[ Music ]
>> Speaker: Sponsored by
the James Madison Council.
[ Music ]
>> Mishal Husain: Hello everyone
and welcome to this session
of the 2021 National
Book Festival.
I'm Mishal Husain, author of
The Skills: From First Job
to Dream Job-What Every
Woman Needs to Know.
And I'm delighted to be speaking
to Adam Grant, about his latest
and again very successful book,
which is called, Think Again:
The Power of Knowing
What You Don't Know.
So, welcome, Adam, thanks
for being part of this.
Let's start, Adam, with
the wonderful theme
of this year's festival which
is open a book, open the world.
Take me back to your
childhood was there a book
that opened the world to you?
>> Adam Grant: There were so
many it's hard to pick just one.
But I remember being
in elementary school
and my mom taking me to the
library and letting me pick
out 30 books a week, and
I just tore through them.
Reading was an invitation
into somebody else's mind.
I remember just getting
transported into stories
and being lost in the world
that was created by the author.
And one of my favorite
books that I read
in elementary school
was the Westing Game.
It was a mystery, and
I remember reading it
and having all these hunches
and guesses about what was going
to happen and being
shocked at the ending.
And then, I read it again
because I wanted to see
if I could figure out what
some of the clues were
that the authors, the author
had planted that I missed.
And that discovery process
just, it reminded me
that the most powerful thing
about opening a book is
that it opens your mind.
It leaves you to question the
things that you think you know.
And I cannot think of a better
time to do that than 2021.
>> Mishal Husain: Did you
say 30, 3-0, books a week?
>> Adam Grant: [laughter]
They were short books, yeah.
But I spent a lot of hours
reading, and I think that for,
as a shy kid who was
very introverted,
reading a book was a way to
connect with other people
without all of the discomfort
and awkwardness of having
to approach someone
for a conversation.
>> Mishal Husain: Interesting.
But I still think I'm starting
to understand why
little Adam Grant grew
up to be Adam Grant of today.
You know, I grew up in the
Middle East as an expert kid
in the United Arab Emirates
because my parents came
from Pakistan, first to the
UK and then move to the UAE,
and there were no public
libraries that I can remember,
and very few bookshops actually.
This was the Middle
East in the 1970's,
at least in the Gulf,
there were very few.
And there was one little library
in our, in our sports club,
and that was where I pretty
much feel I read the whole
children's section.
And you know, in that
sort of, you know,
dusty weather the same all
year-round kind of environment,
that was, that was absolutely
where starting with Enid Blyton
or Louisa May or, you know the
world didn't open up to me.
So, I feel like I owe so much
to that tiny little collection
of books in a building that
I'm sure no longer even exists,
but you know, these things
help make us who we are.
>> Adam Grant: They do.
And I don't know if the pen
is mightier than the sword,
but I do believe that
it's in class longer.
And I think that, you
know, for so many of us,
books have changed our lives and
they've also changed the world.
And I know for a long time,
people were wondering,
well is digital or
is audio going
to replace cracking
open a physical book?
I think the resounding answer
is no, there is nothing
like sitting down with a book,
and actually reading
it and here we are.
>> Mishal Husain: Here
are our contributions to,
to the collected
literature that is out there,
and primarily we'll be
talking about yours.
Now, this, I've got lots of
questions about this, Adam,
but why don't you start out
with, with your core argument?
Because a lot of your
audience are high performance
individuals, high performance
organizations as well,
and your work is incredibly
influential amongst those groups
and beyond.
What were you, what
is the core argument
that you set out in this?
>> Adam Grant: Well, I
think the basic premise is
that being smart enough to be
good at thinking and learning,
sometimes stands in the way
of rethinking and unlearning.
Right? The more intelligent
you are,
the more reasons you can
find to convince yourself
that your beliefs are true,
that your opinions are accurate,
that your assumptions don't
need to be questioned.
And that's not a problem if
the world stands still, right,
if we're in a stable world,
the beliefs you held yesterday
are probably dependable today.
But we live in a dynamic
world where everything
around us is constantly
changing, and that means
that there's a danger of our old
beliefs becoming mental fossils,
that they need to be
discarded and abandoned,
and we're pretty
reluctant to do that.
I have watched so many companies
fail, not because they were bad
at thinking but because
they were bad at rethinking.
Let's go with Borders,
Blockbuster, Kodak, Sears,
Toys R Us, BlackBerry, right?
