encouraging voice as your default tone to put your counterpart at ease.

3. Reflect back: Repeat the last three words that the person has said in your next sentence. By imitating their speech patterns, you’re signaling to the other person not only that you’re hearing them, but also that you’re similar to them.

4. Label: Identify and vocalize someone else’s emotions through phrases like, “It seems like you’re disappointed by what’s being offered.”

5. Perform accusation audits: List every bad thing your counterpart could say about you at the beginning of the negotiation, through phrases like, “You probably think I’m lowballing you on this offer, that I’m trying to cheat you, and that I don’t have any respect for your intelligence.” This triggers your counterpart’s innate empathy and makes them want to reassure you that you’re not as bad as you’ve portrayed yourself.

Part 4: Apply Reconsideration at Work

The third area where Grant suggests you can apply reconsideration is in your workplace. Applying reconsideration in this context creates positive work cultures which prioritize learning and critical thinking over profit and end results. In this section, we’ll explore:

• How to create a psychologically safe environment at work
• How to establish decision-making processes in the workplace that best allow you to apply the principles of reconsideration

Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace

The best way to lay the groundwork for reconsideration in the workplace is to cultivate psychological safety: the sense that you can take risks when interacting with others without fearing negative consequences.

Grant says that ideas go unexpressed when workplaces don’t try to cultivate this sense of safety—people fear the negative consequences of being wrong, so they hesitate to speak up. In such a culture, old ways of doing things go unquestioned because people are stigmatized for challenging them. When this dynamic sets in, the workplace can become wedded to old ideas and processes that clearly aren't working anymore, while new ideas are stifled and ignored—leading the entire organization to suffer as a result.

To avoid this outcome, Grant says leaders should cultivate psychological safety by communicating that it’s ok to be wrong. Even better, they can openly share professional critiques that show their past failures. When leaders are open about their own shortcomings and how they are working to do better, it provides a powerful example of humility that gives employees the psychological safety to struggle and make mistakes too.

Recover From Failure

A lack of psychological safety can have effects far beyond a hesitancy to share ideas. As Brené Brown explains in Dare to Lead, a lack of psychological safety also makes employees less able to recover from failure.

In a psychologically unsafe work environment where failure is stigmatized, employees avoid talking about difficult situations or their failures. This leads each employee to think that she’s the only one making mistakes—a belief that usually brings intense shame. To avoid further feelings of shame, she avoids any situations that might put her in a position to fail—stifling her creativity, motivation, and innovation.

Brown says that when failure is normalized and addressed in your work environment, everyone feels safe talking about their failures and the steps they took to recover from these failures. As a result, employees more openly admit and manage their mistakes, and support one another through failures This builds failure resilience across the team—employees take risks, knowing their team will have their back if they fail.

Brown notes that you can help others build shame resilience in the following ways:

• Recognize the physical symptoms of shame in others—people may become agitated or flushed when confronted with failure. Understanding these physical responses helps you recognize when these feelings are happening to your co-workers.

• Help others understand that everyone feels shame—knowing that shame and failure are universal experiences helps your co-workers realize that these feelings are normal. Sharing your experiences with others who are struggling can help them open up.

• Go out of your way to connect with others—shame is an isolating feeling, so reaching out to others can make them feel connected and supported.

Reconsideration in Action During the Decision-Making Process

Once psychological safety sets the stage for reconsideration, how can you effectively use it? Grant says that the decision-making process—gathering data, generating ideas, and analyzing ideas—is where you, as a leader, can most effectively apply the concepts of reconsideration.

Grant advises revamping how conversations happen during the decision-making process: Instead of having team members share only their final decisions, they should share the entire process they used.

Grant explains the benefits of team members sharing their entire process:

• A thorough explanation of the group’s thinking helps the whole team understand how and why decisions were made. Those outside the process can point out possible weaknesses or alternate solutions.
• When the decision-making process is communicated and fully documented, mistakes are less likely to be repeated in future iterations. Fully documenting the process can allow others to fix faulty underlying logic that may have contributed to an unsuccessful result.
• This way of making decisions and communicating the process prompts team members to think through new ideas, investigate the processes that generated those ideas, and analyze the conclusions. As we saw earlier in the guide, this can kickstart the Reconsideration Process because it encourages everyone to recognize what they don’t know and begin to question prior assumptions.

Understanding Outcome Bias

Grant emphasizes the importance of processes (like the Reconsideration Process) over outcomes, but human beings are cognitively biased to focus on outcomes instead. Indeed, psychologists use the term “outcome bias” to describe the tendency to evaluate decisions based on outcomes rather than processes. Criticism is often heaped upon the decision-maker when an outcome is negative, even if there are other uncontrollable factors involved. Similarly, positive outcomes are associated with wisdom and intelligence on the part of the decision-maker, even if there was a fair amount of luck and chance in play.

However, focusing on process does help you work against this cognitive bias—leading to better awareness of all the elements involved in an outcome so that decision-makers can be accurately understood and assessed.

Part 5: Reconsider Your Life Goals

We've now explored how to apply reconsideration in all areas of your life so that you—and the people you teach and work with—can become open-minded thinkers. We have seen how reconsideration helps you reassess your beliefs, and so we can now use this skill to reconsider your beliefs about the paths you should take in your life.

You may have set your sights on a specific goal early on in life, without considering whether or not this goal fits what you want out of life. Parents and teachers often encourage this, but Grant says that when you form your life goals too early, they can become a core part of your identity. As a result, you become resistant to reconsidering your goals because doing so would threaten who you are as a person. Instead, when it occurs to you that you may be on the wrong path, you may feel threatened—you’ll double down and commit to working even harder to achieve your goals. This, of course, only serves to push you even further down an undesirable life path.

(Shortform note: In Range, David Epstein supports Grant’s conclusions about the negative effects of early adoption of goals and argues that parents and educators need to break away from the presumption that pursuing a specific path early in life will provide you with a ticket for success. Epstein says that parents and educators should instead facilitate opportunities for young people to try many different activities and subjects so that they can make informed choices about the goals they would like to pursue.)

Continually Reevaluate Your Path

To avoid getting stuck on a life path you don’t want to follow, Grant suggests reviewing your goals periodically on your own or with a partner, mentor, or friend. Put a reminder on your calendar to do this once or twice a year.

During these check-ins, ask yourself:

• “What has changed personally or professionally since I first decided to take this path?”
• “Have my personal goals changed?”
• “Am I challenged by what I am doing, or do I feel I have learned all I can in this role?”
• “Have I reached a turning point?”

Committing to regularly reconsidering your life goals means that you may change course multiple times. Grant emphasizes that this is okay—this process of changing course gets you ever closer to your true path.

Creating Alternative Plans

Grant suggests periodic check-ins to evaluate your life’s path, but you can go a step further by deeply exploring alternative paths. In Designing Your Life, Bill Burnett and Dave Evans suggest exploring your options by creating three life plans: a realistic plan, a radical departure plan, and a “sky’s the limit” plan.

Realistic Plan: Develop an idea that you already have in mind. It might be a goal that you are already pursuing, or one that is on the horizon. Evaluate this realistic plan to see if it inspires you, aligns with your personal goals, or still meaningfully challenges you. If it doesn’t, you may need to explore other options.

Radical Departure Plan: Create a plan for what you would do if your chosen life path no longer existed. This hypothetical thinking can help you envision a completely different future for yourself.

Sky’s the Limit Plan: Make a plan for what you would do if money weren’t a factor. This plan helps you to creatively explore what makes you happy.