Book Summary — Think Again

🚀 The Book in 3 Sentences

1. It urges you to think again (like its name)
2. Propose a rethinking mindset and how to train to rethink.
3. Start with individual rethinking and follow by interpersonal and collective rethinking.

🎨 Impressions

When I was reading the think again book, it felt like I was slapped in the face. I have to drop my ego and try to rethink my beliefs. As an engineer, I used to think that I have a scientific mindset already but after reading, I realize that I prevent myself from thinking again.

🙍‍♂️ Who Should Read It?

This book is easy to read and relates to everyone. Since the world is full of information, it is the best practice to think again before believing anything.

✍️ My Top 3 Quotes

• We often favor feeling right over being right.
• We don’t have to wait for our confidence to rise to achieve our goal. We can build it through achieving goals.
• We can rarely motivate someone else to change. We‘re better off helping them find their motivation to change.

📒 Summary + Notes

1. Individual Rethinking

Intro

• Rethinking is a skill set, but it’s also a mindset.
• We often favor feeling right over being right.
• There are 3 profession mindsets that we often used when talking: preachers, prosecutors, and politicians.

1. Preachers to protect our view.
2. Prosecutors to prove others are wrong.
3. Politicians to find support from others.

• We must move to a scientist mindset to find the truth. Seeking the reason why we might be wrong.
• No matter how smart you are, if you have no motivation to change your mind, you can’t rethink.
• Bias to avoid

1. Confirmation bias: see only what we expect to see.
2. Desirability bias: see only what we want to see.

Confidence VS Competence

• Rethinking cycle

• Armchair quarterback syndrome: confidence exceeds competence.
• Armchair quarterback syndrome can be a hindrance to rethinking, so it is important to start with humility.
• Imposter syndrome: competence exceeds confidence. Imposter fear can give us 3 motivations: 1. work harder 2. work smarter 3. be a better learner.
• The key is we don’t have to wait for our confidence to rise to achieve our goal. We can build it through achieving goals.
• Dunning-Kruger effect: The less intelligent we are, the more we overestimate our actual intelligence.
• You can be confident in your ability to achieve a goal while maintaining humility. That is a confident humility.

Being wrong

• Being wrong can be joyful since it means that we’ve learned something new and we are now less wrong than before.
• Totalitarian ego: a mechanism that protects our beliefs by feeding comforting lies.
• To unlock the joy of being wrong, we have to detach your present from your past and your opinion from your identity.
• Our identity depends on what we value not what we believe, so we can update our beliefs when there is new evidence.
• When you form an opinion, ask yourself what would have to happen to prove it false.
• Admitting we are wrong doesn’t make us look less competent. It shows that we are honest and want to learn.

Constructive conflict

• The team that performs poorly shows more relationship conflict than task conflict.
• Relationship conflict can limit rethinking since it involves personal and emotional issues.
• Task conflict can lead to higher creativity and better choices.
• We learn more from people who challenge our thought process than from those who affirm our conclusion.
• Sign of constructive conflict: tension is intellectual, not emotional; the tone is vigorous, not aggressive.
• Framing a dispute as a debate, not a disagreement.

2. Interpersonal Rethinking

How to win the debate?

• If we try to persuade them by taking an adversarial approach, we can’t open their mind.
• A good debate is not a war. It is a dance with a partner who has different steps in mind.

1. Take time to find a common ground for both sides to understand each perspective.
2. Present fewer reasons to support to make it less likely to reject any reason and it will be more like a conversation instead of an onslaught.
3. Express curiosity with questions to let your partner step forward.

Diminishing prejudice

• The stereotype is formed because people seek belonging and status
• Once a stereotype was formed, it is difficult to undo it since we naturally shield our beliefs instead of changing our beliefs. Another reason is that we tend to interact with people who share the same beliefs (group polarization).
• To solve the stereotype issue, a key step is getting them to do some counterfactual thinking by considering what they‘d believe if they were living in an alternative reality.

Listening way that can motivate people to change

• We can rarely motivate someone else to change. We‘re better off helping them find their motivation to change.
• Motivational interviewing is a way of listening that can motivate people.
• Motivational interviewing starts with an attitude of humility and curiosity. Holding up a mirror so they can examine their beliefs. We will behave like a guide.
• 3 techniques of motivational interviewing: asking open-ended questions without any hidden agenda, engaging in reflective listening, and affirming the person’s desire and ability to change.
• When people detect an attempt at influence, they have defense mechanisms.
• People often want sympathy rather than solutions.
• Many communicators try to make themselves look smart while great listeners try to make their audiences feel smart.
• Start with building a trusting relationship. If you present information without permission, no one will listen to you.

3. Collective Rethinking

Depolarizing our divided discussion

• Frame the debate as a complex problem with many shades of gray, representing several different viewpoints.
• Divide solutions into 2 extremes is a binary bias that doesn’t motivate people to rethink.
• To create rethinking cycles, add complexity to the problem.
• To add complexity to the problem:

1. Asking “How?”.
2. Include limitations to the solutions.
3. Highlighting contingencies

• The best way to make the conversation less polarizing is to leave emotion out and discuss the evidence.
• People will ignore the existence of a problem if they don’t like the solution.

Teaching students to question knowledge

• If false beliefs aren’t addressed in elementary school, they become harder to change later.
• Focus less on being right and more on building the skills to consider different views and argue productivity about them.
• Guidelines include:

1. Interrogate information instead of simply consuming
2. Reject rank and popularity as a proxy of reliability
3. Understand that sender of information is often not its source.

• Students gain more knowledge and skill from active learning because it required more mental effort and deeper understanding.
• Active-learning methods include group problem solving, worksheets, and tutorials.
• If you only are fed information and never question it, you won’t develop the tools for rethinking.
• Good teachers introduce new thoughts, but great teachers introduce new ways of thinking.
• Education is more than the information we accumulate. It is the habits we develop and the skills we build to keep learning.

Learning culture

• In learning cultures, the norm is for people to know what they don’t know, doubt their existing practices, and stay curious about new routines to try out.
• Learning culture thrives under a particular combination of psychological safety and accountability.
• Psychological safety is respect, trust, and an open environment in which people can raise concerns and suggestions without fear of criticism.
• Managers can build psychological safety by sharing their future development goals and asking for feedback on how they can improve.
• Psychological safety can only remove fear but accountability can motivate rethinking.
• Create process accountability by evaluating how carefully different options are considered as people make decisions.