1
00:00:15,410 --> 00:00:23,850
Speaker 1: Pushkin. Late on blistering August afternoon in nineteen forty nine,

2
00:00:24,530 --> 00:00:28,890
Speaker 1: fifteen men parachuted out of the wide Montana sky their

3
00:00:28,970 --> 00:00:34,570
Speaker 1: mission to intercept and extinguish a forest wildfire. Within minutes,

4
00:00:34,930 --> 00:00:40,450
Speaker 1: their mission had changed to just survive. These men were

5
00:00:40,490 --> 00:00:44,810
Speaker 1: smoke jumpers, the wildfire fighting Elite. They landed near the

6
00:00:44,810 --> 00:00:47,770
Speaker 1: top of Mangulch with the intent of digging a line

7
00:00:47,770 --> 00:00:50,090
Speaker 1: in the ground in front of the fire, shepherding it

8
00:00:50,210 --> 00:00:52,930
Speaker 1: towards an area where there was less to burn. It

9
00:00:52,970 --> 00:00:56,170
Speaker 1: wasn't long before they realized the wind had turned and

10
00:00:56,210 --> 00:01:00,330
Speaker 1: the fire was racing towards them, flames thirty feet high

11
00:01:00,410 --> 00:01:05,490
Speaker 1: and gathering speed. There was no alternative to run, and

12
00:01:05,930 --> 00:01:09,370
Speaker 1: on flat even ground wearing running a gear that would

13
00:01:09,370 --> 00:01:14,050
Speaker 1: have been possible, but scrambling steeply uphill through rocks and

14
00:01:14,170 --> 00:01:17,970
Speaker 1: long grass, and carrying heavy equipment it might be too

15
00:01:18,050 --> 00:01:21,690
Speaker 1: much to ask. The men were making a lung bursting

16
00:01:21,770 --> 00:01:24,490
Speaker 1: effort to reach the safety of the ridge top that

17
00:01:24,570 --> 00:01:28,290
Speaker 1: the fire was gaining and gaining. The ridge top was

18
00:01:28,410 --> 00:01:31,290
Speaker 1: just two hundred yards away. As the fire roared closer,

19
00:01:32,130 --> 00:01:36,010
Speaker 1: Another two or three minutes scramble was their time. The

20
00:01:36,050 --> 00:01:41,050
Speaker 1: smoke Jumper's foreman, Wagoner Dodge, realized with dread they just

21
00:01:41,090 --> 00:01:45,530
Speaker 1: weren't going to make it, and so he did something

22
00:01:45,570 --> 00:01:51,170
Speaker 1: that made his team recoil with astonishment and horror. I'm

23
00:01:51,250 --> 00:02:18,890
Speaker 1: Tim Harford and you're listening to Cautionary Tales. This is

24
00:02:18,930 --> 00:02:23,050
Speaker 1: one of our cautionary conversations. As usual, you'll hear a story,

25
00:02:23,130 --> 00:02:26,730
Speaker 1: or perhaps more than one story of disaster. In fact,

26
00:02:27,210 --> 00:02:30,250
Speaker 1: the story of Brave smoke Jumpers features in the book

27
00:02:30,490 --> 00:02:34,370
Speaker 1: Think Again, by my guest Adam Grant. He's here to

28
00:02:34,450 --> 00:02:37,770
Speaker 1: help tell this cautionary tale and to reflect on the lessons.

29
00:02:38,290 --> 00:02:41,490
Speaker 1: Adam needs no introduction, but he deserves one, so he's

30
00:02:41,490 --> 00:02:44,850
Speaker 1: going to get one. He's an organizational psychologist at Wharton.

31
00:02:45,090 --> 00:02:47,570
Speaker 1: He describes that as trying to figure out how to

32
00:02:47,610 --> 00:02:51,810
Speaker 1: make work not suck. He's the presenter of two brilliant podcasts,

33
00:02:52,050 --> 00:02:55,050
Speaker 1: Work Life and Rethinking, the creator of some of the

34
00:02:55,050 --> 00:02:57,370
Speaker 1: best and most loved TED talks, and the author of

35
00:02:57,610 --> 00:03:02,330
Speaker 1: several superb and best selling books, including Hidden Potential. In

36
00:03:02,410 --> 00:03:06,970
Speaker 1: the book we're discussing today, Think Again, Adam, Welcome to

37
00:03:07,010 --> 00:03:07,850
Speaker 1: Cautionary Tales.

38
00:03:08,250 --> 00:03:10,690
Speaker 2: Thanks. It's I have to say it's a little bit

39
00:03:10,890 --> 00:03:14,050
Speaker 2: unsettling to be in a live cautionary tales. I'm so

40
00:03:14,170 --> 00:03:15,730
Speaker 2: used to listening to it when I go to bed.

41
00:03:16,490 --> 00:03:19,610
Speaker 1: Well, I'm sure you can preserve the spirits of cautionary tales,

42
00:03:19,650 --> 00:03:22,050
Speaker 1: and I'd hopefully add a little bit of extra insight.

43
00:03:22,730 --> 00:03:25,850
Speaker 1: And this story of the fire, I mean, it's it's

44
00:03:25,850 --> 00:03:28,450
Speaker 1: an inspiring story in some ways, it's a hellish story

45
00:03:28,450 --> 00:03:31,730
Speaker 1: in other ways, And like Dante's Inferno, it's got multiple levels.

46
00:03:32,690 --> 00:03:36,210
Speaker 1: You begin your book, think again with this story. What

47
00:03:36,290 --> 00:03:39,490
Speaker 1: was it that Wagner Dodge did that so shocked his crew?

48
00:03:40,570 --> 00:03:43,490
Speaker 2: Well, you think the foreman would be trying to run

49
00:03:43,530 --> 00:03:45,690
Speaker 2: to the head of the line, right and guide everyone

50
00:03:45,730 --> 00:03:50,170
Speaker 2: else to safety, And instead of running, he stops. He

51
00:03:50,330 --> 00:03:53,770
Speaker 2: bends over and he takes a matchbook out of his pocket,

52
00:03:54,610 --> 00:03:57,730
Speaker 2: And you can only imagine what's going through the other

53
00:03:57,810 --> 00:04:02,050
Speaker 2: firefighter's minds. We're trying to escape a fire, right, not

54
00:04:02,250 --> 00:04:04,970
Speaker 2: start one. What could he possibly be doing? But he

55
00:04:05,050 --> 00:04:08,610
Speaker 2: starts lighting matches and throwing them in the grass. One

56
00:04:08,610 --> 00:04:11,850
Speaker 2: of the crew thinks he must have gone nuts. That

57
00:04:11,890 --> 00:04:15,410
Speaker 2: bastard Dodge is trying to burn me to death. And

58
00:04:15,450 --> 00:04:18,090
Speaker 2: then he looks over and he sees Dodge waving his

59
00:04:18,210 --> 00:04:21,650
Speaker 2: arms toward the fire and encouraging people to follow him

60
00:04:22,010 --> 00:04:25,370
Speaker 2: into his fire. What in the world is he doing?

61
00:04:27,210 --> 00:04:31,530
Speaker 2: The smoke jumpers don't know that Dodge has improvised a

62
00:04:31,610 --> 00:04:37,210
Speaker 2: really unusual survival strategy. He's building an escape fire. He

63
00:04:37,250 --> 00:04:39,890
Speaker 2: had no training in how to do this. It wasn't

64
00:04:39,970 --> 00:04:42,570
Speaker 2: an idea that firefighters were aware of at the time.

