Adam Grant’s new book, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know may be one of the most important books of our time, because it delves into an incredibly important skill: rethinking.
Rethinking is essential, because it helps people determine…
- What they don’t know…
- When what they know has changed…
- When they’re looking in the wrong place or asking the wrong questions…
There are so many ways this skill can improve workplace safety, and I suspect you’ll get lots of great ideas from the book.
Specifically, I want to highlight Grant’s concept of confident humility. On the one hand, confidence is great. Confident employees are more likely to take action and get things done. Plus, people enjoy doing work they’re confident they can do well. And since they may have spent years doing this work and honing their skills– they should feel good about it! They are actually good at it!
But confidence is also potentially a problem. When people are confident, they sometimes stop being curious. They sometimes stop noticing details. They sometimes stop growing their skills and learning.
Adam Grant writes that confident humility is “having faith in our capability while appreciating that we may not have the right solution or even be addressing the right problem.” In my words, it’s about knowing that whatever it is, I can handle it (or at least figure out who can handle it), but I better be sure about what it is that needs to be handled.
This is a skill that can be taught, nurtured, and turned into a habit.
We’ve identify 5 key behaviors for individuals, so they can develop their own confident humility and critical thinking skills. Plus, we’ve identified 5 key behaviors for managers, so they can create work environments that foster and promote confident humility and critical thinking.
Contact us about accelerating your team’s mastery of these skills.