All of these organizations,
fell in love with their visions
and their strategies, they got
too attached to the old ideas
that made them great, and they
didn't start to think again
until it was too late.
And so, what I'm
really interested
in is how we can find the
curiosity, the humility
and the courage to
question our old ideas.
>> Mishal Husain: But aren't
a lot of your readers,
as high-performance people,
wouldn't you say a lot
of them are, I mean during
the kind of places where you
where you are challenged,
you know, you have to be
on the top of your game.
I mean, assuming they're
not going out of business,
are they to some extent doing
what you're saying already?
>> Adam Grant: I, well first
of all, I wrote this book
for everyone, so I'm not
going to assume that you know
that only high performers
or high achievers
are going to read it.
But secondly, and maybe
most, more importantly,
I think that in many
cases they are rethinking
but they're doing it too slowly.
I think the idea is
that we actually want
to be quicker to think again.
We need to, we need to challenge
our assumptions proactively
and if there's anything
that 2020 taught us, right?
It was that we were
too slow to do that.
I had had data for, for
decades, right, that as long
as people were in the
office half the week,
you could get more productivity,
higher satisfaction
and retention, and there
wouldn't be a real cost
to collaboration
and relationships.
And yet, so many of the
leaders that I worked
with were reluctant to even
run a remote Friday experiment,
and let people work from
anywhere one day a week.
And one of the things that I see
consistently, and this is true
for leaders, it's true for
parents, it's true for teachers,
is we get stuck too
often thinking
like preachers and prosecutors.
When we go into preacher mode,
we believe we've
already found the truth,
and we're trying
to proselytize it.
When we're in prosecutor
mode, we're trying
to win an argument
and prove our case.
And the problem with preaching
and prosecuting is
you've already decided
that you're right
and they're wrong,
which means they might
need to change their mind
and think again,
but you're good.
And those mindsets can stand
in the way of rethinking.
>> Mishal Husain: However,
if you find a method,
a way of working, a system
of processing information
that works well for you, and I'm
thinking as an individual here,
in an organization, you probably
call it a best practice.
You've discovered that
works for a reason
and it's kind of
tried and tested.
But is it a dangerous thing
to try and hold on to?
>> Adam Grant: I think it can
be some of the work I've done
with NASA for example, suggests
that so called best practices
can cause a space shuttle
to explode or to
disintegrate, right?
You get too attached to the
way we've always done things,
and you don't question,
old routines.
I think the danger
in a best practice,
is it creates an
illusion of an endpoint.
There's nothing better
than best,
we've already reached
perfection,
so we don't need to rethink it.
I think what we should be
doing instead is looking
for better practices, asking,
is there an opportunity
to improve this?
And knowing that the way we did
things before, may not apply
to the current circumstances.
>> Mishal Husain: Okay,
any practical thoughts
about how you do that
without throwing the baby
out with the bathwater
or without throwing your
organization into, you know,
complete change which is
really stressful for everyone?
>> Adam Grant: Yeah,
that is scary.
I think the first
thing to recognize is
that rethinking does not
have to change your mind,
it just means being open to
reconsidering and reevaluating.
And you might conclude
after some careful analysis
that the way you've always
done things is effective.
I think though that what I often
like to do is draw two by two.
I want to ask, how
high are the stakes
of this decision,
how important is it?
And then, also how reversible
is it, can I easily undo it?
Where you need to do
your rethinking upfront,
where you want to question
your best practices quickly,
is when the stakes are high, and
the decision is irreversible,
because it really matters,
and you can't just
change your mind tomorrow.
And that's when I think
we need leaders to pause,
we need all of us, right, as
we make our life decisions,
our career choices,
our decisions
about where we're gonna live,
we want to posit those
high stakes decisions
because we can just course
correct immediately and quickly.
And we want to do lots
of rethinking upfront.
If the stakes are lower, or if
it's easy to change your mind,
fine, act quickly and do your
rethinking on the back end.
>> Mishal Husain: What really
interested me in your work
with NASA when I, when
I read the book is,
that's exactly the
kind of place,
because of the safety
implications,
you know like the airline
industry as well, more widely,
where I would imagine
that that kind
of constant rethinking
is half of the course.
>> Adam Grant: Well, it
is in many parts of NASA.
The question is what do you do
when there's serious
time pressure?
So, if you look at the
decisions that NASA made
around the space
shuttle Columbia launch.