65
00:04:43,090 --> 00:04:46,730
Speaker 2: But out of sheer instinct in that moment, he's figured

66
00:04:46,770 --> 00:04:50,250
Speaker 2: out that if he burns the grass in front of

67
00:04:50,290 --> 00:04:54,050
Speaker 2: him and he lays down face down in the ashes,

68
00:04:54,650 --> 00:04:57,290
Speaker 2: that the fire will burn right over him. Because if

69
00:04:57,290 --> 00:04:59,210
Speaker 2: he burns the grass in front of him, the fire

70
00:04:59,290 --> 00:05:01,850
Speaker 2: will not have anything to burn and it'll be forced

71
00:05:01,890 --> 00:05:05,170
Speaker 2: to go around. And that's exactly what he does. He

72
00:05:05,210 --> 00:05:07,930
Speaker 2: basically removes all the fuel for the wildfire to feed on,

73
00:05:08,450 --> 00:05:11,290
Speaker 2: and he's a pouring water out of his canteen onto

74
00:05:11,370 --> 00:05:14,490
Speaker 2: his handkerchief. He puts it over his mouth, and he

75
00:05:14,610 --> 00:05:18,050
Speaker 2: lays face down in the charred area and survives there

76
00:05:18,090 --> 00:05:21,330
Speaker 2: for fifteen minutes. There's enough oxygen on the ground that

77
00:05:21,370 --> 00:05:24,930
Speaker 2: he can make it, and the wildfire literally runs right

78
00:05:25,010 --> 00:05:25,530
Speaker 2: over him.

79
00:05:25,570 --> 00:05:28,330
Speaker 1: I mean, it doesn't bear thinking about what it must

80
00:05:28,330 --> 00:05:32,010
Speaker 1: have been like for him as the fire runs over him.

81
00:05:32,130 --> 00:05:34,850
Speaker 1: As you say, he wasn't trained. Nobody really knew for

82
00:05:34,930 --> 00:05:37,170
Speaker 1: sure that this would work. I mean, I'm sure the

83
00:05:37,210 --> 00:05:39,210
Speaker 1: heat and the smoke must have been intense. So there's

84
00:05:39,250 --> 00:05:42,410
Speaker 1: a tremendous amount of courage there. Smoke jumpers are. I'm

85
00:05:42,450 --> 00:05:46,010
Speaker 1: sure they're all very courageous. Did any of them join him?

86
00:05:46,010 --> 00:05:49,410
Speaker 1: Did any of them understand or trust the idea enough

87
00:05:49,450 --> 00:05:52,490
Speaker 1: to actually get down there and join him in the

88
00:05:52,530 --> 00:05:54,530
Speaker 1: shadow of this escape fire that he'd lit.

89
00:05:55,370 --> 00:05:57,730
Speaker 2: No, they didn't. I think one of the great tragedies

90
00:05:57,770 --> 00:06:00,170
Speaker 2: here that I didn't write about, and think again, is

91
00:06:00,170 --> 00:06:02,330
Speaker 2: that the crew didn't have much of an opportunity to

92
00:06:02,330 --> 00:06:05,570
Speaker 2: build trust. They didn't know Dodge very well. There wasn't

93
00:06:05,610 --> 00:06:08,610
Speaker 2: a long standing relationship between them, and so they see

94
00:06:08,650 --> 00:06:12,050
Speaker 2: him doing something that looks insane and they basically ignore it.

95
00:06:12,770 --> 00:06:15,410
Speaker 2: I remember in the US, we were trained as kids

96
00:06:15,450 --> 00:06:17,690
Speaker 2: right to stop, drop and roll in the face of

97
00:06:17,730 --> 00:06:21,210
Speaker 2: a fire, and for Dodge, all he does is stop

98
00:06:21,210 --> 00:06:23,610
Speaker 2: and drop. There's no roll, and so he just has

99
00:06:23,650 --> 00:06:26,770
Speaker 2: to lay there hoping that the fire is gonna fail

100
00:06:26,850 --> 00:06:30,170
Speaker 2: to burn him alive. The other smoke jumpers end up

101
00:06:30,450 --> 00:06:33,570
Speaker 2: basically trying to race for their lives, and of the

102
00:06:33,610 --> 00:06:37,210
Speaker 2: fourteen of them, twelve of them didn't make it. It's

103
00:06:37,210 --> 00:06:40,010
Speaker 2: devastating when you look back, because Dodge was able to survive.

104
00:06:40,890 --> 00:06:43,170
Speaker 2: There were two who made it because of their physical fitness.

105
00:06:43,210 --> 00:06:45,970
Speaker 2: They were able to barely outrun the fire. But the

106
00:06:46,050 --> 00:06:49,370
Speaker 2: other doesn't. I think failed because they weren't trained in

107
00:06:49,410 --> 00:06:53,410
Speaker 2: the mental fitness to let go of the very assumptions

108
00:06:53,610 --> 00:06:54,810
Speaker 2: that they brought to their job.

109
00:06:55,250 --> 00:06:58,130
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you described just the horror of it, and

110
00:06:58,170 --> 00:07:00,090
Speaker 1: I think one of them had a pocket watch that

111
00:07:00,210 --> 00:07:03,570
Speaker 1: was partially melted. And it's just awful and the fact

112
00:07:03,610 --> 00:07:05,850
Speaker 1: that they could probably all have survived if they had

113
00:07:05,850 --> 00:07:09,330
Speaker 1: had enough experience or enough trust, or had it able

114
00:07:09,370 --> 00:07:13,570
Speaker 1: to understand what Wagner Dodge was doing. One of the

115
00:07:13,570 --> 00:07:16,130
Speaker 1: things that's inspiring about this story is that it's just

116
00:07:16,250 --> 00:07:19,970
Speaker 1: so brilliant. It's like, how on earth does anybody think

117
00:07:20,090 --> 00:07:23,370
Speaker 1: so fast in such a crisis in such an original way.

118
00:07:24,210 --> 00:07:26,370
Speaker 1: Hardly anybody could do that. But you make the point

119
00:07:26,490 --> 00:07:29,450
Speaker 1: in the book that actually there was a much simpler

120
00:07:29,490 --> 00:07:32,690
Speaker 1: piece of rethinking that it seems like anybody should have

121
00:07:32,690 --> 00:07:34,770
Speaker 1: been able to do. But but the firefighters the smoke

122
00:07:34,850 --> 00:07:36,730
Speaker 1: jumpers they didn't do that either.

123
00:07:37,210 --> 00:07:40,290
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I think Dodge's rethinking is very much out

124
00:07:40,330 --> 00:07:44,290
Speaker 2: of reach for mere mortals, right, The idea that when

125
00:07:44,330 --> 00:07:47,490
Speaker 2: you're running for your life and you only have seconds

126
00:07:47,690 --> 00:07:50,450
Speaker 2: to make a decision, you could just dream up and

127
00:07:50,570 --> 00:07:56,170
Speaker 2: escape fire and live because of it. Not I maybe

128
00:07:56,170 --> 00:07:57,130
Speaker 2: you tim could pull that.

129
00:07:57,090 --> 00:07:59,930
Speaker 1: Out, but well, I'm glad not to be in the situation.

130
00:08:00,010 --> 00:08:01,690
Speaker 1: But I sincerely doubt it.

131
00:08:02,050 --> 00:08:04,450
Speaker 2: So many of us see intelligence as thinking and learning,

132
00:08:05,090 --> 00:08:08,290
Speaker 2: But what Dodge is doing there is he's choosing to

133
00:08:08,330 --> 00:08:11,810
Speaker 2: rethink and unlike he's got a rethink fire not as

134
00:08:11,810 --> 00:08:13,850
Speaker 2: a source of danger, but as a path to safety.

