Jan 2025 - Start of a new year, new hopes, new beginnings, new goals. Believe me, it was just a usual start. My mind was blank and not much of an end goal. All my thoughts were/are knee jerk reactions. I am unsure where will I end up? I am Yet to formulize an end goal.
On my regular 1/1 with my Manager (Satish Pratapneni) this thought came up, What shall be the priorities for the year ? There was a need to change some of the way we worked. I had prepared some pain points to be communicated to him and we discussed on consolidating some of the items. Satish brought up the idea of Offsite for a day to discuss debate deliberate. A week later the idea was materialized, thanks to Teena (Admin at office) who arranged all the stuff. On the day of offsite, Satish presented this book. That was on 7 Jan 2025.
As usual, my procrastination stepped in. Did I really procrastinate? I am not sure. Kept the book aside for a right time. I used to read every morning until recently and somehow that went away. All my blogs are half way and I am not able to do justice to a structured reading which I thought I should do. Getting up early, spend an hour in reading. Let me try this way ! put up a book review for whatever I am reading.
Book name : Think Again
Author : Adam Grant
Oh Ghosh - 6/22/2025 - 6 months went by ...phew. Did I finish the book. HELL NO !!
I did read a lot through, though.
The good fight club - need for healthy conflicts. spark innovation, better ways to do stuff can arise from fights
Examples of Wright Brothers, on the way they are family of debates and disagreements and how it brought out better design and innovation
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6/23/2025
Part 2 - Interpersonal Rethinking
Chapter 5 - Dances with Foes
Changing your mind doesn't mean that you are a flip flopper. It shows that you have a mind to learn new things.
This chapter talks about convincing other people to rethink their opinions.
Debates are not full out war, rather a dance which has not been choreographed with a partner who doesnot synchronize to your steps. Its how you
Few technics to have a debate/negotiation:
- devote time to find planning comments finding common ground
- present fewer reasons to support their case. Don't let too water down the strong points
- Don't go into offense or defence. "So you don't see any merit in this proposal at all?
- Ask questions
- 1. Finding common ground - Started with their strongest argument of the favouring debater and partially agreeing to it.
- Resort to lesser arguments. too many arguments can give more ammunition to the other party
- eg. Bringing more donations
- bringing more people to game - Your biggest persuader to change your mind is you and not others
practise asking questions which can open peoples mind rather than directing. This will help peoples mind rather than compulsion.
If there is a heated argument
- Side step and ask
- tranquillity if they are screaming
BAD BLOOD ON THE DIAMOND
Not in a league of their own - Hypothesis 1
Common identity can build bridge between rivals. How astronauts who return back to earth have a boundaryless feeling. If you consider the Game of baseball rather than limited to one team, then the fans will praise the rival team about the game rather than the team itself.
Feeling for foes - Hypothesis 2
Better understand the rivals in person and their view points. Hard core fans consider some people as exceptions and neglect entire team
7/16/2025
Beasts of Habit - Hypothesis 3
People make prejudiced opinions even without knowing in deep. As time progresses this opinion changes by knowing in person. Same example of Base ball fans (yankee vs Redsox)
why should be hate a team as a whole? Is it the same set of people now also. Eg of Ship of Theseus in Museum. Whole of the planks have changed but still called the same.
Entering a parallel Universe
Counterfactual thinking will help break the stereo type. Example considering yourself in that situation/culture/experience. When people experience a different culture, it changes their view and become humble and learn to adapt. People start thinking again on the stereotyping of a community or a group. Better to talk and mingle in person with the people from the other group to gain more understanding, this helps to break the stereotype.
Black musician and white supremacist
How Daryl talked and changed KKK members by asking questions. Serial killer genes in whites more than blacks. he could persuade many to get away from KKK, even many changes their mind.
Chapter 7
Vaccine whisperers and mild mannered interrogators
Motivational interview- A method which can be used for people who are strongly against a fact. for eg. the people against vaccination in US. It is considered that vaccination has more harm than benefit and many mothers resort to not doing it with a strong belief against it. Rather than arguments which never reach any where:
- Ask open ended questions
- Step into their side - give consoling statements like " you are doing the best as a mother for your child"
- Don't use imposing statements.
- The best way to make others open is to Listen.
BEYOND THE CLINIC
Sustaining talk vs change talk - Sustaining talk is talking to maintain the status quo. Change talk is all about desire, need or ability or commitments to make adjustments. Change talk is like a golden thread, catch hold of it and pull it.
The 4th technique for motivational interview is summarizing and finding actions/next steps.
IN motivational interviews we tend to steer the questioning in our own way/need and this will not help. Rather it shall be aligned to the goal of the interviewee. Do not use it manipulatively.
8/2/2025
THE ART OF INFLUENTIAL LISTENING
Betty Bigombe from Uganda could convince Joseph Kony the rebellious leader to come out of jungle and at least have a conversation. She was successful to at least change his mind to open a conversation which many others could not do.
The art of influential listening - Listening skills are very important. Its not just talking less! taking keen interest in the mutual conversation/interest in other persons interest. no hidden agenda. Sometimes people may want sympathy more than solutions.
Betty Bigombe was not trained in motivational interviewing. She is a passionate listener who listened through out compared to other interviewers who came and started telling the rebels to stop doing what they are up to. She constantly listened, made notes.
Psychologists recommend to sit with people whom you have hard time understanding and listen to them. listen to them before reciprocating.
