Adam Grant: Test a Working Assumption

The Lesson

You think nobody will want to join your weekend practice group. That belief may be right, but you have not asked anyone. Before treating it as a fact, work out what evidence would actually test it.

Adam Grant’s Think Again examines reconsidering beliefs and approaching disagreement with curiosity. For a modest decision, you can use that perspective to ask what evidence would make you revise a working assumption. Think Again, official book page. Official biography.

An assumption becomes more useful when it is specific enough to check. “Nobody is interested” is difficult to evaluate. “The three people I asked cannot attend on Saturday mornings” tells you something about scheduling. It says less about the value of the group itself.

Think of a test as a chance to learn, not an argument you must win. Decide in advance what would make you revise your view. You can also discover that your first question was too broad. A small test is useful for local decisions; it does not establish a universal conclusion about people.

Reflection

• Which belief am I treating as settled?
• What observation would make me reconsider it?
• Am I testing interest, timing, cost or something else?

Practice

This is an original SelfGrowthVideos exercise inspired by the ideas above.

1. Write a claim about a decision you can investigate without significant risk.
2. Turn it into one specific question and note what would count against your current view.
3. Collect a small piece of relevant evidence, such as asking willing participants about two meeting times.
4. Record the response exactly, then revise the claim so it does not say more than the evidence supports.

If two friends cannot meet on Saturday but would meet after work, revise “nobody wants this group” to “Saturday is a poor fit for the people I asked.” You have learned something actionable without pretending you ran a representative survey.

Review

Before acting, check whether you searched only for confirming evidence. What uncertainty remains? Choose whether to gather more information, run a small trial or stop. Keep the evidence note so you can change your mind again when new facts arrive.

Go Deeper

Explore the Adam Grant teacher profile and the Mindset learning hub. Choose one related idea to try before collecting more material.