135
00:08:14,370 --> 00:08:17,370
Speaker 2: He has to unlearn his assumptions right that when you're

136
00:08:17,410 --> 00:08:19,730
Speaker 2: trying to fight a fire, your job is to put

137
00:08:19,730 --> 00:08:23,330
Speaker 2: it out, not start another one. That's a vital skill

138
00:08:23,410 --> 00:08:27,770
Speaker 2: in a rapidly changing world, and it's a skill that unfortunately,

139
00:08:27,890 --> 00:08:32,290
Speaker 2: that crew of smoke jumpers did not have, because if

140
00:08:32,330 --> 00:08:34,730
Speaker 2: you look at the twelve who didn't survive the fire,

141
00:08:35,650 --> 00:08:39,650
Speaker 2: they failed to drop their heavy tools. And it's just

142
00:08:39,690 --> 00:08:43,130
Speaker 2: devastating when you read the reports on the accident, because

143
00:08:43,730 --> 00:08:49,970
Speaker 2: you literally find burned bodies still carrying axes saws, shovels.

144
00:08:50,210 --> 00:08:54,530
Speaker 2: Their packs alone weigh twenty pounds. There were investigators who

145
00:08:54,610 --> 00:08:57,370
Speaker 2: calculated later that they could have run fifteen to twenty

146
00:08:57,410 --> 00:09:00,970
Speaker 2: percent faster, and that just dropping their packs and tools

147
00:09:01,210 --> 00:09:04,130
Speaker 2: could have made the difference between life and death. And

148
00:09:04,170 --> 00:09:06,650
Speaker 2: the big question is why did they not think to

149
00:09:06,730 --> 00:09:07,530
Speaker 2: drop their tools?

150
00:09:08,290 --> 00:09:10,610
Speaker 1: So why didn't they because it seems it really seems

151
00:09:10,690 --> 00:09:11,250
Speaker 1: very simple.

152
00:09:12,090 --> 00:09:14,890
Speaker 2: Well, I don't think there's any way to know for sure,

153
00:09:14,930 --> 00:09:19,210
Speaker 2: But part of this is just a basic cognitive entrenchment problem.

154
00:09:19,810 --> 00:09:21,850
Speaker 2: They're so used to a certain way of doing things

155
00:09:22,250 --> 00:09:25,370
Speaker 2: that they don't even bother to question their assumptions. As

156
00:09:25,370 --> 00:09:28,290
Speaker 2: a firefighter, as a smoke jumper, your tools are just

157
00:09:28,490 --> 00:09:31,850
Speaker 2: ingrained as part of your training. But I think there's

158
00:09:31,930 --> 00:09:35,450
Speaker 2: also a case to be made that there's a deeper

159
00:09:35,450 --> 00:09:38,570
Speaker 2: problem at play here, which is those tools become part

160
00:09:38,610 --> 00:09:43,130
Speaker 2: of their identity. If you are a firefighter, who you

161
00:09:43,210 --> 00:09:46,490
Speaker 2: are is dependent on your tools. You can't put out

162
00:09:46,490 --> 00:09:50,690
Speaker 2: a fire without water, you can't dig a place to

163
00:09:50,810 --> 00:09:53,210
Speaker 2: deal with it without a shovel. You need all the

164
00:09:53,250 --> 00:09:56,450
Speaker 2: tools in your pack to do your job. The organizational

165
00:09:56,450 --> 00:10:00,370
Speaker 2: psychologist Carl Wike wrote so eloquently about this. He said

166
00:10:00,450 --> 00:10:03,170
Speaker 2: that dropping your tools required letting go of your identity.

167
00:10:04,170 --> 00:10:06,530
Speaker 2: And if you no longer have your tools, you're no

168
00:10:06,610 --> 00:10:09,730
Speaker 2: longer a firefighter. Why are you there? Job is to

169
00:10:09,770 --> 00:10:12,330
Speaker 2: put out the fire, and you let go of your tools,

170
00:10:12,490 --> 00:10:15,650
Speaker 2: you've basically given up on your entire mission. Yeah, there

171
00:10:15,690 --> 00:10:20,970
Speaker 2: was another tragic fire in Colorado where one of the

172
00:10:21,010 --> 00:10:24,810
Speaker 2: survivors had run about three hundred yards uphill. He realizes

173
00:10:24,890 --> 00:10:28,210
Speaker 2: that he has his saw over his shoulder, and then

174
00:10:28,370 --> 00:10:31,330
Speaker 2: he ditches it because it weighs twenty five pounds. But

175
00:10:31,410 --> 00:10:33,530
Speaker 2: then he starts looking for a place to put it

176
00:10:33,570 --> 00:10:37,090
Speaker 2: down so the saw won't get burnt. He remembers thinking,

177
00:10:37,690 --> 00:10:41,570
Speaker 2: I can't believe I'm putting down my saw. So he

178
00:10:41,650 --> 00:10:44,850
Speaker 2: realizes that this is an irrational behavior, and he still

179
00:10:44,930 --> 00:10:50,170
Speaker 2: can't quite get himself to rethink this ingrained habit of

180
00:10:50,290 --> 00:10:53,530
Speaker 2: taking care of his tools, and some of his peers

181
00:10:53,690 --> 00:10:55,970
Speaker 2: end up dying because of that ingrained habit.

182
00:10:57,050 --> 00:11:00,890
Speaker 1: It was a very human thing, though. I mean, I

183
00:11:01,010 --> 00:11:04,610
Speaker 1: can think of times in my own life where, from

184
00:11:04,610 --> 00:11:10,250
Speaker 1: an outsider's viewpoint, the need to rethink instant should have

185
00:11:10,290 --> 00:11:14,090
Speaker 1: been obvious. One particular example, I was going to give

186
00:11:14,090 --> 00:11:17,450
Speaker 1: a lecture in Scotland. It's quite a big deal. And

187
00:11:17,650 --> 00:11:19,250
Speaker 1: I was on my way to the airport and I

188
00:11:19,250 --> 00:11:21,050
Speaker 1: got a call from a friend who was with my

189
00:11:21,130 --> 00:11:23,810
Speaker 1: wife and they were both on their way to hospital

190
00:11:24,210 --> 00:11:27,690
Speaker 1: because my wife was being taken into the emergency room.

191
00:11:27,970 --> 00:11:30,410
Speaker 1: I was very concerned and I was glad, but my

192
00:11:30,410 --> 00:11:33,250
Speaker 1: wife's friend was there with her, and I said, I'll

193
00:11:33,250 --> 00:11:36,090
Speaker 1: call you back, and then I called the office and

194
00:11:36,490 --> 00:11:40,250
Speaker 1: my colleague, who had arranged this lecture for me, said, Tim,

195
00:11:42,010 --> 00:11:45,090
Speaker 1: you're not going to Scotland. You're going to the hospital.

196
00:11:45,730 --> 00:11:47,650
Speaker 1: I'll sort everything out. I don't want you to think

197
00:11:47,690 --> 00:11:50,610
Speaker 1: about this for another moment. I just couldn't let go

198
00:11:50,690 --> 00:11:52,330
Speaker 1: of this fact that I was going to the airport

199
00:11:52,330 --> 00:11:54,250
Speaker 1: and I was going to give this lecture and I

200
00:11:54,290 --> 00:11:56,530
Speaker 1: was going to have to manage the logistics somehow. And

201
00:11:56,570 --> 00:12:00,490
Speaker 1: it took somebody from outside the situation to say, you

202
00:12:00,690 --> 00:12:03,810
Speaker 1: just need to be somewhere else. In hindsight, of course,

203
00:12:03,930 --> 00:12:07,570
Speaker 1: what was I thinking? But I wasn't thinking because I

204
00:12:07,610 --> 00:12:10,370
Speaker 1: had a plan, and I realize the planet changed.

205
00:12:11,570 --> 00:12:14,970
Speaker 2: These moments are all around us. There's so many patterns

206
00:12:14,970 --> 00:12:18,770
Speaker 2: of thought that become habit and plan and it's so

207
00:12:18,850 --> 00:12:21,890
Speaker 2: much easier because of the forces of inertia to stick

208
00:12:21,930 --> 00:12:24,890
Speaker 2: with the plan as opposed to pausing and rethinking it.

