The Only Thinking Is Thinking Again Thinking Otherwise

In a rapidly irresolute world, it'south important to be able to conform and change rather than stubbornly adhering to old ideas and opinions. This was one of the lessons of 2020, a year that forced united states to question many of our assumptions well-nigh what behaviors are safe, how piece of work and schoolhouse can exist conducted, and how we connect with others.

"In a changing world, you take to be willing and able to alter your mind. Otherwise, your expertise can fail, your opinions go out of engagement, and your ideas fall apartment," says organizational psychologist Adam Grant, author of the new book Think Once again: The Ability of Knowing What Yous Don't Know.

In his volume, Grant explains why it's so important for people to be humbler virtually their knowledge and stay open to learning and changing their minds. The book is filled with fascinating inquiry and guidance on becoming more flexible in our thinking, while helping others to exist more open-minded, too. This skill is crucial not only for facing crises like the pandemic, but also for navigating complex social issues, making expert business organisation decisions, and more than.

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I spoke to Grant recently about his book and what we can take away from information technology. Here is an edited version of our conversation.

Jill Suttie: Your volume focuses on the importance of people questioning what they call up they know and beingness open up to irresolute their listen. Why is it then difficult to practice that?

Adam Grant, Ph.D.

Adam Grant: Information technology's hard for a few reasons. One is what psychologists call "cerebral entrenchment," which is when you accept and then much noesis in an area that you start to accept for granted assumptions that need to exist questioned. There'south show, for example, that when yous change the rules of the game for good bridge players, they really struggle, because they don't realize that the strategies they've used for years don't utilize. At that place's also prove that highly experienced accountants are slower to adapt to the new taxation laws than novices because they've internalized a certain way of doing things.

A second barrier is motivation: I don't desire to rethink; I'1000 comfortable with the manner I've always washed things. It makes me experience and look stupid if I admit that I was wrong. It's easier to but stick to my guns (or my gun bans, depending on where I stand up ideologically).

The third reason is social. We don't form behavior in a vacuum. We generally end up with opinions that are influenced by and pretty much like to the people in our social circles. So, in that location's a run a risk that if I let go of some of my views, I might be excluded from my tribe, and I don't want to have that risk.

JS: In your book, you talk about the importance of the "scientific mindset." What practice you lot hateful by a scientific mindset and how does it help us in rethinking?

AG: I think too many of the states spend too much time thinking similar preachers, prosecutors, and politicians. [Phillip] Tetlock made a very compelling case that when we're in preacher mode, we're convinced we're right; when we're in prosecutor fashion, we're trying to prove someone else wrong; and when we're in politician style, nosotros're trying to win the blessing of our audience. Each of these mental modes can stand up in the way of "thinking again," because in preacher and prosecutor manner, I'm right and you're wrong, and I don't need to change my mind. In politician mode, I might tell yous what you lot desire to hear, just I'thou probably not changing what I really think; I'yard posturing equally opposed to rethinking.

Thinking like a scientist does non mean you need to own a telescope or a microscope. It just means that you favor humility over pride and marvel over confidence. You know what yous don't know, and you lot're eager to discover new things. You don't allow your ideas go your identity. You wait for reasons why you might exist wrong, not just reasons why you must be right. Y'all listen to ideas that brand you think hard, not simply the ones that make you feel good. And you surround yourself with people who tin can challenge your process, non just the ones who agree with your decision.

JS: Why would people e'er want to look for reasons to be wrong?

AG: Ane of the reasons yous want to is considering if you don't get expert at rethinking, then you end up being wrong more often. I recall it's one of the smashing paradoxes of life: The quicker you are to recognize when you're wrong, the less wrong you go.

There's an experiment where entrepreneurs were beingness taught to recollect like scientists that's such a expert demonstration of something nosotros can all exercise. Italian startup founders went through a three- to 4-month crash course in how to offset and run a concern. But one-half of them were randomly assigned to think like scientists, where they're told that your strategy is a theory. You tin exercise customer interviews to develop specific hypotheses, and then when you launch your starting time production or service, call up of that as an experiment and test your hypothesis.

Those entrepreneurs that we taught to call back like scientists brought in more than twoscore times the acquirement of the control group. The reason for that is they were more than twice every bit likely to pivot when their first product or service launch didn't work instead of getting their egos all wrapped upwardly in proving that they were right. To me, that is some of the strongest show that existence willing to admit you lot're wrong tin can actually accelerate your progress toward being right.

JS: But shouldn't we be able to comprehend our expertise rather than always giving every idea equal weight?

AG: I'm not saying that you shouldn't have standards. The whole point of rethinking is to alter your heed in the face of meliorate logic or stronger evidence—non to just roll the dice and say, I'yard going to pick a random new opinion today.

There's a nifty way of capturing what I'k after here, which is something Bob Sutton has written about for years. He defines an attitude of wisdom as acting on the all-time information you have while doubting what yous know. That's what I'one thousand proverb here. You need humility.

I think people misunderstand what humility is. When I talk almost humility in experts or in leaders, people say, "No, I don't want to have no self-confidence. I don't want to take a low opinion of myself." Simply, I say, that'south not humility. The Latin root of humility translates to "from the world." It's well-nigh being grounded, recognizing that, yes, we take strengths, but nosotros too have weaknesses. Yous're fallible. Confident humility is existence able to say, "I don't know and I might be incorrect," or "I haven't figured it out yet," which is substantially believing in yourself but doubting your current noesis or skills.

