Think Again
by Adam Grant
Why You Should Read This: You can develop a skill that enables you to become a better leader – tapping into our curiosity and becoming a life-long learner. Here is the link to the Audible version of the book but I also recommend buying a physical book for the appendix that you can dog-ear and highlight.
As someone whose ancestors in ancient times were given a surname that translates to stubborn as a mule and who is a self-proclaimed recovering perfectionist, Adam Grant’s book Think Again, The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know offers many tangible actions that pushed me to expand my mindset so that I can create an environment that fosters innovation and collaboration for my teams.
This book forces you to examine your biases so that you can ask questions of others who do not share your beliefs and do so in a way that depolarizes polarizing situations. Throughout the book, the author relays numerous examples of what happened when people challenged their beliefs; tapped into their curiosity; and benefited from constructive conflict. Each example is foundational to building collective rethinking and creating communities filled with lifelong learners.
As anyone who follows the author on social media knows, Adam Grant is quote-worthy and this book is no exception. This one quote stays with me and is taped to my computer: It's easy to consider the ends justify whatever means are necessary. But it's worth remembering that the means are a measure of our character.
How You Can Apply This : For me, the best part of the book centered on how challenging our beliefs creates an environment of psychological safety that builds deep trust within a team, which in turn leads to creativity that generates successes over time. The 30 Actions for Impact expanded my mindset on individual rethinking, interpersonal rethinking, and collective rethinking.
Please DM me to share your success stories that came from implementing any of the 30 Actions for Impact. I can share my examples of how one act of thinking again affected the way I interacted with my teams; tapped into our willingness to ask questions and grow; and created successes that we would never have achieved individually.
Additional Materials For Reinforcing What You Learned: If you want to reinforce what you gained from this book by listening to a podcast, you might enjoy: Masters of Scale-Rapid Response with Sarah Levy of Betterment. She describes how the team at Betterment was able to think again and create new opportunities for the organization in terms of products, client satisfaction, and employee engagement.
You may also want to conduct a deeper dive by reading any of the three Harvard Business Review articles on Psychological Safety; Learning; and Employee Motivation
This book review was written by Shelley A. Svoren, VP – Leader Development for IAWA and who is the CEO + Founder of Infinite Branches. You can DM her on LinkedIn.