209
00:12:24,930 --> 00:12:28,010
Speaker 2: And I worry a lot about that, fueling all kinds

210
00:12:28,050 --> 00:12:30,810
Speaker 2: of escalation of commitment. You make a plan, it doesn't

211
00:12:30,850 --> 00:12:35,050
Speaker 2: work out, and instead of abandoning the plan, you double

212
00:12:35,130 --> 00:12:38,410
Speaker 2: down and you invest more. And the data on this

213
00:12:38,570 --> 00:12:41,930
Speaker 2: I think you are chilling in some cases. On the

214
00:12:41,970 --> 00:12:47,050
Speaker 2: subject of cautionary tales. There's some research on mountaineers suggesting

215
00:12:47,050 --> 00:12:49,450
Speaker 2: that the grittiest ones are the most likely to die

216
00:12:49,450 --> 00:12:53,130
Speaker 2: on expeditions because they cannot let go of the goal

217
00:12:53,330 --> 00:12:55,890
Speaker 2: of getting to the summit. And it seems that in

218
00:12:55,930 --> 00:12:58,330
Speaker 2: the moment they forget that the ultimate goal is not

219
00:12:58,450 --> 00:13:00,730
Speaker 2: to make it to the top, it's to get back down.

220
00:13:01,970 --> 00:13:06,290
Speaker 1: I'm reminded of the very first caution retail we broadcast,

221
00:13:06,410 --> 00:13:10,650
Speaker 1: which was the story of Torry Kanyon and Torrey Canyon.

222
00:13:10,650 --> 00:13:13,130
Speaker 1: As you may know, Adam was an oil tanker. It

223
00:13:13,290 --> 00:13:18,290
Speaker 1: ran aground in broad daylight, in good weather on rocks

224
00:13:18,290 --> 00:13:21,930
Speaker 1: that were visible and well marked on all the charts,

225
00:13:22,770 --> 00:13:26,610
Speaker 1: and just drenched the coast of southern England and of

226
00:13:26,650 --> 00:13:30,690
Speaker 1: northern France with oil. Somebody was killed also in the

227
00:13:30,810 --> 00:13:35,170
Speaker 1: attempt to salvage the tanker. So this was a catastrophe.

228
00:13:35,890 --> 00:13:39,970
Speaker 1: And fundamentally the problem was the captain, who was a

229
00:13:40,010 --> 00:13:43,450
Speaker 1: sailor called Pastrengo Rujati. He was in a hurry, and

230
00:13:44,330 --> 00:13:47,610
Speaker 1: he'd made a plan to take a slightly risky course

231
00:13:48,010 --> 00:13:50,210
Speaker 1: between an island and some rocks. And it was a

232
00:13:50,210 --> 00:13:51,890
Speaker 1: bit tight to take an oil tanker through there, but

233
00:13:51,930 --> 00:13:54,970
Speaker 1: it was fine. It was certainly perfectly possible. And then

234
00:13:55,010 --> 00:13:57,610
Speaker 1: a small thing went wrong, and another thing went wrong,

235
00:13:57,850 --> 00:14:00,570
Speaker 1: and another thing went wrong, and the more stuff went wrong,

236
00:14:01,330 --> 00:14:05,850
Speaker 1: the more his vision of the situation narrowed. Rather than

237
00:14:05,890 --> 00:14:08,650
Speaker 1: doing what he should have done, which is to say, oh, okay,

238
00:14:08,690 --> 00:14:11,570
Speaker 1: look this is actually getting risky. We need to stop,

239
00:14:11,850 --> 00:14:13,570
Speaker 1: we need to go around. I know we're in a hurry,

240
00:14:13,610 --> 00:14:15,450
Speaker 1: but we're just going to have to take the time,

241
00:14:16,130 --> 00:14:17,970
Speaker 1: he kept thinking, I can just make it. I can

242
00:14:18,130 --> 00:14:20,010
Speaker 1: just make it. I can squeeze through that gap, and

243
00:14:20,090 --> 00:14:22,090
Speaker 1: in the end the result was a catastrophe.

244
00:14:22,690 --> 00:14:26,530
Speaker 2: I remember listening to that and immediately thinking about research

245
00:14:26,530 --> 00:14:30,010
Speaker 2: on threat rigidity. How when we're under stress or pressure,

246
00:14:30,370 --> 00:14:33,570
Speaker 2: we revert to our most basic, well learned instincts and

247
00:14:33,610 --> 00:14:35,650
Speaker 2: we narrow our field of vision. We're more likely to

248
00:14:35,650 --> 00:14:38,370
Speaker 2: fall into a tunnel vision at the very moment when

249
00:14:38,610 --> 00:14:41,970
Speaker 2: we most need to broaden it and rethink our definition

250
00:14:42,010 --> 00:14:46,610
Speaker 2: of the situation. It's amazingly difficult to train yourself in

251
00:14:46,650 --> 00:14:49,530
Speaker 2: that skill, because it's a bit like planning for the unexpected.

252
00:14:50,210 --> 00:14:52,490
Speaker 2: I had a fascinating conversation a few years ago with

253
00:14:52,610 --> 00:14:56,210
Speaker 2: Nik Wahlenda, the tightrope walker who walked across the Grand

254
00:14:56,250 --> 00:14:59,690
Speaker 2: Canyon with no safety net. Now, I thought, okay, if

255
00:14:59,730 --> 00:15:03,330
Speaker 2: you want to learn to be faster at rethinking, maybe

256
00:15:03,370 --> 00:15:05,850
Speaker 2: somebody whose life is literally hanging in the balance could

257
00:15:05,850 --> 00:15:08,010
Speaker 2: teach us something. And he told me that one of

258
00:15:08,050 --> 00:15:10,770
Speaker 2: the most important things he does in his training is

259
00:15:11,050 --> 00:15:14,410
Speaker 2: he's balancing on just a one foot high tightrope. Nothing

260
00:15:14,410 --> 00:15:17,570
Speaker 2: bad will happen if he falls, but he will gather

261
00:15:17,610 --> 00:15:19,730
Speaker 2: a group of people and ask them to try to

262
00:15:19,770 --> 00:15:23,410
Speaker 2: push him off at random times from behind, just to

263
00:15:23,850 --> 00:15:26,930
Speaker 2: prepare his body for all these unexpected events. And I

264
00:15:26,930 --> 00:15:28,370
Speaker 2: don't want to say that any of us should live

265
00:15:28,410 --> 00:15:31,490
Speaker 2: in that world, but I do wonder if more people

266
00:15:32,210 --> 00:15:34,810
Speaker 2: had been trained that way, if we might have been

267
00:15:35,010 --> 00:15:37,730
Speaker 2: more prepared for all the rethinking that the pandemic has

268
00:15:37,730 --> 00:15:42,770
Speaker 2: forced on us. How many politicians and CEOs did we

269
00:15:42,810 --> 00:15:46,090
Speaker 2: watch cling to their tools as opposed to dropping them

270
00:15:46,210 --> 00:15:49,890
Speaker 2: and saying, actually, we might need to wear masks. It

271
00:15:49,970 --> 00:15:52,810
Speaker 2: might be a good idea to social distance. Seems like

272
00:15:52,850 --> 00:15:54,930
Speaker 2: a lot of missed opportunity for rethinking there.

273
00:15:55,090 --> 00:15:57,650
Speaker 1: I think so. And one of the things that's striking

274
00:15:57,730 --> 00:16:02,730
Speaker 1: about these different examples is the dimension of time. Sometimes

275
00:16:02,770 --> 00:16:07,930
Speaker 1: we have time. The mountaineer can stop, they can go down,

276
00:16:08,130 --> 00:16:12,770
Speaker 1: they've got some control. Pastrengo Ugiati, the captain of Tory Kanyon,

277
00:16:13,370 --> 00:16:15,210
Speaker 1: he didn't have to keep going towards the rocks. He

278
00:16:15,250 --> 00:16:17,170
Speaker 1: could have stopped. I mean, he was under time pressure,

279
00:16:17,210 --> 00:16:24,530
Speaker 1: but ultimately it wasn't like Wagner Dodge where the fire

280
00:16:24,610 --> 00:16:26,890
Speaker 1: was coming. Sometimes we have time to we think, and

281
00:16:26,930 --> 00:16:29,170
Speaker 1: sometimes we don't. But when we do have time to

282
00:16:29,210 --> 00:16:31,090
Speaker 1: we think, do we take advantage of that time?

