The one-handed economist

I got this 2021 book after hearing an interview with its author, Adam Grant, who sounded really sensible… for a psychologist (I kid!)

Anyways, it was far better — in terms of insights and techniques — than I planned, so I made far too many notes. I will give the highlights below, but do also consider this book as an interesting companion to Supercommunicators (my review).

But before I go on, let me point you to three “cheat sheets” (now called “sketchnotes”?) that summaries some of the book’s major themes in pictures (and words — you still need to read!)

• Four thinking modes (preacher, politician, prosecutor vs scientist) [bup]
• Three types of rethinking (individual, interpersonal, collective) [bup]
• Just a lot of related ideas on the book [bup]

So, to the notes:

1. Rethinking and unlearning is more important than raw intelligence. “When it comes to our knowledge and opinions, we tend to stick to our guns. Psychologists call this seizing and freezing. We favor the comfort of conviction over the discomfort of doubt, and we let our beliefs get brittle long before our bones. We laugh at people who still use Windows 95, yet we still cling to opinions that we formed in 1995. We listen to views that make us feel good, instead of ideas that make us think hard.”
2. Sometimes we need to confront our identity before we can rethink. “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….rethinking who you are appears to become mentally healthy—as long as you can tell a coherent story about how you got from past to present you.”
3. Three modes: “We go into preacher mode when our sacred beliefs are in jeopardy: we deliver sermons to protect and promote our ideals. We enter prosecutor mode when we recognize flaws in other people’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 the approval of our constituents.”
4. A better mode: “We move into scientist mode when we’re searching for the truth: we run experiments to test hypotheses and discover knowledge… When second and third graders learned about “doing science” rather than “being scientists,” they were more excited about pursuing science. Becoming a scientist might seem out of reach, but the act of experimenting is something we can all try out. Even prekindergarten students express more interest in science when it’s presented as something we do rather than someone we are.”
5. Entrepreneurs trained to think like scientists (hypothesis, test, analysis, update) made far more money than the control group because they were willing to discard old ways and try new ways of doing things.
6. “Research reveals that the higher you score on an IQ test, the more likely you are to fall for stereotypes, because you’re faster at recognizing patterns. And recent experiments suggest that the smarter you are, the more you might struggle to update your beliefs. [How?] One is confirmation bias: seeing what we expect to see. The other is desirability bias: seeing what we want to see.”
7. “In preacher mode, changing our minds is a mark of moral weakness; in scientist mode, it’s a sign of intellectual integrity. In prosecutor mode, allowing ourselves to be persuaded is admitting defeat; in scientist mode, it’s a step toward the truth.”
8. “People who scored the lowest on an emotional intelligence test weren’t just the most likely to overestimate their skills. They were also the most likely to dismiss their scores as inaccurate or irrelevant—and the least likely to invest in coaching or self-improvement… When we lack the knowledge and skills to achieve excellence, we sometimes lack the knowledge and skills to judge excellence.”
9. Are you persistent or stubborn? “You can be confident in your ability to achieve a goal in the future while maintaining the humility to question whether you have the right tools in the present. That’s the sweet spot of confidence.”
10. “Who you are should be a question of what you value, not what you believe. Values are your core principles in life—they might be excellence and generosity, freedom and fairness, or security and integrity… You want the doctor whose identity is protecting health, the teacher whose identity is helping students learn, and the police chief whose identity is promoting safety and justice. When they define themselves by values rather than opinions, they buy themselves the flexibility to update their practices in light of new evidence.”
11. “When you form an opinion, ask yourself what would have to happen to prove it false. Then keep track of your views so you can see when you were right, when you were wrong, and how your thinking has evolved. `I started out just wanting to prove myself,’ Jean-Pierre says. `Now I want to improve myself—to see how good I can get.'”
12. “Relationship conflict is generally bad for performance, but some task conflict can be beneficial…. when it brings diversity of thought, preventing us from getting trapped in overconfidence cycles. It can help us stay humble, surface doubts, and make us curious about what we might be missing. That can lead us to think again, moving us closer to the truth without damaging our relationships.”