JS: People often seem to non want to rethink, and they'll use strategies to shut down chat, similar maxim, "I'thousand entitled to my opinion" or "I don't care what yous say, I'm not changing my mind." How can y'all encourage somebody to be more open to rethinking if they're unmotivated?

AG: Your options are non always going to work. But 1 choice is to evidence your own openness and admit that you might be incorrect or your knowledge might be incomplete. The reason people shut downwardly is often because they're agape of being judged. So, they would rather disengage and avert that. Just if you say, "Hey, you know what? I'k not certain nearly my opinion here," there's a possibility they'll realize that you're both hither to larn from each other.

A 2nd option might exist to ask questions that aid to consider what would open up their mind, which at least encourages them to contemplate situations where they might rethink. If they acknowledged testify could change their mind, at least it's a step toward progress.


A 3rd possibility is to do something I've been doing since I wrote the book: to acknowledge my own stubbornness at the get-go of these kinds of conversations and admit that I have a bad habit of going into "logic bully style." I bombard people with facts and information, but that's not who I want to be. I desire to come into conversations with people who disagree with me in the hopes that I can acquire something from them. I don't want to be a prosecutor.

So, I invite people to catch me doing that and ask them to delight let me know. A couple of things happen when I exercise that. One is sometimes people will call me out and it helps me. Just terminal calendar week, I was in a argue past email with a colleague and he said, "Yous're going into lawyer way again." It was a skilful prompt for me to retrieve, "Uh oh, I'd better rethink the way that I'm having this fight." The other thing that happens is when I put my cards on the table, oft the other person will say, "Oh my gosh, I practice that, too. I don't desire to be like that either." It sets the terms for the conversation a little chip.

JS: At the finish of your volume, you have xxx applied takeaways for rethinking. Can y'all mention a few that are particularly important or easier to encompass?

AG: I of my favorites is being a "super-forecaster," which ways, when you form an opinion, yous make a list of weather that would change your mind. That keeps yous honest, because once you lot go attached to an opinion, information technology's really difficult to let become. But if you place factors that would alter your heed up front, you go along yourself flexible.

For encouraging other people to think again, you can avert statement dilution. Most of u.s.a. attempt to convince people with as many reasons as possible, because we think that giving people more reasons makes information technology easier for them to alter their mind. But we forget that ii things happen. (I'thou tempted to requite y'all many more, simply I'one thousand going to endeavour to avoid diluting my own statement.) The more reasons nosotros give, the more we trigger the other person'due south awareness that we're trying to persuade them, and they put their guard upwards. Also, if they're resistant, giving them more reasons allows them to pick the least compelling reason and throw out the whole argument.

The lesson here is, if you have an audience who might exist airtight to your point of view, sometimes it's more than effective to give two reasons instead of five. Lead with your strongest argument.

"If you tin embrace the joy of being wrong, then you become to anchor your identity more than in being someone who'due south eager to discover new things, than someone who already knows everything"

On the collective side, I love the idea of doing a rethinking checkup. We all go to the doctor for regular checkups, even when zip is wrong. We should practise the same with the important decisions in our lives. I've encouraged my students for years to do annual career checkups where they but ask themselves one time or twice a year, "Have I reached a learning plateau? Are the interests and values I had when I came in still important to me now?" Nosotros can do the same matter with our relationships or pretty much anything that's important to us.

JS: You write that being incorrect is tied to a more joyful life. Why is that?

AG: I had noticed Danny Kahneman [the Nobel prize–winning behavioral economist] just lights upwards with joy when he finds out that ane of his hypotheses is false. So, I asked him, "Why do you look and so excited when you observe out that yous're wrong?" And he corrected me. He fabricated clear to me that no i enjoys beingness wrong, but that he takes real joy in finding out that he was wrong, considering that ways now he's less incorrect than he was before. All of a sudden, it clicked for me: Being wrong ways I've learned something. If I detect out that I was correct, there's no new cognition or discovery.

In some ways, the joy of being wrong is the liberty to continue learning. If you tin can embrace the joy of existence wrong, then you lot get to anchor your identity more in being someone who'due south eager to discover new things, than someone who already knows everything or is expected to know everything.

JS: Do you take any hopes for people engaging in rethinking equally a way of bridging our political divide?

AG: Information technology depends on who's doing the talking. And so many of us fall into binary bias, and nosotros simply focus on the most farthermost version of the other side, which is a caricature, where we say they're either dumb or bad. If yous permit go of that, there's a whole complex spectrum and many shades of gray between these 2 political extremes.

Peter Coleman's enquiry shows that, instead of introducing a complex topic like abortion or guns or climate change every bit representing two sides of the money, if y'all tin can encourage people to think most it through the many lenses of a prism, they get more nuanced and less polarized, and they're more likely to find common ground. Any time you see someone creating an "us versus them" dichotomy, you tin ask, "What'southward the third angle, what's the fourth lens on that?" That gives people the chance to belong to multiple belief systems and to open their mind to multiple ideas, every bit opposed to sticking to one.

JS: What are your hopes for this book?

AG: I promise that it volition encourage more people to be more flexible in their ain thinking, to say they care more about learning and improving themselves than most proving themselves. Too many of us become trapped in mental prisons of our ain making. But if nosotros could be committed to rethinking, we might take a slightly more open-minded society.

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Source: https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/why_thinking_like_a_scientist_is_good_for_you

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