Organizational psychologist Adam Grant has written an outstanding book that should be required reading. His book, “Think Again – The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know”, focuses on the need in our turbulent world to master an important cognitive skill, “the ability to rethink and unlearn”. Grant recognizes that “our ways of thinking become habits that can weigh us down, and we don’t bother to question them until it’s too late”. He continues, “A hallmark of wisdom is knowing when it’s time to abandon some of your most treasured tools – and some of the most cherished parts of your identity”.
“Think Again – The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know” is divided into three main sections: individual rethinking, interpersonal rethinking, and collective rethinking. This blog will focus on the latter, building learning cultures at work. “Rethinking is not just an individual skill. It’s a collective capability, and it depends heavily on an organization’s culture”. Furthermore, “Rethinking is more likely to happen in a learning culture, where growth is the core value and rethinking cycles are routine”. Here are some quotes from Grant’s book related to building cultures of learning at work:
– “In psychologically unsafe teams, people hide their mishaps to avoid penalties, which makes it difficult for anyone to diagnose the root causes and prevent future problems”.
– “Psychological safety is not a matter of relaxing standards, making people comfortable, being nice and agreeable, or giving unconditional praise. It’s fostering a climate of respect, trust, and openness in which people can raise concerns and suggestions without fear of reprisal. It’s the foundation of a learning culture”.
-“In performance cultures, the emphasis on results often undermines psychological safety”.
-In performance cultures, psychological safety is often eroded. This was evident when NASA director of crew operations Ellen Ochoa nudged the culture toward learning by asking three key questions about every launch:
– “What leads you to that assumption? Why do you think it is correct? What might happen if it’s wrong?
– What are the uncertainties of your analysis?
-I understand the advantages of your recommendation. What are the disadvantages?”
– “How do you know? It’s a question we need to ask more often, both of ourselves and of others. The power lies in its frankness”.
– Grant observed a group of managers who, instead of asking their teams for constructive feedback, randomly assigned managers to share their past experiences with receiving feedback and their future development goals. “We advised them to tell their teams about a time when they benefited from constructive criticism and to identify the areas that they were working to improve now. By admitting some of their imperfections out loud, managers demonstrated that they could take it – and make a public commitment to remain open to feedback. They normalized vulnerability”.
– “It takes confident humility to admit that we’re a work in progress. It shows that we care more about improving ourselves than proving ourselves”.
– “To build a learning culture, we also need to create a specific kind of accountability – one that leads people to think again about the best practices in their workplaces”.
– “Focusing on results might be good for short-term performance, but it can be an obstacle to long-term learning”.
– “Along with outcome accountability, we can create process accountability by evaluating how carefully different options are considered as people make decisions. A bad decision process is based on shallow thinking. A good process is grounded in deep thinking and rethinking”.
– “In learning cultures, people don’t stop keeping score. They expand the scorecard to consider processes as well as outcomes”.
In conclusion, Grant writes, “It’s a mistake to follow traditions because the status quo is familiar. We’re better off questioning whether past routines are serving us well in the present and guiding us toward a better future”.