Book Review

Adam Grant’s Think Again

Adam Grant is an organizational psychologist at the Wharton School with a talent for delivering comfortable truths. In his first book, “Give and Take” (2013), he argued that the most generous people in the workplace can achieve extraordinary success. In “Originals,” published three years later, he wrote that many effective entrepreneurs, rather than the early-rising obsessives one imagines, are procrastinating generalists.

He has a knack for turning the base metal of the Journal of Applied Behavioral Science into life-affirming Oprah gold, and in his latest book, “Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know,” he’s in vintage form. His aim is to “explore how rethinking happens,” how we change our minds, how we persuade others, and how we build cultures of lifelong learning. “This book is an invitation to let go of knowledge and opinions that are no longer serving you well,” he writes, “and to anchor your sense of self in flexibility rather than consistency.”

“Think Again” is full of interesting asides culled from academic research. People who are good at math tend to be good at seeing patterns in data, unless those patterns contradict their views, in which case their intelligence becomes a “weapon against the truth.” The more clever people are, the less willing they are to admit the limitations of their thinking.

Mike Lazaridis, the precocious electronics wizard who founded BlackBerry, led his company to a valuation of $70 billion by 2008, only to lead it back into oblivion. He clung to the notion that email was the most important feature of a mobile device, even when the market was turning toward the all-in-one charms of the iPhone.

Mr. Grant’s answer to Mr. Lazaridis is that we must think more like scientists and less like preachers, prosecutors or politicians. We should be humble about our convictions and beliefs, curious about the alternatives, and open to discovery and experimentation.

In every chapter, Mr. Grant sets up opposing models of thinking and guides us down the middle. For example, there are armchair quarterbacks, whose ignorance does not stop them from screaming at the coaches on television, and people who suffer from impostor syndrome, who, despite their abilities, are constantly afraid they’ll be found out. Somewhere between these extremes is a sweet spot of “confident humility” that allows us to see our strengths and weaknesses clearly and adjust for both.

Mr. Grant argues that the most innovative thinkers don’t just accept when they are wrong, they take genuine pleasure in it, and delight in having their intellectual world rocked. They are not personally invested in being right all the time. As hedge fund manager Ray Dalio tells Mr. Grant: “If you don’t look back at yourself and think, ‘Wow, how stupid I was a year ago,’ then you must not have learned much in the last year.”

In a chapter about the importance of constructive conflict in groups, Mr. Grant cites research which concluded that “the absence of conflict is not harmony, it’s apathy.” But it is no use if everyone is dug in to their positions, resentful of any challenge to their views. The trick is creating an environment where people enjoy an argument, and even see it as part of their job. One must separate conflict over tasks from conflicts in relationships. It’s one thing to have different views and use the heat of disagreement to forge a better solution, but those disagreements cannot turn personal.

About half way through “Think Again,” Mr. Grant mentions how, in his earlier book “Originals,” he had argued that “if we want to fight groupthink, it helps to have ‘strong opinions, weakly held.’ ” He now claims that he’s since changed his mind, and believes that his advice was a mistake. He writes that it is better, if you don’t really believe what you think but want to raise it, to be honest about expressing your uncertainty. Moderate confidence feels more truthful and can ultimately be more effective.

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