Columbia launches, and then
there are some pieces of foam
that are seen floating around.
And the question is, well
we've recognized those,
what do we do about them?
And NASA's best practice
at the time was to focus
on the next mission, right,
if you launch a shuttle
successfully, you have,
you've accomplished your goal.
And they didn't put
enough, enough focus
and enough attention on
asking how do we make sure
that these astronauts can
return to Earth safely?
And as soon as they
shifted their attention
to the next mission, they
missed the opportunity
to rethink what could
that foam loss mean?
And ultimately the reentry
into the atmosphere
proved disastrous.
And one of the things
that NASA has done
since that tragedy
is they've tried
to create the psychological
safety for people
to ask each other things like,
how do you know, how do you know
that the foam loss
isn't necessarily going
to be catastrophic to
the current mission?
And as you ask those questions,
right, it reminds people
to realize what they don't know,
to question whether they've
made some assumptions that need
to be tested and
investigated more thoroughly.
>> Mishal Husain: What are
the other surprising examples
of organizations or
companies where you've seen
that they could do
better in this regard?
>> Adam Grant: There are so
many, [laughter] where to start?
I think one of the
saddest examples
that I've studied
just from, you know,
a sheer consumer love
perspective is BlackBerry.
When, you know, when RIM
launched the BlackBerry,
they completely changed the
way we communicate, right?
All of a sudden, we were able
to send emails from anywhere,
we were able to connect with
people in different ways
than we had before, and
they basically ignited the
smartphone revolution.
And then, they got a little bit
too attached to the features
of the BlackBerry that
had made it successful
in the first place.
They said, you know what,
we want to create a device
that's going to allow people
to send work emails, and we
have millions of customers
who are passionate about
this, overlooking the fact
that there were billions
of potential users
who wanted mobile computer,
right, for home entertainment,
not just for work email.
And in doing that, they refuse
to rethink the physical
keyboard,
which by the way, I still miss.
[laughter] They didn't want
to try the touchscreen,
they just kept saying
we don't get it,
this doesn't work,
this is not our way.
They invented a messaging
platform
that very well could
have been WhatsApp,
but they didn't make a
big investment in that
until it was too late.
And the amazing thing to me
is that they were thinking
like scientists when they
built the BlackBerry, right?
They were running all kinds
of experiments to figure
out how we could make
a device work this way.
But they stopped
thinking like scientists,
they went into preacher mode
and in their prosecutor mode,
when it came time to
rethink their basic strategy,
and they went from having about
half of major market share
in North America, to essentially
zero in the span of a few years.
>> Mishal Husain: Yeah, that
is a very sobering tale.
Let's come right
up to date, Adam,
and think about the
pandemic or post,
hopefully post pandemic
workplace.
Where do you think we are
on hybrid work models?
I mean, do you think we're
going to end up in a way
like the Monday to
Friday week is the kind
of you know settled accepted
thing, do you think we end
up with a fairly
settled understanding
of what hybrid work
models will look like?
Or do you think they'll
just be huge variety?
>> Adam Grant: I hope
there's huge variety.
I think it'd be a travesty,
if leaders started
making commitments now,
when we have so much to learn.
This is the worst time to make a
commitment, it is the best time
to run more experiments.
And I think when, you know, when
it comes to running experiments,
one thing we know from
research pre pandemic is
that it's pretty helpful to
have some flexibility, right?
There was an experiment at
Ctrip, a call center in China,
where people were randomly
assigned to work from home
and then there was a control
group, and the people who work
from home on average were 13 and
a half percent more productive.
They were half as
likely to quit.
And part of that was because
they didn't have to commute,
they took fewer breaks,
they took shorter breaks.
They appreciated the flexibility
and that brought loyalty
and response, they were grateful
and motivated because of that,
and I don't think we
want to take that away.
There are all sorts of questions
about how to make that work,
because despite being
more productive,
they were less likely
to get promoted,
they didn't have face
time with senior leaders.
But I think there's
a real concern
that in this hybrid workforce
that we're going to move
into that some people who
are in the office more often,
even though they're not
necessarily contributing more,
are going to have more
opportunities for learning,
for growth, for mentoring,
for advancement,
and we obviously need to
figure out how to solve that.
My read of the data right
now is that in the US,
people are expected to spend
about 20% of their work time not
in the office, which
roughly corresponds to one
to two days a week for
the average person.