13. “Rethinking depends on a different kind of network: a challenge network, a group of people we trust to point out our blind spots and help us overcome our weaknesses… The ideal members of a challenge network are disagreeable, because they’re fearless about questioning the way things have always been done and holding us accountable for thinking again. There’s evidence that disagreeable people speak up more frequently—especially when leaders aren’t receptive—and foster more task conflict.”
14. “Strong leaders engage their critics and make themselves stronger. Weak leaders silence their critics and make themselves weaker.”
15. This sentence reminds me of me: “Agreeableness is about seeking social harmony, not cognitive consensus. It’s possible to disagree without being disagreeable. Although I’m terrified of hurting other people’s feelings, when it comes to challenging their thoughts, I have no fear. In fact, when I argue with someone, it’s not a display of disrespect—it’s a sign of respect. It means I value their views enough to contest them. If their opinions didn’t matter to me, I wouldn’t bother.”
16. “Experiments show that simply framing a dispute as a debate rather than as a disagreement signals that you’re receptive to considering dissenting opinions and changing your mind, which in turn motivates the other person to share more information with you…When social scientists asked people why they favor particular policies on taxes, health care, or nuclear sanctions, they often doubled down on their convictions. Asking people to explain how those policies would work in practice—or how they’d explain them to an expert—activated a rethinking cycle.”
17. “Skilled negotiators rarely went on offense or defense. Instead, they expressed curiosity with questions like “So you don’t see any merit in this proposal at all?” … We won’t have much luck changing other people’s minds if we refuse to change ours. We can demonstrate openness by acknowledging where we agree with our critics and even what we’ve learned from them. Then, when we ask what views they might be willing to revise, we’re not hypocrites.”
18. How to find common ground? Rather than attack the straw-man version of your opponent’s argument, state their “steel man” (strongest) points. When you agree with someone’s point, then you give them the chance to (a) agree with you and (b) question themselves.
19. Don’t fight with the other person’s views, but treat the discussion like a dance in which you try to understand their emotion rather than fighting it. “In a heated argument, you can always stop and ask, “What evidence would change your mind?” If the answer is “nothing,” then there’s no point in continuing the debate.”
20. I have said that I have “strong opinions, weakly held.” I interpret this as a sign of willingness to change my mind, but some people react more to “strong” than “weakly” so it’s better to include uncertainty, i.e., “strong opinions, open to updates” (my words). More from AG: “An informed audience is going to spot the holes in our case anyway. We might as well get credit for having the humility to look for them, the foresight to spot them, and the integrity to acknowledge them”
21. “Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell reflected. “From out there on the moon, international politics looks so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, ‘Look at that, you son of a bitch.’” This reaction is known as the overview effect”
22. How do you get rabid sports fans to stop attacking “the enemy”? Remind them of how arbitrary their anger is. (What if you were born in New York rather than Boston? Would you be a fucking idiot for supporting the Yankees?)
23. “People gain humility when they reflect on how different circumstances could have led them to different beliefs. They might conclude that some of their past convictions had been too simplistic and begin to question some of their negative views. That doubt could leave them more curious about groups they’ve stereotyped, and they might end up discovering some unexpected commonalities.”
24. “Motivational interviewing starts with an attitude of humility and curiosity. We don’t know what might motivate someone else to change, but we’re genuinely eager to find out. The goal isn’t to tell people what to do; it’s to help them break out of overconfidence cycles and see new possibilities. Our role is to hold up a mirror so they can see themselves more clearly, and then empower them to examine their beliefs and behaviors. That can activate a rethinking cycle, in which people approach their own views more scientifically. They develop more humility about their knowledge, doubt in their convictions, and curiosity about alternative points of view. The process of motivational interviewing involves three key techniques:
    • Asking open-ended questions
    • Engaging in reflective listening
    • Affirming the person’s desire and ability to change.”
25. “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…Listening is a way of offering others our scarcest, most precious gift: our attention.”
26. “Sustain talk is commentary about maintaining the status quo. Change talk is referencing a desire, ability, need, or commitment to make adjustments. When contemplating a change, many people are ambivalent—they have some reasons to consider it but also some reasons to stay the course. Miller and Rollnick suggest asking about and listening for change talk, and then posing some questions about why and how they might change.”