283
00:16:32,250 --> 00:16:34,410
Speaker 2: Not as often as I would like. One of the

284
00:16:34,490 --> 00:16:36,810
Speaker 2: questions I've gotten a lot since Think Again came out

285
00:16:36,890 --> 00:16:40,330
Speaker 2: is what about people who think too many times or

286
00:16:40,370 --> 00:16:42,970
Speaker 2: who overthink? If you think about this as a curve,

287
00:16:43,290 --> 00:16:46,210
Speaker 2: most of us are on the opposite end of that spectrum. Yes,

288
00:16:46,250 --> 00:16:49,090
Speaker 2: there are people who struggle with overthinking, but you know what,

289
00:16:49,530 --> 00:16:51,970
Speaker 2: It's better to think too much than it is to

290
00:16:52,010 --> 00:16:56,650
Speaker 2: think too little. And I'd much rather see people grapple

291
00:16:56,690 --> 00:17:00,410
Speaker 2: with rumination and analysis paralysis than I would have them

292
00:17:00,450 --> 00:17:04,410
Speaker 2: never engage in the analysis at all. And I think

293
00:17:04,450 --> 00:17:07,570
Speaker 2: that when you do have the time, the big question becomes, well,

294
00:17:07,690 --> 00:17:10,010
Speaker 2: how do you know when it's worth pausing to think

295
00:17:10,050 --> 00:17:14,250
Speaker 2: again and when you should basically charge ahead? And my

296
00:17:14,290 --> 00:17:17,370
Speaker 2: favorite way to answer that question comes from studying professional

297
00:17:17,410 --> 00:17:20,010
Speaker 2: forecasters who you've also spent a lot of time with him.

298
00:17:20,010 --> 00:17:24,010
Speaker 2: They're amazing people, they're so fascinating. One in particular is

299
00:17:24,090 --> 00:17:28,130
Speaker 2: Jean Pierre Bougam, who's a military historian by training and

300
00:17:28,250 --> 00:17:32,410
Speaker 2: participates in forecasting tournaments for fun, and he was the

301
00:17:32,450 --> 00:17:36,250
Speaker 2: world's most accurate election forecaster in a series of tournaments.

302
00:17:36,490 --> 00:17:39,410
Speaker 2: He not only predicted the rise of Donald Trump and

303
00:17:39,930 --> 00:17:43,810
Speaker 2: foresaw a few other elections. He's anticipated some events that

304
00:17:43,850 --> 00:17:46,970
Speaker 2: many people thought were improbable or just didn't even give

305
00:17:47,010 --> 00:17:50,170
Speaker 2: a chance. And one of the things he does is

306
00:17:50,210 --> 00:17:52,370
Speaker 2: when he makes a prediction, he makes a list of

307
00:17:52,410 --> 00:17:55,970
Speaker 2: conditions that would change his mind, and that forces him

308
00:17:56,010 --> 00:17:58,090
Speaker 2: to stay honest. And I think we could all be

309
00:17:58,130 --> 00:18:00,450
Speaker 2: doing more of this, right to say, the moment I

310
00:18:00,490 --> 00:18:02,970
Speaker 2: make a decision or the moment I make a plan,

311
00:18:03,650 --> 00:18:06,170
Speaker 2: I should pre commit to the possibility that I'm wrong

312
00:18:06,570 --> 00:18:09,010
Speaker 2: and ask what would have to happen to change my mind?

313
00:18:09,370 --> 00:18:11,930
Speaker 2: How would the world have to shift? What new information

314
00:18:11,970 --> 00:18:14,570
Speaker 2: would I have to discover in order for that to

315
00:18:14,690 --> 00:18:16,570
Speaker 2: cue me? Hey, wait a minute, it might be time

316
00:18:16,570 --> 00:18:20,010
Speaker 2: to think again here. And I've landed in a framework

317
00:18:20,010 --> 00:18:22,210
Speaker 2: that I think is helpful there, which is just to

318
00:18:22,250 --> 00:18:25,010
Speaker 2: ask two questions. The first one is how consequential is

319
00:18:25,050 --> 00:18:28,130
Speaker 2: this decision or this forecast? How high are the stakes?

320
00:18:28,570 --> 00:18:31,530
Speaker 2: Second one is how reversible is this decision? Am I

321
00:18:31,530 --> 00:18:33,970
Speaker 2: about to walk through a locked door or a revolving door?

322
00:18:34,690 --> 00:18:37,450
Speaker 2: And where we most need to think again is when

323
00:18:37,450 --> 00:18:42,050
Speaker 2: we're dealing with highly consequential, irreversible decisions. Every decision you

324
00:18:42,130 --> 00:18:45,570
Speaker 2: make is a prediction about the future. When you choose

325
00:18:45,570 --> 00:18:48,090
Speaker 2: a career or when you take a job, you're making

326
00:18:48,090 --> 00:18:49,730
Speaker 2: it bad about what kind of work you're going to

327
00:18:49,770 --> 00:18:52,690
Speaker 2: find motivating and what sort of culture will be healthy

328
00:18:52,690 --> 00:18:55,970
Speaker 2: as opposed to toxic. When you marry someone, you're making

329
00:18:55,970 --> 00:18:57,850
Speaker 2: a prediction about what you're going to want in the

330
00:18:57,850 --> 00:19:00,490
Speaker 2: next few decades, and also who they're going to become.

331
00:19:00,770 --> 00:19:03,850
Speaker 2: That's when it's really worth slowing down, because it really matters,

332
00:19:03,890 --> 00:19:07,810
Speaker 2: and you can't easily change your mind tomorrow. It demands rethinking.

333
00:19:08,250 --> 00:19:11,010
Speaker 1: After the break, I meet someone who refused to rethink

334
00:19:11,250 --> 00:19:13,330
Speaker 1: and got it very wrong when it came to making

335
00:19:13,370 --> 00:19:24,770
Speaker 1: a highly consequential, irreversible decision. Don't go away. We're back

336
00:19:24,770 --> 00:19:27,210
Speaker 1: and I'm here with Adam Grant, the author of Think

337
00:19:27,250 --> 00:19:31,210
Speaker 1: Again and Now. Adam I squirmed while reading the chapter

338
00:19:31,290 --> 00:19:34,930
Speaker 1: and Think Again about Mike Lazaridis. So tell us who

339
00:19:34,930 --> 00:19:37,050
Speaker 1: he is and why did he get things so wrong?

340
00:19:38,210 --> 00:19:41,930
Speaker 2: Mike Lazaridis has affected your life, even though you might

341
00:19:41,930 --> 00:19:44,890
Speaker 2: not realize it. He started out as an electronics wizard.

342
00:19:45,570 --> 00:19:48,090
Speaker 2: He was the kid in high school who fixed broken

343
00:19:48,130 --> 00:19:50,970
Speaker 2: TVs for his teacher. He'd built a computer for fun.

344
00:19:51,650 --> 00:19:54,770
Speaker 2: He'd improved the buzzer for his high school quiz bowl team,

345
00:19:55,530 --> 00:19:57,690
Speaker 2: and actually paid for his first year at college doing that,

346
00:19:58,410 --> 00:20:01,570
Speaker 2: and he becomes an electrical engineer. He drops out of

347
00:20:01,570 --> 00:20:05,410
Speaker 2: college to become an entrepreneur, and he ends up inventing

348
00:20:05,970 --> 00:20:09,250
Speaker 2: a little device called the BlackBerry.

