I recently read Think Again by Adam Grant, and I annotated a lot. Here are the annotations. Hopefully they spark some interest in you to think again (or at least read the book!)

• When people reflect on what it takes to be mentally fit, the first idea that comes to mind is usually intelligence. The smarter you are, the more complex problems you can solve – the faster you can solve them….yet in a turbulent world, there’s another set of cognitive skills that might matter more: the ability to rethink & unlearn
• When it comes to our own knowledge and opinions, we often favour feeling right over being rights
• When we think and talk, we often slip into the mindsets of three different professions: preachers, prosecutors and politicians…We go into preacher mode when our sacred beliefs are in jeopardy: we deliver sermons to protect and promote our ideas. We enter prosecutor when we recognized flaws in other peoples’s reasoning: we marshal arguments to prove them wrong and win our case. We shift into politician mode when we’re seeking to win over an audience: we campaign and lobby for approval of our constituents.
• In psychology there are at least 2 biases that drive [our thinking]: Confirmation bias – see what we expect to see [and] the other is desirability bias: seeing what we want to see.
• What set apart great presidents was their intellectual curiosity and openness.
• Research shows that when people are resistant to change, it helps to reinforce what will stay the same. Visions for change are more compelling when they include visions of continuity. Although our strategy might evolve, our identity will endure.
• In theory, confidence and competence go hand in hand. In practice, they often diverge.
• The Dunning-Kruger effect – when we lack competence that we are most likely brimming with over-confidence
• Advancing from notice to amateur can break the rethinking cycle. As we gain experience, we lose some of our humility.
• Confidence Sweet Spot = Confident Humility
• Attachment. That’s what keeps us from recognizing when our opinions are off the mark and rethinking them. To unlock the joy of being wrong, we need to detach.
• If you want to be a better forecaster today, you need to let go of your commitments of the opinions you held yesterday.
• Productive disagreement is a lifeskill none of us fully develop. Research shows that how often parents argue has no bearing on their children’s academic, social or emotional development.
• In good fights are the tension is intellectual not emotional
• Skilled negotiators: find common ground > ask questions > provide a # of reasons > defend attacks
• After establishing the drawbacks of her case, she emphasized a few reasons to hire her anyway: But what I do have are skills that can't be taught. I take ownership of projects far beyond my pay grade and what is defined in my scope of responsibilities. I don't wait for people to tell me what do and seek for myself what needs to be done. I invest myself deeply in my projects and it shows in everything I do, from my projects at work to the projects I do in my own time. I'm entrepreneurial. I get things done. I love breaking new ground and starting with a blank slate.
• As a general rule: its those with greater power that need to do more of the rethinking.
• When we try to convince people to think again, our first instinct is usually to start talking. Yet the most effective way to help others open their minds is often to listen.
• Inverse Charisma (the magnetic qualities of a great listener): a sense of being listened to with such intensity that you had to be your most honest, sharpest and best self.
• As consumers of information, we have a role to play. When reading, listening or watching, we can learn to recognize complexity as a signal of credibility. We can favour content and sources that present many sides of an issue, rather than just one or two. When we come across simplifying headlines, we can fight out tendency to accept binaries by asking what additional perspectives are missing between these extremes.
• In productive conversations, people treat feelings as a rough draft. Like art, emotions are works in progress. As we gain perspective, we revise what we feel.
• We need to encourage students to question themselves and one another.
• Lectures are entertaining and informative, the question is whether they are the ideal method of teaching. […] they actually gained more knowledge and skill from active learning sessions (sending students off to find answers instead of the teacher showing the students how to arrive at the answer). It required deeper mental effort, which made it less fun but led to deeper understanding.
• Perfectionists are more likely than their peers to ace school, they don’t perform any better than their colleagues at work.
• Respond to confusion with curiosity and interest aka “give time to your confusion”
• Encourage children to do multiple drafts of the same drawing.
• Psychological safety is the foundation of a learning culture
• Best practices in corporate imply that we’ve stopped learning, […] instead we should looking for “better practices”
• When psychological safety exists without accountability, people operate within their comfort zone.
• Change the ownership of psychological safety. (ex: if she says that it’s not safe to launch, the team should prove that it is safe to launch)
• Sometimes the best type of grit, is gritting your teeth and turning around.
• It’s easy to be a scientist: it’s simply the act of experimenting