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

Grant begins this chapter with the story of Mike Lazaridis, the founder of Blackberry. Lazaridis was a technological wiz from a young age, developing innovative products in a variety of fields, but the Blackberry smartphone was his crowning achievement, accounting for nearly half of the US smartphone market by 2009 (16). However, Blackberry soon took a nosedive. Grant argues that we anthropomorphize companies in situations like this, claiming that they failed to adapt, but he suggests that we should instead think of adaptation as something people do. In this case, Lazaridis was unable to rethink.

Grant claims that “we need to question our beliefs more readily than ever before” (16); however, beliefs tend to become entrenched over time, even when we can recognize when others may need to rethink their assumptions.

According to Phil Tetlock, Grant writes, when we think and talk, we tend to alternately adopt the mindsets of preachers, prosecutors, and politicians--preacher mode when we try to protect and promote our ideals, prosecutor mode when we try to prove others wrong, and politician mode when we lobby for others’ approval. However, we become so wrapped up in these modes that we don’t rethink our own ideas in the process.

In contrast, Grant suggests that we should adopt the mindset of scientists. Scientists must doubt what they know, be curious about what they don’t know, and update their views based on new data. Grant argues that being a scientist can also be a frame of mind through which we analyze and rethink our own ideas in order to make better decisions.

In one study, a group of European researchers took a group of struggling entrepreneurs and trained some of them to think about their startups like scientists. The entrepreneurs in the group that had been taught to think like scientists pivoted from their original ideas more than twice as often, and as a result, averaged more than $12,000 in revenue over the next year, compared to the control group’s average of less than $300 in revenue (20).

Grant notes that these findings run counter to what we usually believe to be hallmarks of strong leadership. We believe good leaders are strong-minded, clear-sighted, decisive, and firm. However, research suggests that the best strategists tend to be slow to make final decisions, preferring to take their time and weigh all the evidence first.

Further, he points out that even scientists often do not think like scientists, instead choosing to preach, prosecute, or politick for their own pet ideas. One case in point was Mike Lazaridis, who was thinking like an innovative scientist when he created the Blackberry. However, even as the iPhone gained popularity in the late 2000s, Lazaridis stuck with his conviction that consumers didn’t want to carry a computer in their pockets, leading to Blackberry’s downfall.

Evidence suggests that the smarter someone is, counterintuitively, the more difficult it might be for them to update their beliefs. Mental dexterity requires not just the ability to rethink your beliefs, but the willingness to do so. Grant chalks this up to confirmation bias, or the tendency to see what we expect to see in the data; and desirability bias, or the tendency to see what we want to see in the data. Grant also proposes the “I’m not biased” bias, in which people believe they’re more objective than others, something that smart people are more likely to believe. “The brighter you are,” Grant writes, “the harder it can be to see your own limitations” (25).

To think like a scientist, Grant claims we need to be actively open-minded. We need to search for reasons why we might be wrong, and we must actively revise our beliefs based on what we learn. In other modes of thinking, changing one’s mind is a mark of weakness rather than strength. He acknowledges that there are times when it might be beneficial to preach, prosecute, or politick, but that in scientist mode, we gain mental agility.

Grant believes that rethinking happens in cycles. First we recognize what we don’t know, which opens us up to doubt. We then become curious about what we’re missing, which leads us to new discoveries—which reinforces just how much we don’t know. This process is in contrast to the “overconfidence cycle,” which works in much the same way, only to entrench already held beliefs rather than open us up to new ones.

To Grant, Mike Lazaridis was trapped in an overconfidence cycle. Because he had been so successful, he was unable to recognize where his limitations might be. However, Grant notes that similar limitations existed in Apple, as well. Steve Jobs was initially against the iPhone, and it was his employees who convinced him to develop it (29). The key to their success was that they were able to demonstrate to Jobs that they could develop a phone his way, thereby retaining Apple’s identity in the process. Grant posits that reinforcing such similarities helps to overcome resistance to change and wonders what the smartphone market might look like if Lazaridis’s employees had ultimately been able to convince him of the same.