349
00:20:09,090 --> 00:20:12,010
Speaker 1: I have to explain to gen Z what the BlackBerry

350
00:20:12,170 --> 00:20:15,770
Speaker 1: is because it basically disappeared from popular views so fast.

351
00:20:15,930 --> 00:20:20,730
Speaker 1: But half the smartphone sales in the US were Blackberries

352
00:20:20,890 --> 00:20:22,690
Speaker 1: in two thousand and nine, and all of the things

353
00:20:22,690 --> 00:20:26,090
Speaker 1: that we now worry about with iPhone, addiction and doom scrolling,

354
00:20:26,210 --> 00:20:27,810
Speaker 1: it was all the BlackBerry. We used to call it

355
00:20:27,810 --> 00:20:31,050
Speaker 1: the Crackberry, and then it just went We got Android,

356
00:20:31,130 --> 00:20:35,090
Speaker 1: we got the iPhone, and the BlackBerry disappeared. So what happened?

357
00:20:35,610 --> 00:20:38,010
Speaker 2: I almost wonder if you just understated the popularity of

358
00:20:38,050 --> 00:20:41,730
Speaker 2: the BlackBerry, because not only was it the dominant smartphone,

359
00:20:41,810 --> 00:20:47,890
Speaker 2: it invented the smartphone category. So Mike Lazaridi's basically said,

360
00:20:48,690 --> 00:20:51,570
Speaker 2: we're going to go from these really clunky pom pilots

361
00:20:52,050 --> 00:20:55,810
Speaker 2: to allowing you to send emails and message on the go.

362
00:20:56,450 --> 00:20:58,570
Speaker 2: And all of a sudden, what we thought were mobile

363
00:20:58,610 --> 00:21:03,130
Speaker 2: phones became devices for text based communication. And so if

364
00:21:03,130 --> 00:21:07,130
Speaker 2: you think that the smartphone was a revolutionary or disruptive innovation,

365
00:21:07,410 --> 00:21:11,010
Speaker 2: Mike Lazaridis is probably the single most important figure behind it.

366
00:21:11,530 --> 00:21:15,490
Speaker 2: So he is the founder, he's the co CEO of RIM,

367
00:21:15,770 --> 00:21:19,290
Speaker 2: which is a company that makes the BlackBerry. And I

368
00:21:19,290 --> 00:21:22,570
Speaker 2: think the standard narrative about what went wrong is that

369
00:21:23,130 --> 00:21:27,010
Speaker 2: he failed to adapt. But I think that there's something

370
00:21:27,050 --> 00:21:30,730
Speaker 2: more interesting at play. Mike Lazaridis is a scientist, and

371
00:21:30,810 --> 00:21:32,970
Speaker 2: yet he spent too much of his time as a leader,

372
00:21:33,010 --> 00:21:37,530
Speaker 2: thinking like a preacher, a prosecutor, and a politician. So

373
00:21:38,210 --> 00:21:41,930
Speaker 2: this iPhone comes out two thousand and seven, and Mike

374
00:21:41,970 --> 00:21:45,850
Speaker 2: does exactly what you would expect any self respecting engineer

375
00:21:45,890 --> 00:21:48,570
Speaker 2: to do. He pries it open to figure out how

376
00:21:48,610 --> 00:21:54,410
Speaker 2: it works, and he says, they put a computer inside this. Yeah,

377
00:21:54,730 --> 00:21:58,450
Speaker 2: and if your product is basically a phone with emails

378
00:21:58,450 --> 00:22:01,650
Speaker 2: and texts and somebody builds a phone with a whole computer,

379
00:22:02,330 --> 00:22:05,050
Speaker 2: that is a moment to pause and think again. What

380
00:22:05,130 --> 00:22:08,010
Speaker 2: Mike does instead, though, is he preaches the virtues of

381
00:22:08,050 --> 00:22:12,530
Speaker 2: his existing product. He says, what's great about this is

382
00:22:12,530 --> 00:22:15,610
Speaker 2: we have a keyboard. Everybody wants a keyboard.

383
00:22:16,090 --> 00:22:19,050
Speaker 1: His existing customers they like the keyboard, so it's not

384
00:22:19,090 --> 00:22:21,210
Speaker 1: a crazy view. So what should he have done differently?

385
00:22:22,010 --> 00:22:24,130
Speaker 2: A good scientist has the humility to know what they

386
00:22:24,170 --> 00:22:27,330
Speaker 2: don't know and the curiosity to seek new knowledge. They

387
00:22:27,330 --> 00:22:30,650
Speaker 2: don't let their ideas become part of their identity. Instead

388
00:22:30,650 --> 00:22:33,810
Speaker 2: of defining himself as the guy who made the phone

389
00:22:33,810 --> 00:22:36,290
Speaker 2: that had buttons on it, right, he would have been

390
00:22:36,370 --> 00:22:40,290
Speaker 2: much better off saying, well, that opinion I hold that

391
00:22:40,370 --> 00:22:42,610
Speaker 2: has become kool aid that I'm serving to everyone else.

392
00:22:43,090 --> 00:22:46,290
Speaker 2: That's just a hypothesis waiting to be tested. And of

393
00:22:46,330 --> 00:22:49,090
Speaker 2: course it turns out if he had tested this hypothesis,

394
00:22:49,090 --> 00:22:52,210
Speaker 2: he would have discovered that, Yes, although millions of business

395
00:22:52,210 --> 00:22:55,090
Speaker 2: and government users really liked the keyboard for work emails,

396
00:22:55,330 --> 00:22:58,370
Speaker 2: the majority of smartphone users were looking for a device

397
00:22:58,410 --> 00:23:01,290
Speaker 2: that provided home entertainment, and the touch screen was much

398
00:23:01,330 --> 00:23:04,370
Speaker 2: more effective for that. So what I would have advised

399
00:23:04,410 --> 00:23:06,690
Speaker 2: Mike to do is to put on his scientists goggles

400
00:23:07,090 --> 00:23:10,010
Speaker 2: and say, what are the alternative hypotheses, and then how

401
00:23:10,010 --> 00:23:11,890
Speaker 2: do you run experiments to test them?

402
00:23:12,170 --> 00:23:14,810
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's great advice. But let me give

403
00:23:14,810 --> 00:23:16,570
Speaker 1: you an alternative perspective. Let me see if I can

404
00:23:16,570 --> 00:23:18,810
Speaker 1: persuade you to think again, and then you can come

405
00:23:18,850 --> 00:23:19,290
Speaker 1: back and you.

406
00:23:19,210 --> 00:23:20,890
Speaker 2: Can I'm open to it in principle.

407
00:23:21,130 --> 00:23:23,290
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, yeah, you have to pretend to be open

408
00:23:23,290 --> 00:23:24,610
Speaker 1: to it, don't you, Adam, it would.

409
00:23:24,410 --> 00:23:26,850
Speaker 2: Be ironic if I weren't. Although I mean, if you

410
00:23:26,930 --> 00:23:28,970
Speaker 2: persuade me to think again. Here, and I admit that

411
00:23:29,010 --> 00:23:30,690
Speaker 2: I was wrong in a much larger sense.

412
00:23:30,850 --> 00:23:36,170
Speaker 1: I was right, Absolutely so, Mike Lazaridis. He's so innovative,

413
00:23:36,250 --> 00:23:39,410
Speaker 1: he's so smart, and then at some point he stops

414
00:23:39,410 --> 00:23:41,930
Speaker 1: thinking like a scientist and he starts thinking like a preacher.

415
00:23:42,530 --> 00:23:47,010
Speaker 1: Fine alternative hypothesis. This happens a lot. The British Army

416
00:23:47,050 --> 00:23:50,330
Speaker 1: invented the tank and Blitzkrieg, and yet we call it blitzgreig.

