134. It is *really* important to change your mind...frequently!

I'm only just now getting to Adam Grant's Think Again and omg its such a useful governance book.

 

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OK so all you governance nerds out there are probably *way* ahead of me on this one, but I’m only just now getting to Adam Grant’s Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know. It’s an amazing synthesis of all the great work out there on why thinking is only really great when accompanied by RE-thinking. All presented through engaging storytelling and accessible explanations of complex stuff. In short, it explains how important it is for us to change our minds, frequently, because it means that we’re learning. Finding out you’re wrong about something important to you can feel painful – especially if you were wrong about something that you feel was part of your identity – but ultimately it’s unequivocally GOOD to find out you’re wrong because you now have a chance to be right, or at least more right than you were before. It took about 10 years of studying corporate governance before I started to see the pattern that a willingness to change one’s mind was one of the most common traits that corporate directors valued in their peers. Boards are frequently expected to collectively digest and understand massive amounts of information into clear decisions within infuriating time constraints. One way to manage that is to enter the room with clear and stubborn preconceptions and confidently follow a path without questioning. Another way is to practice letting go of our preconceptions when we get new information, and accept that being wrong isn’t a personal flaw, but not wanting to be right might just cause us to walk off the cliff at the end of our preconceived path.