Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

Today Nitin reviewed the book "Think again: The Power of Knowing what you don't know" by Adam Grant. Nitin started the discussion by quoting the example of the downfall of Blackberry smartphones.Blackberry smartphones were a smashing success in 2009 and were considered indispensable at that time. Blackberry's founder Mike Lazaridis wasn't affected by iPhone's rise that time as he thought who would want to use a touchscreen phone (tap on glass instead of using a real keyboard). Blackberry had a Blackberry messenger and assumed that a phone was only meant for business emails and didn't think of extending the concept to personal messengers. The collapse of Blackberry smartphones teaches us the lesson to rethink and stay open to creative, evolving ideas. Nitin pointed that we need to unclutter our mind at times and think beyond our fallacies and biases.He talked about our biases-how we believe in the first idea proposed to us, desirability bias, binary bias and confirmation bias. He further elaborated about the 4 type of mindsets- That of a preacher, prosecutor, politician and scientist. He emphasized that we should try to be like a scientist -always curious about what we don't know and adapting our views at all times. Nitin then brought up the topic of how excellent negotiators function by identifying common grounds. He also shared the term "Logic bullies" for people who justify their stand by overwhelming us with their rational arguments. Many of us in the group were reminded of logic bullies and we shared a good laugh over this. Finally Nitin steered the discussion towards the success of influential leaders who are curious and ask the right questions. It is important to know not just what to think but also how to think. Being open to evolve and adapt to change is the key. We can accomplish much more by listening than by talking. In a discussion, it is extremely important to understand the other party's perspective as well. To this, Aruna recounted that people working in Sales are often advised to understand the customer's perspective before pitching. Vijaya mam brought up the analogy of how we are positioned in multi storeyed buildings and with every discussion, we need to analyze our position relative to the other person. All in all an engaging discussion.

I love to learn new ways to look at life, things, events, history. This taught me some very practical lessons on how to question everything, take additional steps to get deeper understanding and analysis. Loved it!

I was reminded of the quote, “all things change in a dynamic environment, your effort to remain what you are is what limits you.” In the case of Think Again, not being open to changing your mind is a limiting decision. At a larger, Adam Grant is commenting on a society stuck in its partisan echo chambers. Both sides limited by an unwillingness to change. To be truly wise is to know you do not and can not know everything. Expertise is the life long pursuit of learning in a specific field rather than knowing everything there is in a specific field. Adam Grant places scientific inquiry right in the middle of these two states. Through many studies and examples he shows how the citizen scientist is not stuck in their thinking. Indeed, Grant’s structuring of the book underlines the key technique you take away from it. Assume you are wrong and keep asking questions. Almost every chapter circles back to that very premise, what if I am wrong and how can I ask a better question to someone who disagrees with me. Thought provoking and practical. A good read for anyone.

Great book! Highly recommend.