417
00:23:50,450 --> 00:23:53,410
Speaker 1: The Germans took the idea, the British lost their technical lead.

418
00:23:53,690 --> 00:23:58,170
Speaker 1: Kodak invented the digital camera, Sony invented the MP three player,

419
00:23:58,930 --> 00:24:02,570
Speaker 1: Xerox invented the personal computer. There's all great ideas, but

420
00:24:02,690 --> 00:24:06,650
Speaker 1: they weren't taken advantage of the theory that I discussed

421
00:24:06,650 --> 00:24:08,650
Speaker 1: in One of my cautionary tales about the invention of

422
00:24:08,650 --> 00:24:13,170
Speaker 1: the tank comes from Rebecca Henderson, a Harvard professor. These

423
00:24:13,210 --> 00:24:18,690
Speaker 1: are what she calls architectural innovations, and architectural innovation is

424
00:24:18,890 --> 00:24:21,530
Speaker 1: an innovation that requires a change in the architecture of

425
00:24:21,570 --> 00:24:24,730
Speaker 1: the organization. So it's not just about one guy at

426
00:24:24,730 --> 00:24:27,810
Speaker 1: the top who should change his mind and can't change

427
00:24:27,850 --> 00:24:31,490
Speaker 1: his mind. The whole structure of the organization needs to change.

428
00:24:31,810 --> 00:24:35,530
Speaker 1: Kodak is built around film and chemical processing. It can't

429
00:24:35,570 --> 00:24:38,650
Speaker 1: cope with digital cameras. Xerox is a photocopier company. It

430
00:24:38,690 --> 00:24:42,690
Speaker 1: can't make pecs. Maybe you're too hard on Mike Lazaridi's

431
00:24:42,690 --> 00:24:44,650
Speaker 1: Maybe he just didn't have a chance because this was

432
00:24:44,690 --> 00:24:48,930
Speaker 1: an architectural innovation and they're just almost impossible. So what

433
00:24:49,010 --> 00:24:49,610
Speaker 1: am I missing?

434
00:24:49,970 --> 00:24:53,090
Speaker 2: Nothing? I think that's a complimentary hypothesis, not an alternative

435
00:24:53,090 --> 00:24:55,730
Speaker 2: fund So I think you're right. I think one of

436
00:24:55,730 --> 00:24:59,050
Speaker 2: the real struggles for RAM at the time was they

437
00:24:59,090 --> 00:25:01,050
Speaker 2: had to reinvent a lout of the company in order

438
00:25:01,130 --> 00:25:03,650
Speaker 2: to compete with the iPhone. But the question is why

439
00:25:03,690 --> 00:25:06,010
Speaker 2: didn't they do that. They could have done it, they

440
00:25:06,050 --> 00:25:07,770
Speaker 2: invented the architecture.

441
00:25:07,330 --> 00:25:09,370
Speaker 1: Or they could have tried, at least it seems didn't

442
00:25:09,410 --> 00:25:09,850
Speaker 1: even try.

443
00:25:10,650 --> 00:25:15,010
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's amazing. I mean way before, right, way before.

444
00:25:15,650 --> 00:25:18,010
Speaker 2: There were missed opportunities to think again, there was a

445
00:25:18,050 --> 00:25:21,170
Speaker 2: top engineer back in the late nineteen nineties who wanted

446
00:25:21,210 --> 00:25:23,970
Speaker 2: to add an Internet browser to the BlackBerry, but Mike said, no,

447
00:25:24,850 --> 00:25:28,930
Speaker 2: focus on email. Right, that's a coding challenge. Right. That's

448
00:25:28,970 --> 00:25:33,130
Speaker 2: an example of Mike being too attached to his convictions. Now,

449
00:25:33,210 --> 00:25:35,690
Speaker 2: you could also argue that he knew the importance of

450
00:25:35,730 --> 00:25:40,130
Speaker 2: ruthless prioritization, and he was trying to avoid distraction, which

451
00:25:40,370 --> 00:25:42,170
Speaker 2: I think may have been true at the time. But

452
00:25:42,250 --> 00:25:45,290
Speaker 2: guess what, It's two thousand and eight. The company is

453
00:25:45,290 --> 00:25:48,330
Speaker 2: worth more than seventy billion dollars and the BlackBerry still

454
00:25:48,370 --> 00:25:51,050
Speaker 2: doesn't have a reliable browser, nor does the company have

455
00:25:51,130 --> 00:25:54,530
Speaker 2: another product. Yeah. Right, and that is a massive systemic

456
00:25:54,570 --> 00:25:58,250
Speaker 2: failure to think again. And if you look at the architecture,

457
00:25:58,290 --> 00:26:01,770
Speaker 2: the structure, and the culture of that organization, that architecture

458
00:26:01,810 --> 00:26:04,010
Speaker 2: was built by the leaders at the top. I guess

459
00:26:04,010 --> 00:26:06,490
Speaker 2: what I would say in response is I think that

460
00:26:06,770 --> 00:26:10,250
Speaker 2: Mike's tendency to slip from scientific thinking to preaching was

461
00:26:10,330 --> 00:26:13,370
Speaker 2: part of the reason that the architecture frozen place as

462
00:26:13,370 --> 00:26:14,690
Speaker 2: opposed to being reimagined.

463
00:26:15,330 --> 00:26:19,650
Speaker 1: Okay, you've persuaded me that Mike's decision making, the psychology

464
00:26:19,650 --> 00:26:21,970
Speaker 1: of that is certainly an important part of what's going on.

465
00:26:22,250 --> 00:26:26,090
Speaker 1: There was a lovely subplot in the way you tell

466
00:26:26,090 --> 00:26:29,410
Speaker 1: this story, which is that a few years before Lazaridis

467
00:26:29,530 --> 00:26:33,210
Speaker 1: at Research in Motion is making these decisions or failing

468
00:26:33,210 --> 00:26:38,370
Speaker 1: to make these decisions about producing a touchscreen phone. Over

469
00:26:38,410 --> 00:26:40,650
Speaker 1: at Apple, you've got Steve Jobs, and you know we

470
00:26:40,650 --> 00:26:43,130
Speaker 1: think of Steve Jobs. Oh he's this genius who created

471
00:26:43,170 --> 00:26:46,210
Speaker 1: the iPhone and blah blah. But Steve Jobs, he swore

472
00:26:46,290 --> 00:26:49,090
Speaker 1: him never make a phone. He hated phones, so he

473
00:26:49,170 --> 00:26:51,250
Speaker 1: had to rethink. So how do you get a man

474
00:26:51,330 --> 00:26:52,810
Speaker 1: like Steve Jobs to change his mind?

475
00:26:53,330 --> 00:26:56,730
Speaker 2: Yeah? I think the narrative about the renaissance of Apple

476
00:26:56,770 --> 00:27:00,290
Speaker 2: missed something vital, which is not only did Steve Jobs

477
00:27:00,330 --> 00:27:03,530
Speaker 2: hate phones, he hated cell phone carriers. He called them

478
00:27:03,530 --> 00:27:07,410
Speaker 2: the four Orifices. He often got so frustrated with his

479
00:27:07,490 --> 00:27:11,010
Speaker 2: phone that he would throw against the wall and smash it.