27. “There’s a fourth technique of motivational interviewing, which is often recommended for the end of a conversation and for transition points: summarizing. The idea is to explain your understanding of other people’s reasons for change, to check on whether you’ve missed or misrepresented anything, and to inquire about their plans and possible next steps. The objective is not to be a leader or a follower, but a guide.” Also see “looping to understand” in my Supercommunicators review.
28. Rather than present a dispute as right or wrong, black or white, allow for the reality of a middle ground, a gray area. “An antidote to this [0/1] proclivity is complexifying: showcasing the range of perspectives on a given topic. We might believe we’re making progress by discussing hot-button issues as two sides of a coin, but people are actually more inclined to think again if we present these topics through the many lenses of a prism.”
29. “The greater the distance between us and an adversary, the more likely we are to oversimplify their actual motives and invent explanations that stray far from their reality. What works is not perspective-taking but perspective-seeking: actually talking to people to gain insight into the nuances of their views.”
30. “Many teachers don’t do enough to encourage students to question themselves and one another… extraordinary educators foster rethinking cycles by instilling intellectual humility, disseminating doubt, and cultivating curiosity.”
31. “Some teachers send students out to interview people with whom they disagree. The focus is less on being right, and more on building the skills to consider different views and argue productively about them.”
32. “Lectures… are not enough to develop students into lifelong learners. If you spend all of your school years being fed information and are never given the opportunity to question it, you won’t develop the tools for rethinking that you need in life.”
33. Senior Penn students who wrote letters to their younger selves didn’t just give good advice; they had an excuse to re-think — and maybe change — some of their habits. “The students encouraged their younger selves to stay open to different majors, instead of declaring the first one that erased their uncertainty. To be less obsessed with grades, and more focused on relationships. To explore different career possibilities, rather than committing too soon to the one that promised the most pay or prestige.”
34. “When students confront complex problems, they often feel confused. A teacher’s natural impulse is to rescue them as quickly as possible so they don’t feel lost or incompetent. Yet psychologists find that one of the hallmarks of an open mind is responding to confusion with curiosity and interest. One student put it eloquently: “I need time for my confusion.” Confusion can be a cue that there’s new territory to be explored or a fresh puzzle to be solved.”
35. Do more than one draft… of a letter, an essay, a drawing, a jump. Drafts give us space to improve without putting pressure on doing it right or perfectly the first time. They also improve with each revision because we learn by doing. You can’t write a perfect final draft without a lot of imperfect earlier drafts.
36. “We randomly assigned some managers to ask their teams for constructive criticism. [it didn’t go well] … Another group of managers shared 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 made a public commitment to remain open to feedback.”
37. “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”
38. “It isn’t until a high-stakes decision goes horribly wrong that people pause to reexamine their practices… When we dedicate ourselves to a plan and it isn’t going as we hoped, we tend to double down and sink more resources in the plan. This pattern is called escalation of commitment.” And that’s what happened to me (what I did) when my boat was sinking — doubled down, instead of stepping back. Since then, I have tried to step back more quickly from (a) perfection (90% of good enough) and (b) confidence (maybe I don’t know what I am doing… what do you think?)
39. “Gritty mountaineers are more likely to die on expeditions, because they’re determined to do whatever it takes to reach the summit. There’s a fine line between heroic persistence and foolish stubbornness. Sometimes the best kind of grit is gritting our teeth and turning around.”
40. Paraphrasing… “Career checkup questions can periodically activate rethinking cycles. Ask some key questions twice a year. When did you form the aspirations you’re currently pursuing, and how have you changed since then? Have you reached a learning plateau in your role or your workplace, and is it time to consider a pivot? A CC helps you maintain humility about you ability to predict the future, contemplate doubts, and stay curious enough about new possibilities or previously discarded ones.” 
41. “Data suggesting that meaning is healthier than happiness, and that people who look for purpose in their work are more successful in pursuing their passions—and less likely to quit their jobs—than those who look for joy.”
42. “Those only are happy,” philosopher John Stuart Mill wrote, “who have their minds fixed on some object other than their own happiness; on the happiness of others, on the improvement of mankind, even on some art or pursuit, followed not as a means, but as itself an ideal end. Aiming thus at something else, they find happiness by the way.”

