Changing your mind a lot increases your chances of finding the right answers.
Jeff Bezos knows something about hard business problems. As founder and CEO of Amazon he’s had to figure out how to sell books
online, handle exponential growth, and design and launch new products (Kindle.)
Bezos stopped by the offices of Chicago-based 37signals this week and in a staff Q&A, he said “people who were right a lot of the time were people who often changed their minds.” He was talking about something much more profound than flip-flopping or lack of conviction.
He was talking about fostering the mental agility to hold multiple answers in your mind at one time, and then cycle through the possibilities. Jason Fried, president of 37signals recounted the rest of the exchange:
“He doesn’t think consistency of thought is a particularly positive trait,” Fried explains of Bezos. “It’s perfectly healthy – encouraged, even – to have an idea tomorrow that contradicted your idea today…. the smartest people are constantly revising their understanding, reconsidering a problem they thought they’d already solved. They’re open to new points of view, new information, new ideas, contradictions, and challenges to their own way of thinking…. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have a well formed point of view, but it means you should consider your point of view as temporary.”
And what trait caused someone to be wrong, asked Fried?
“Someone obsessed with details that only support one point of view,” Fried explained of Bezos’ approach. “If someone can’t climb out of the details, and see the bigger picture from multiple angles, they’re often wrong most of the time.”
Wrestle with ideas, debate the merits, and argue if you must. Don’t just take no – or yes – for an answer.
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