I'm seeing a lot of
companies say, okay,
we're in the office Tuesday
through Thursday, you can work
from anywhere, Monday
through Friday.
And I would, I would be really
sad if companies stopped there
and said, okay, this
is the model,
three days on two days off.
Different jobs, different
cultures,
different teams are going
to find different
approaches that work for them.
>> Mishal Husain: That
question of doing the new model,
implementing the new model with
equity is such an important one,
because you could imagine
that largely it might end
up those being those with caring
responsibilities, or you know,
which will be largely women
being the ones who are at home,
and as you say, not presenting
in the office not getting the
face time not being promoted.
>> Adam Grant: Yeah, and that
paradox I think, is exemplified
by some recent data, there was
an experiment published recently
where people actually
got to alternate
between working on
site and remote.
And the people who benefited
the most from being remote,
were working mothers,
exactly as you anticipated.
They got the biggest
productivity boost
from having the flexibility
to work whenever
and wherever they wanted,
and yet they are the very
group that's most likely
to be disadvantage by not having
that presence and face time
with senior leaders and we have
to do something about that.
>> Mishal Husain: Yeah, any
thoughts on what that might be?
Do you have recommendations
of your own?
>> Adam Grant: I think it's
pretty early to have answers,
but I definitely have questions,
and one of the questions is,
have we considered
the possibility
that if even one person
is going to be on Zoom
or Microsoft Teams,
that everyone is.
That we're either all in
the office for a meeting,
or we're all going to be signing
in online for remote meeting.
I wonder if that's an example of
the kind of equalizing mechanism
that we need to test out.
>> Mishal Husain: Yeah, or maybe
the group that happens to all be
in the office within the bigger
meeting are all individually
on zoom so that there isn't
a sense of some people
in a meeting room
together and everyone,
and the others scattered
around by Zoom.
>> Adam Grant: Yes, please.
And while we're at it,
let's start measuring
people's contributions,
as opposed to whether
they managed
to make a good impression
on senior leaders.
>> Mishal Husain: You wrote a
piece in The New York Times,
the other day that got a lot
of attention, where you talked
about this idea of languishing.
What did you mean?
>> Ada, Grant: Well,
I think we need
to rethink what mental
health and well-being means.
And I kept hearing from people
that they were having trouble
focusing and concentrating,
they were talking about
being in pandemic fog.
And as people described this,
I realized I was
feeling some of this too.
That I used to bounce out of
bed in the morning excited
to you know to, you know, to
start my day, and I was kind
of laying in bed playing word
games or watching Netflix shows.
Like, why am I doing this?
And as I thought about it, I
realized, we're not burned out,
we still have energy, we're not
depressed, we still have hope.
But a lot of us were feeling
sort of joyless and aimless,
and I realized there's, there's
actually a term in psychology
for this, it was coined by
a sociologist Corey Keyes,
it's called languishing.
Languishing is that feeling
of blah or [inaudible] or meh,
where you just have a little
bit of a sense of emptiness
and stagnation, like
you're looking at life
through a foggy windshield.
And I have never had so many
people read something I wrote,
and say, I feel seen.
Like, I am languishing
right now,
and I was actually surprised
by how energized people were
to talk about their
lack of energy.
But I think the interesting
thing
about languishing is it
interferes with focus.
So, we know that when
people are languishing,
they're about three times more
likely to cut back on work.
It's also a risk factor
for mental health.
As bad as depression
is one of the functions
that it often serves
is, it prompts people
to either seek help or help
themselves, because they know
that something is wrong.
Whereas, with languishing, it's
more subtle, you don't have any,
any symptoms of mental illness,
it's more like just the absence
of mental health, right?
It's sort of your peak
wellbeing is missing.
And so, it's easy for
you to be indifferent
to your own indifference.
You might not be
noticing the, you know,
the dulling of your delight,
or the dwindling of your drive.
And some of the research on
languishing shows that people
who are languishing today
are actually at greater risk
for major depression 10 years
from now, than the people
who are currently depressed,
and it may be the languishing
sort of stales action.
So, I think recognizing
languishing
as an emotion is important.
When you name it, you realize,
okay this is a real thing.
I'm not alone, and now I
can start to take action
to do something about it.
And I think that's the next
big question is, how do we get
from languishing to flourishing?
>> Mishal Husain: Do you think
that it is largely a phenomenon
of working from home,
and that disconnect
or sense of isolation?
>> Adam Grant: I don't.
I think, you know, humans
have languished as long as,
as long as we've lived.