[Adam’s] Bottom Line: “It takes humility to reconsider our past commitments, doubt to question our present decisions, and curiosity to reimagine our future plans. What we discover along the way can free us from the shackles of our familiar surroundings and our former selves. Rethinking liberates us to do more than update our knowledge and opinions—it’s a tool for leading a more fulfilling life.”

Here are 30 tips for thinking again [pdf]

I give this book FIVE stars. Don’t just read it — use it in your life.

Here are all my reviews.

I read this 2024 book after hearing an interview with Charles Duhigg. His main points were (a) he was embarrassed that he was not as good a communicator as he thought he was and (b) that there are techniques to improve communication.

Somewhat coincidentally, I’ve recently decided to put more time into promoting communication among people (e.g., getting my students/colleagues to talk with each other), so this book is even more interesting to me now than when I started to read it 🙂

Here are my notes:

1. One key idea is that “many discussions are actually three different conversations. There are practical, decision-making conversations that focus on What’s This Really About? There are emotional conversations, which ask How Do We Feel? And there are social conversations that explore Who Are We? We are often moving in and out of all three conversations as a dialogue unfolds.” A lot of communication failures come from two sides talking past each other because one person is having an emotional conversation while the other focuses on their identity (or deciding what’s for dinner!)
   • Effective communication requires recognizing what kind of conversation is occurring, and then matching each other. On a very basic level, if someone seems emotional, allow yourself to become emotional as well. If someone is intent on decision making, match that focus. If they are preoccupied by social implications, reflect their fixation back to them.
   • …high centrality participants were constantly adjusting how they communicated, in order to match their companions. They subtly reflected shifts in other people’s moods and attitudes. When someone got serious, they matched that seriousness. When a discussion went light, they were the first to play along. They changed their minds frequently and let themselves be swayed by their groupmates.
2. Our goal, for the most meaningful discussions, should be to have a “learning conversation.” Specifically, we want to learn how the people around us see the world and help them understand our perspectives in turn.
   • Here are four rules to a learning conversation:
     Rule One: Pay attention to what kind of conversation is occurring.
     Rule Two: Share your goals, and ask what others are seeking.
     Rule Three: Ask about others’ feelings, and share your own.
     Rule Four: Explore if identities are important to this discussion.
   • One: When a student comes to a teacher upset, for instance, the teacher might ask: “Do you want to be helped, hugged, or heard?”
   • Two: How are we going to make choices together… Are we going to make decisions through analysis and reason, or through empathy and narratives?
3. The correct approach isn’t trying to put yourself in “someone else’s shoes.” That, after all, is impossible. Rather, maybe the best you can do is ask questions.
   • Ask about people’s lives, about what they’re feeling, about their hopes and fears, and then listen for their struggles, disappointments, joys, and ambitions.
   • Asking about someone’s beliefs or values (“How’d you decide to become a teacher?”).
   • Asking someone to make a judgment (“Are you glad you went to law school?”).
   • Asking about someone’s experiences (“What was it like to visit Europe?”)
   • These kinds of questions don’t feel intrusive—asking “How’d you decide to become a teacher?” doesn’t seem overly personal—but it’s an invitation for someone to share their beliefs about education, or what they value in a job. “Are you glad you went to law school?” invites someone to reflect on their choices, rather than simply describing their work. 
4. The difference between a shallow question and one that sparks an opportunity for emotional connection is vulnerability. And vulnerability is what makes How Do We Feel? so powerful.
   • Questions about facts (“Where do you live?” “What college did you attend?”) are often conversational dead-ends. They don’t draw out values or experiences. They don’t invite vulnerability. However, those same inquiries, recast slightly (“What do you like about where you live?” “What was your favorite part of college?”), invite others to share their preferences, beliefs, and values, and to describe experiences that caused them to grow or change. Those questions make emotional replies easier, and they practically beg the questioner to reciprocate—to divulge, in return, why they live in this neighborhood, what they enjoyed about college—until everyone is drawn in, asking and answering back and forth.
   • The researchers found that “questioners assumed that asking sensitive questions would make their conversation partners uncomfortable and would damage their relationships. But in fact, we consistently found that askers were wrong on both fronts.” Asking deep questions is easier than most people realize, and more rewarding than we expect.
   • Try 36 Questions for Increasing Closeness with a friend or family member.
5. When someone proves they’re listening it creates “a sense of psychological safety because [the listener] instills a confidence in the speaker that at least their arguments will receive full consideration and will, thus, be evaluated based on their real worth.” When people believe that others are trying to understand their perspectives, they become more trusting, more willing “to express their thoughts and ideas.” The “sense of safety, value and acceptance” that comes from believing a partner is genuinely listening makes us more willing to reveal our own vulnerabilities and uncertainties. If you want someone to expose their emotions, the most important step is convincing them you are listening closely to what they say.
   • So if a listener wants to prove they’re listening, they need to demonstrate it after the speaker finishes talking. If we want to show someone we’re paying attention, we need to prove, once that person has stopped speaking, that we have absorbed what they said. And the best way to do that is by repeating, in our own words, what we just heard them say—and then asking if we got it right.
