Adam Grant wrote Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know and says that rethinking starts with intellectual humility: acknowledging what you don’t know, the areas where you’re ignorant. There are many areas I know very little about. Cancer research or immunology, but also the world of bitcoin and blockchain, and the music scene in Africa, to name just a few.
The core idea of the book seems to be about the ability to rethink, to question your assumptions, and unlearn outdated beliefs, which is more important than ever in a rapidly changing, polarized world.
Grant encourages you to think like a scientist:
- Approach opinions as hypotheses, not truths.
- Being curious, not defensive.
- Favor data over intuition.
- Actively look for reasons why you might be wrong.
He distinguishes three other mindsets that are contrary to “the scientist”:
- The preacher: You defend your beliefs as if they’re sacred
- The prosecutor: You attack others’ ideas to prove them wrong
- The politician: You bend your beliefs to win approval.
After reading it, I realized that scientists aren’t often heard in our societies. If you read the news, chances are that you encounter one of the three contrary mindsets. And you might also, like me, recognize yourself in the preacher and prosecutor approaches. Grant freshens up your mind.
Rethinking should be a collective practice. Grant brings up scientific evidence to show that cultures of rethinking flourish when disagreement is welcomed, not shut down. Listening becomes a superpower in this context. Good conversations don’t change minds by logic alone; they create psychological safety. It means you need to develop a certain flexibility about your identity and not be tied to your ideas.
Evolving your worldview or narrative isn’t betrayal, it’s growth.
Whose knowledge is considered?
While reading it, though, I couldn’t help but also think about all the Western examples Grant brings forward. Quotes from Jeff Bezos and Will Smith, and Silicon Valley as a place of success.
Think Again is deeply rooted in Western epistemologies, valuing individual self-reflection, scientific rationality, and examples drawn from U.S. popular culture, corporate success stories, and psychology studies largely done in WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic) societies.
Adam Grant encourages us to challenge what we think we know, but does he challenge the assumptions of the Western worldview he operates in? His call to “think again” is largely framed as an individual act of humility within competitive, capitalist systems, where success still looks like innovation, growth, and leadership as imagined in Silicon Valley.
Yet, across the Majority World/ Global South, rethinking is often already a collective, ancestral, or spiritual practice. It happens in dialogue with land, community, or memory, not just through data and introspection.
So while I value the invitation to question ourselves, I also find myself asking: Whose knowledge is considered valid when we rethink? Who gets quoted? And why do stories from the West so often stand as “universal” examples of insight?
Grant’s work can be a useful tool, but only when we also “think again” about who is shaping the frame.
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