Make efforts to make your listeners smart rather than you yourself being smart as a preacher. Use the inverse Charisma method.
To conclude Patient Listening is a very important skill in life/work to excel as a leader.
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PART - 3 COLLECTIVE RETHINKING
Creating communities of lifelong learners
Chapter 8 Charged conversations
- Columbia university has a difficult conversations lab to assess the personalities debating on high political issues like abortion, gun laws. This lab conducts experiments on people who want to debate on popular issues like, gun control, anti-abortion etc. Run by Dr Peter T Coleman (Social Psychologist)
Binary vs complexifying. Binary thoughts are confined to just their understanding and bias and complexified is showcasing range of perspectives.
Resisting the impulse to oversimplify will help us to be arguement literate. Rather than biases have a more wholistic arguement.This helps us to communicate on polarizing issues. In my experience, I have seen very few people who dont oversimplify. One example of a person whom is arguement literate in my freinds circle is Praveen. His views are well judged and composed rather than binary.
Some inconvenient truths (Nuance, caveat, contingencies)
Another example to Al Gores TED talk on Global warming and how he turned it out to be an us vs them more relying on the politician style.
How to overcome binary bias? Its good to start with understanding the range of perspectives on a reasonable spectrum. It is very important to understand the outright deniers who gain more momentum/viewership/listeners.
Caveats and contingencies
- complexity with caveats brings more belief. Eg. of poor diet accelerates ageing.
- Contingencies planned eg. places and populations where an effect may change
- acknowledging complexity does not make the writers less convincing, rather it brings in more credibility
when it comes to mixed results, we tend to make consistent narrative rather than an accurate record. we are trained to ask whether we should rethink and revise those narratives.
MIXED FEELINGS
Stepping to other shoes and thinking of their perspective. This helps to have productive conversation over an unproductive one. The emotion can be in different kind. In productive conversation people treat their feelings as a rough draft.
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I have crossed the half way mark. Wrong way to read a book. It took forever and ever to get the book done. I give a 15 mins every day to read one. Its insanely insufficient. However I tried practising what is in the book slowly- That may be a good thing. I rarely become binary these days.
CHAPTER 9
Rewriting the text book
The author touches on how education becomes exciting by making the students ask deeper more meaningful questions on an otherwise stereotyped education system. We all are educators in life in one way or the other and it shall always be making the student to think again. Author gives examples of Erin McCarthy on how unconventionally she used to run classes to instil a spirit of think again in students. Eg. creating text book sections with only female characters, having lesser relevant historical instances like Japanese soldiers
Learning Interrupted.
Question what you learned, unlearn the things the false things you may have learned. Eg. of toot fairy and Santa which my not have existed at all. Education shall start at a very early age to question the false knowledge.
- Interrogate information instead of simply consuming it
- Reject rank and popularity as a proxy for reliability
- Understand that the sender of information is not its source
The dumbstruck effect
Author likes to call awestruck effect as dumbstruck rather. Though its a fact with evidence that active learning is better over the lectures. The listeners are dumbstruck with the charisma of the speakers, the content does not go well down to depth rather the speaker creates a political spell.
The unbearable lightness of repeating
The A- graders in a class may not be the best risk takers and may tend to fare lower compared to the lower grades who takes more risk. The author gives examples of how he conducted active lectures and activities after the first 20 mins, mini ted talks etc and how his students lowed it. Another "Passion talk " session was conducted where people can come and talk about other than work.
This may be a good idea for the people first initiative in office.
Jack of rough drafts, master of Crafts
The author introduce an education pioneer whose ways of education reforms has been unparallel. His classroom philosophy is based on experiencing the joy of discovery. for eg. taxonomy of animals to be done by the students itself, to collect the animals like snail and characterizing the food they like. He promoted students to think like scientists. HIs another approach is to make the children into groups and make versions and not just stay back with just one option, also to have critique sessions by other students to bring in the best from the student. Not judging the person, but judging the work and suggesting improvements. The takeaway is that we all are educations who shall be exhibiting humility, exude more curiosity, and introduce the children in our lives to the infectious joy of discovery.
Introduce new ways of thinking rather than the new thoughts. !
CHAPTER 10 - That's not the way we've always done it
Building the culture of learning at work
The NASA example of an innovation driven culture but at the same time overlooking certain failure and how it resulted in catastrophe was mentioned. They were victim of the overconfidence cycles. they missed opportunities for rethinking. Rethinking is more likely to happen in a learning culture where growth is core value and rethinking cycles are routine. In learning cultures,, the norm is people now what they dont know, doubt the existing practices, and stay curious about new routines to try out. Learning culture orgs innovate more !
Learning cultures thrive under Psychological safety and accountability.
I ERR, Therefore I learn
Psychological safety, How it has flourished? Eg. of Medical error prevention work done by Amy Edmondson. The higher the psychological safety a team felt, higher the error rates. They were fearless in reporting the mistakes. Less errors were made but more were reported. Psychological safety fosters a climate of Respect, trust and openness in which people can raise concerns and suggestions without fear of reprisal
A lack of psychological safety was sighted to be a persistent problem in NASA. Employees reporting the concerns were ignored or silenced. Ellen Ochoa, first Latina in space took it up to improve the psychological safety. She started carrying 3x5 note with following questions:
- what leads you to that assumption ? why do you think it is correct ? what might happen if its wrong
- what are the uncertainties in your analysis?
- I understand the advantage. what are the disadvantages?