I think that languishing
is, you know, that feeling
of being stuck is often a
product of your circumstances.
And right now, during a pandemic
that seems never ending,
we all feel stuck,
right, in some ways.
It feels like the world is
standing still, and it's hard
to have the sense that your
own life is moving forward
in that broader context
of stagnation.
But I think the data and
languishing would tell us that,
you know if it is a
feeling of stagnation,
that one of the best antidotes
to stagnation is a sense
of forward movement.
And research on happiness
and daily joy suggests
that the single biggest
driver is a sense of progress,
that to get out of languishing
we don't necessarily need big
moments of success, we
just need small wins.
A sense that we've
accomplished something little,
and I think that's why so
many people have found solace
in learning to cook, in,
you know, practicing a hobby
or a skill like learning
to play the guitar.
[laughter] For me,
it's word games, right?
Those are those are moments
where I have these
tiny jolts of,
I was able to achieve
something today,
and now I feel a little bit
more of a sense of mastery,
I feel a sense of, you know,
of meaning that I was able
to solve a problem, and
I also feel like I matter
because I'm connected to the
people who I'm playing with.
And I think more of
those moments are going
to help us make progress,
out of that muddling through.
>> Mishal Husain: So now,
because I was gonna ask you
about your own pandemic
experience.
Now I know that word games
were a big part of it.
Yes, also getting the
book finished, I mean,
that must have been a big job
in the midst of all of this.
>> Adam Grant: Yeah,
I, you know,
I didn't expect the
book to be so timely.
I started working on it
in 2018, having no idea
that there was going to be a
global pandemic that forced us
to rethink so many
assumptions that we'd taken
for granted from, you know,
can I possibly get worked don
while all three of my kids are
at home in online school?
[laughter] To, is it safe to
eat indoors at a restaurant?
To, can I hug people outside
of my immediate family?
And I think if 2020 was the year
that that forced us to rethink,
my hope is that in
2021 and beyond,
we do our rethinking
more proactively
and more deliberately.
And one of the best ways to do
that is to get out of this mode
of preaching and prosecuting
and into thinking
more like a scientist.
When I say think like a
scientist, I don't mean
that you have to go out
and buy a microscope
or a telescope, right?
Although I would enjoy it more
people dressed up like Bill Nye.
[laughter] But when I say
think like a scientist, I mean,
don't let your ideas
become your identity.
Look for reasons why
you might be wrong,
not just the reasons
why you must be right.
Listen to the ideas that
make you think hard,
not just the ones that
make you feel good.
And surround yourself
with people
who challenge your thought
process, not just the ones
who agree with your conclusions.
And I think this is a
huge mistake that so many
of us are making on social media
right now, is we follow people
because we think they
have the right answers.
As opposed to saying,
let me follow people
because I respect the integrity
of the questions they ask,
and the way they explore them.
>> Mishal Husain: Think
like a scientist is
a really useful one.
Like a takeaway to help put into
practice what your book says,
because experiments start
with a hypothesis which may
or may not be borne out.
>> Adam Grant: That's
exactly right
and there was a great experiment
with Italian startup founders
who were randomly assigned to
learn to think like scientists.
They were just taught
your strategy is a theory.
When you talk to customers,
great way to develop hypotheses.
When you launch a product or
service, that's an experiment
to test your hypotheses.
Over the next year,
they brought in more
than 40 times the revenue
of the control group.
And the major mechanism
was, they were more
than twice as likely to pivot.
The entrepreneurs who didn't
learn to think like scientists,
they got stuck in a trap
of escalation of commitment
to a losing course of action.
They launched a product or
service, it didn't work.
Instead of rethinking it, they
double down because they wanted
to convince themselves
and everybody else
that they were right
all along, right?
They preach the virtues
of their old plan,
they prosecuted their naysayers,
and they got themselves
stuck in a bad strategy.
Whereas, when they were taught
to think like scientists,
entrepreneurs said, oh,
my experiment didn't work,
let me go and try something new,
and they were much
quicker to think again.
And that kind of flexibility,
that mental agility,
is what we need more
of in the world.
>> Mishal Husain: As you
look back on your own ideas,
the things you put
into your books earlier
on in their career,
are there others some
which you have completely
rethought yourself?
>> Adam Grant: Oh,
there's so many,
where do you want to start.
One of the ones that I think
I got completely wrong was
in a previous book
Originals, I recommended
that people should have
strong opinions weekly held.
