I would be lying if I said I have learnt much from Adam Grant’s book, Think Again as many of the concepts outlined are quite naturalistic and bond journalistic. Nonetheless, I cannot fail to mention that I did find his concept of rethinking profound, more so in his chapter on individual rethinking. In the subsequent chapters, he tackles other themes of interpersonal thinking, and collective thinking, and finally draws his conclusions about the whole affair of thinking again.
The Concept of Individual Rethinking according to Adam Grant’s, Think Again
By citing examples of real-life scenarios, the author has shown us the importance of rethinking. How do you re-think, he states, ‘Think like a scientist. When you start forming an opinion, resist the temptation to preach, prosecute or politick. Treat your emerging view as a hunch or a hypothesis and test it with data.’ As with any new information, the first instinct is always to resist taking it in. This is usually our first response, but it is necessary to give it room. Also before you embark on doing the familiar and the most comfortable thing over and over again, ask yourself if taking the same action will change the current predicament, remain the same, or make it worse.
One of the best things about individual rethinking according to the author is that you get to identify your values instead of opinions. Get to look at yourself as someone who values curiosity, and learning and has the mental flexibility to be open to new knowledge. In as much as we find it easier to stick to our old beliefs that are limiting and do not give room for growth, it is prudent to try to be open-minded and re-think our decisions by seeking new information that goes contrary to our views. What this does is that it calibrates our confidence so that we do not get stranded in what the author calls, ’the summit of Mount Stupid’.
There is a clear-cut difference between having confidence and competence. Most people suffer from the Dunning-Krugger effect, in that the better they think they are, the greater the risk of overestimating themselves regarding the current task. Consequently, the greater the odds they have of improving. They become mediocre as they cannot doubt their abilities to improve. Moreover, they are not able to reframe the situation and have the confidence to have the capacity to learn while questioning their current solution to a problem. They lack the awareness of knowing what they do not know, which is the first step towards developing expertise. For us to grow, we must have the ability to be proactive and be open to new possible ways of doing things.
One of the fundamentals of growth is to, ‘embrace the joy of being wrong. When you find out you’ve made a mistake, take it as a sign that you’ve just discovered something new. Don’t be afraid to laugh at yourself.’ Also, you needn’t judge your ability to think but rather the result which is the idea itself. These are two separate things. When you critically analyse and criticise the idea and not your ability to think as a person, you grow exponentially.