   • We all crave control, of course. And while there are many factors that determine if a romantic relationship succeeds or flounders, one is whether the relationship makes us feel more in control of our happiness, or less. It is natural for couples to wrestle over control in a relationship; it’s part of working out how to balance each person’s needs, wants, roles, and responsibilities. But as the researchers watched their videotapes, they noticed a previously overlooked dynamic: During fights, happy and unhappy couples seemed to approach control very differently.
   • Among happy couples, however, the desire for control emerged quite differently. Rather than trying to control the other person, happy couples tended to focus, instead, on controlling themselves, their environment, and the conflict itself.
   • One advantage of focusing on these three things—controlling oneself, the environment, and the boundaries of the conflict—is that it allowed happy spouses to find things they could control together. They were still fighting. They still disagreed. But, when it came to control, they were on the same side of the table.
   • This explains why looping for understanding is so powerful: When you prove to someone you are listening, you are, in effect, giving them some control over the conversation. This is also why the matching principle is so effective: When we follow someone else’s lead and become emotional when they are emotional, or practical when they have signaled a practical mindset, we are sharing control over how a dialogue flows.
   • On Facebook, people kept trying to control one another. These struggles for control weren’t the only thing disrupting conversations—but when they emerged, they tore dialogues apart. Some Facebook participants, for instance, tried to control what others were allowed to say, which opinions were permitted, what emotions could be expressed: “It’s ridiculous to say you’re scared because your neighbor owns a gun,” one person told another. “There’s no way you should feel that way.”
   • Sometimes people don’t know how to listen. They think listening means debating, and if you let someone else make a good point, you’re doing something wrong. But listening means letting someone else tell their story and then, even if you don’t agree with them, trying to understand why they feel that way
6. The desire for belonging is at the core of the Who Are We? conversation, which occurs whenever we talk about our connections within society. When we discuss the latest organizational gossip (“I hear everyone in accounting is going to get laid off”) or signal an affiliation (“We’re Knicks fans in this family”) or figure out social linkages (“You went to Berkeley? Do you know Troy?”) or emphasize social dissimilarities (“As a Black woman, I see this differently than you”), we’re engaging in a Who Are We? conversation.
   • It’s crucial, in a Who Are We? conversation, to remind ourselves that we all possess multiple identities: We are parents but also siblings; experts in some topics and novices in others; friends and coworkers and people who love dogs but hate to jog. We are all of these simultaneously, so no one stereotype describes us fully. We all contain multitudes that are just waiting to be expressed. This means that a Who Are We? discussion might need to be more meandering and exploratory. Or it might need to go deep and invite others to talk about where they come from, how they see themselves, how the prejudices they confront—racism, sexism, the expectations of parents and communities—have impacted their lives.
   • First, try to draw out your conversational partners’ multiple identities. It’s important to remind everyone that we all contain multitudes; none of us is one-dimensional. Acknowledging those complexities during a conversation helps disrupt the stereotypes within our heads. Second, try to ensure everyone is on equal footing. Don’t offer unsolicited advice or trumpet your wealth or connections. Seek out topics where everyone has some experience and knowledge, or everyone is a novice. Encourage the quiet to speak and the talkative to listen, so everyone is participating. Finally, look for social similarities that already exist. We do this naturally when we meet someone new and start searching for people we know in common. But it is important to take those connections a step further and make our commonalities more salient. Our similarities become powerful when they are rooted in something meaningful: We may both be friends with Jim, but that’s not much of a connection—until we start talking about what his friendship means to us, how Jim is an important part of both our lives.
   • These kinds of comments sparked irritation because the listeners had been assigned to a group (the wealthy snobs, the selfish Republicans, the undeserving college students) they didn’t identify with. Or, they were denied membership in a group (people who understand how the law works, people who sympathize with children) where they felt they rightfully belonged. So the listener, offended, would become defensive as their sense of self—their identity—was attacked. In psychology, this is known as identity threat, and it is deeply corrosive to communication.
   • Put differently, the researchers hypothesized that nudging participants to think, just a little harder, about how a Who Are We? conversation will unfold, before it starts, might make identity threats a bit less threatening. Who will speak first? (Studies suggest the person with the least power should begin.) What kinds of emotions should we anticipate? (If we prepare for discomfort and tension, we make them easier to withstand.) What obstacles should we expect? When they emerge, what will we do? Most important, what benefits do we expect will emerge from this dialogue, and are they worth the risks?
   • When conversations focus on creating belonging for everyone, as well as diversity and inclusion, “you’re inviting people to participate and learn, to take responsibility for improving things.” It is important to note that these kinds of discussions will almost never be perfect. But perfection is not the goal. “Most of the work is about gaining awareness of yourself, your culture, and the culture of others”… to recognize our own biases.

These notes are not nearly as useful as reading the book and its many examples. FIVE STARS.

Here are all my reviews.