And it's a popular phrase in
a lot of parts of the world,
where people say, okay, you
should fight passionately
for an opinion, and then
if you find out it's wrong,
you should abandon it quickly.
Well, I no longer think
that's a good strategy.
The overwhelming
evidence on this topic is
that if you express an opinion
strongly, you are not likely
to abandon it quickly, because
as you talk yourself into it,
you're going to become
more extreme
and more entrenched, right?
There's an old translation
of the phrase,
of the word Abracadabra.
Apparently, it comes
from the Aramaic,
which means I create as I speak.
And it is, it's a dangerous act
to express an opinion strongly
that you don't want
to hold strongly,
because you are persuading
yourself in the process.
But you're also signaling
to other people
that you are closed, that you've
already formed your conviction.
If I make a strong argument
for a point of view,
then the message is that I'm
not willing to open my mind.
So, I now believe that if you,
if you think an opinion
is tentative,
you ought to express
it tentatively.
And this really flies
in the face to the way
that I've communicated
in a lot of the debates
and disagreements
that I've been in.
I've been accused of
being a logic bully,
where I just bombard people
with data, with reasons,
and that of course leads them
to, if I'm in prosecutor mode,
it leads them to
come to the argument
with their best defense
attorney,
and neither of us
opens our mind.
What I've started doing
now is I've started coming
into disagreements saying, you
know, what I have a bad habit
of being a logic bully, I don't
want to be that person anymore.
So, if you catch me doing
that, please call me out.
And usually, the other person
will then come back and say,
you know what, I have a bad
habit of being really stubborn,
and I don't want to
be that way either.
And we both committed
to a little bit more
curiosity and humility.
And then, sometimes
they do call me out
and I can course correct before
I've completely lost them.
>> Mishal Husain: So, that idea
of communicating an opinion
tentative tentatively is a good
one, is it?
I mean it's where you can
kind of test your arguments
and meet others in the middle.
>> Adam Grant: I think so.
There's research on
expert negotiators
and what differentiates
them from their peers.
And one of the findings
is, they actually,
they present their proposals
a little bit more tentatively
and they back them up with fewer
reasons, because they don't want
to dilute their own
argument, and they want
to learn from your reactions.
And so, instead of
saying, here's the belief
that you should adopt
immediately,
and here are the nine reasons
why it's gonna make sense.
I want to come in and say,
you know, here's a perspective
that I think is interesting,
what do you find compelling
about it, and what do you think
might not be accurate about it?
And then, as I hear
you reason through it,
I can actually learn
something from your viewpoint,
I could also then begin to
tailor my arguments to the kinds
of perspectives that you
might find persuasive.
>> Mishal Husain: Adam,
thank you very much.
We're nearly out of
time, I just wondered,
I mean obviously your book
has just come out this year,
you're going to spend a lot
of time focusing on that,
but what does the second half
of this year look like for you,
and have you already got a
thought for the next book?
>> Adam Grant: [laughter]
I don't know.
There's an experience that
you've had, I'm sure Mishal,
which every author has,
of, you wish you could go
on the book tour before
the book is turned in.
Because I've rethought a
bunch of things that I wrote
and think again, which I guess
it would be ironic if I didn't.
But one of the things
that I want to I want
to spend more time
on is figuring
out what we should
rethink quickly
and what we should
rethink more slowly.
I think that when it comes
to assumptions and opinions,
we should probably be as quick
as possible to discard those,
because they don't, they don't
usually have a strong foundation
of evidence or experience
behind them.
But when it comes to our
knowledge that we've worked hard
to develop, we probably
shouldn't throw
that out at a moment's notice.
And especially when it comes to
our beliefs and values, right,
that that are pretty formative
in defining our identities.
We might want to be a little
more cautious with those,
and I think the risk is that
people hold on to those beliefs
and values in the
various situations
where they need to
question them.
And so, one of the things
that I'm planning to do
in the second half
of this year is,
I've actually scheduled a
checkup, it's a little bit
like going to the doctor,
even when nothing is wrong.
You do that once
or twice a year.
I think we should
do the same thing
with the important decisions
in our lives, to pause once
or twice a year, and ask,
do I have the right values?
Am I actually prioritizing
those in my daily life,
and have I encountered any
experiences or any data
that might suggest it's time to
rethink where I want to live,
who I want to spend
my time with,
or what kind of work
I want to do?
And I think having that
structured occasion
that schedule and moment to
reflect is a great way to pause
without having your life in
constant flux and say, oh no,
I have to rethink my principles
and who I am on a daily basis,
which is probably not a
healthy way to lead a life.
>> Mishal Husain: A conversation
with yourself, you mean?
Think, this is an hour I'm
going to spend twice a year,
really taking stock of
who I am and where I am?
>> Adam Grant: Exactly.
When I did this last year, one
of the things I realized was,
one of my core values for
a long time since I was
in high school had been hard
work, and I kept learning,
including from my own data, that
sometimes, putting things off
and procrastinating
could actually help
to incubate creative ideas.
And it forced me to rethink
that value of hard work.
And what I ultimately
realized was the value I hold
is excellence.
I care about trying to do
things as well as I can,
and sometimes hard
work is the path,
and sometimes it's actually
an obstacle to excellence.
And that was a great
reset for one value
that I've been too attached to.
And I had gotten into
judging myself if I thought
that was you know as lazy
on a given day, you know,
I think I'd been too hard on
other people who were, you know,
reasonably pausing,
actually investing
in resting and rejuvenating.
And now that I know the value
is excellence, it's a lot easier
for me to extend
compassion to others,
and also to turn it inward.
>> Mishal Husain: Adam Grant,
it has been a pleasure.
Congratulations on your latest
book, think again and best
of luck for the future.
Thanks.
>> Adam Grant: Thank you.
I hope you don't
rethink your enthusiasm
for this idea of thinking again.
>> Mishal Husain: Definitely
not, I'm scheduling my own,
you know, where am I my life
checkup, immediately after this.
>> Adam Grant: Tried
at your own risk.
I hope it goes well.
>> Mishal Husain: Thank you.
>> LeVar Burton: We hope you've
enjoyed this conversation.
And now, we'd like to hear more
from the library's own
experts on this topic.
>> Ellen Terrell:
[music] Welcome
to the Library of Congress.
My name is Ellen Terrell,
and I am a Business Reference
and Research Specialist
in the Science Technology
and Business Division.
The Science Technology and
Business Division is responsible
for technical reports, science,
industry, technology, business,
and economics collections that
account for approximately 40%
of the Library of Congress
books and journals.
These subjects were part
of the original collection
of the library, and were also
represented by volumes related
to agriculture, chemistry,
economics and commerce,
and Thomas Jefferson's
personal library that was used
to reestablish the
library's collections
after the War of 1812.
One area of business
that has a longer history
than you might think is
self-improvement books.
As author, and organizational
psychologist Adam Grant
discusses, it is important for
organizations and individuals
to be open to new ideas and
avoid becoming complacent.
Rethinking and challenging
your own assumptions can lead
to greater success.
The interest in improving
oneself, particularly
as it relates to
achieving success
in the business world
is not new.
In the late 18th century,
Benjamin Franklin published
Advice to a Young Tradesmen.
Other writers and thinkers
looked to religious principles
for guidance, and many of
those from the 19th century,
like Samuel Smiles,
were concerned
with developing character
traits like duty and honor.
Over time, authors began to
develop their own programs
or systems, and like Napoleon
Hill, wrote about lessons
to be learned from
successful businessmen.
The lines between books
on self-improvement
and job success began to blur.
Books on career counseling
barrowed from those
on self-improvement, while
books on offering advice
on job success borrowed
from those titles
that were more motivational.
Motivational and
self-improvement books branched
out and became more
focused, looking at how
to start a career, how to
make money, and what to do
or not to do in business.
One example from 1922
is the Do's and Don'ts
for Business Women, by Jean
Rich that is filled with advice
on various topics that might
be of use to the many women
who were entering the
workforce, and offered advice
on being a self-starter and
knowing your business tools,
as well as the importance
of being able
to answer the question of
would you hire yourself?
The Library of Congress
acknowledged the title
of the genre, and their list of
100 Books That Shaped America
when it included one of
the most famous titles,
Dale Carnegie's 1936, How to Win
Friends and Influence People.
More recent titles you
might recognize are
Who Moved My Cheese?
Norman Vincent Peale's
Power of Positive Thinking
and Stephen Covey's 7 Habits
of Highly Effective People.
This year's National Book
Festival theme is Open a Book,
Open the World.
And while self-help
books may have been
about improving oneself,
ultimately, they have also been
about opening one's world.
[ Music ]