480
00:27:11,890 --> 00:27:15,370
Speaker 2: And he just thought that phones were clunky, they were

481
00:27:15,410 --> 00:27:18,250
Speaker 2: poorly designed, the tech didn't work right. He hated the

482
00:27:18,290 --> 00:27:22,970
Speaker 2: hardware and the software and the design. And some of

483
00:27:23,010 --> 00:27:25,450
Speaker 2: his engineers and designers started seeing the writing on the

484
00:27:25,490 --> 00:27:28,890
Speaker 2: wall in the late nineties, And it really began when

485
00:27:28,930 --> 00:27:31,970
Speaker 2: they rolled out the iPod, which was their first big success,

486
00:27:33,010 --> 00:27:35,250
Speaker 2: And suddenly it became clear to a group of them

487
00:27:35,290 --> 00:27:37,810
Speaker 2: that it was only a matter of time before everything

488
00:27:37,810 --> 00:27:39,770
Speaker 2: else you could put on a computer was also in

489
00:27:39,810 --> 00:27:43,570
Speaker 2: your pocket. And they started pitching him the idea, and

490
00:27:43,650 --> 00:27:46,770
Speaker 2: he just thought it was stupid. He kept saying, I

491
00:27:46,810 --> 00:27:48,930
Speaker 2: will never make a phone. I don't know why you

492
00:27:48,930 --> 00:27:51,650
Speaker 2: would want that, and he was very close to the idea,

493
00:27:51,770 --> 00:27:54,170
Speaker 2: and Steve Jobs was not an easy person to argue with.

494
00:27:54,570 --> 00:27:57,130
Speaker 1: It sounds like very similar to the kind of things

495
00:27:57,130 --> 00:28:00,010
Speaker 1: that Mike Asuidi's was saying, like why would we want

496
00:28:00,010 --> 00:28:02,290
Speaker 1: why would we want a touch screen? You know, would

497
00:28:02,290 --> 00:28:03,970
Speaker 1: why do we want a browser? We don't want that

498
00:28:04,090 --> 00:28:06,730
Speaker 1: kind of stuff. It's too complicated, except, of course lasuitis

499
00:28:06,770 --> 00:28:09,970
Speaker 1: is making is saying this after Job group have already

500
00:28:10,010 --> 00:28:11,450
Speaker 1: proved it can be done.

501
00:28:11,730 --> 00:28:15,170
Speaker 2: That's right, which makes it all the more depressing. But

502
00:28:15,930 --> 00:28:19,250
Speaker 2: I think what ultimately made Steve Jobs an effective leader.

503
00:28:20,170 --> 00:28:22,370
Speaker 2: I don't want to say a great leader, because he

504
00:28:22,490 --> 00:28:24,290
Speaker 2: violated some of my core values in the way that

505
00:28:24,330 --> 00:28:27,730
Speaker 2: he treated human beings. But he was willing to change

506
00:28:27,730 --> 00:28:30,930
Speaker 2: his mind, and he surrounded himself with people who knew

507
00:28:30,970 --> 00:28:34,570
Speaker 2: how to tempt him to think again. They tried to

508
00:28:34,570 --> 00:28:37,610
Speaker 2: plant the seed and let him water it. The first

509
00:28:37,610 --> 00:28:40,770
Speaker 2: thing they did was they said, we're not trying to

510
00:28:40,810 --> 00:28:44,370
Speaker 2: threaten the core DNA of Apple. We don't want to

511
00:28:44,370 --> 00:28:46,690
Speaker 2: turn Apple into a phone company. It's going to be

512
00:28:46,690 --> 00:28:48,810
Speaker 2: a computer company. We're just going to shrink the computer

513
00:28:49,010 --> 00:28:51,610
Speaker 2: and put a phone on the side of it, and

514
00:28:51,890 --> 00:28:54,650
Speaker 2: you're already putting thousands of songs in your pocket. Don't

515
00:28:54,690 --> 00:28:57,770
Speaker 2: you want to carry around everything else too? The research

516
00:28:57,810 --> 00:28:59,890
Speaker 2: on this is fascinating to me that people are more

517
00:28:59,930 --> 00:29:03,210
Speaker 2: willing to embrace change when they're reminded of what's going

518
00:29:03,250 --> 00:29:05,610
Speaker 2: to stay the same, right, that if you give people

519
00:29:05,650 --> 00:29:09,050
Speaker 2: a vision for change, they're less likely to resist it

520
00:29:09,290 --> 00:29:12,450
Speaker 2: if they also hear a vision for continuity. And that's

521
00:29:12,490 --> 00:29:15,250
Speaker 2: exactly what the engineers and designers did for Steve Jobs.

522
00:29:15,330 --> 00:29:17,930
Speaker 2: They said, we're going to take the core of Apple

523
00:29:18,170 --> 00:29:21,650
Speaker 2: our identity, and we're going to shift the form. There's

524
00:29:21,690 --> 00:29:26,810
Speaker 2: an engineer who hears that Microsoft is planning to release

525
00:29:26,810 --> 00:29:29,850
Speaker 2: a tablet and it's going to have a stylus, and

526
00:29:29,890 --> 00:29:32,570
Speaker 2: he purposely brings up this example because he knows that

527
00:29:32,690 --> 00:29:35,890
Speaker 2: Jobs hates Microsoft, and he thinks the stylus is the

528
00:29:35,930 --> 00:29:40,810
Speaker 2: worst invention in this smartphone industry. And immediately that fires

529
00:29:40,890 --> 00:29:43,250
Speaker 2: up his competitive juices and he says, we're going to

530
00:29:43,330 --> 00:29:45,170
Speaker 2: make a better one and you're going to be able

531
00:29:45,410 --> 00:29:48,490
Speaker 2: to operate it with your finger. And there were so

532
00:29:48,570 --> 00:29:50,490
Speaker 2: many moments like this. I'll throw out one other that

533
00:29:50,690 --> 00:29:52,330
Speaker 2: I really got a kick out of which is there

534
00:29:52,370 --> 00:29:57,010
Speaker 2: was an engineer who just casually says to Steve Jobs, look,

535
00:29:57,450 --> 00:30:01,850
Speaker 2: I know that smartphones are just hideous. Therefore the pocket

536
00:30:01,850 --> 00:30:04,930
Speaker 2: protector crowd, But what do you think it would look

537
00:30:05,010 --> 00:30:09,050
Speaker 2: like if Apple designed one right and activates his imagine

538
00:30:09,450 --> 00:30:12,290
Speaker 2: and Jobs basically then starts to run with the vision

539
00:30:12,330 --> 00:30:16,250
Speaker 2: and so I guess the overall lesson here is that

540
00:30:16,570 --> 00:30:18,570
Speaker 2: if you want to push someone like Steve Jobs to

541
00:30:18,610 --> 00:30:22,530
Speaker 2: think again, it's really helpful to make sure that you

542
00:30:22,610 --> 00:30:26,490
Speaker 2: activate their natural curiosity, that you give them a chance

543
00:30:26,570 --> 00:30:29,170
Speaker 2: to generate some ideas, because then they start to take

544
00:30:29,250 --> 00:30:31,250
Speaker 2: ownership over them. If you do that in a way

545
00:30:31,290 --> 00:30:34,090
Speaker 2: that doesn't threaten what they're already attached to, it's a

546
00:30:34,090 --> 00:30:35,970
Speaker 2: lot easier to get them to give it a shot.

547
00:30:36,490 --> 00:30:38,530
Speaker 1: I guess the really deep point there is that you

548
00:30:38,610 --> 00:30:41,210
Speaker 1: can't change somebody's mind. Only they can change their mind.

549
00:30:41,610 --> 00:30:44,370
Speaker 1: And they were giving him the prompt and the space

550
00:30:44,690 --> 00:30:46,730
Speaker 1: to change his own mind because they're not going to

551
00:30:46,770 --> 00:30:47,370
Speaker 1: do it for him.

552
00:30:47,770 --> 00:30:50,090
Speaker 2: I think one of the most powerful lessons in the

553
00:30:50,130 --> 00:30:54,210
Speaker 2: last few decades of psychology research is it's very difficult

554
00:30:54,410 --> 00:30:57,770
Speaker 2: to motivate someone else to change their mind. What you

555
00:30:57,810 --> 00:31:00,170
Speaker 2: can do is try to help them find their own

556
00:31:00,210 --> 00:31:01,890
Speaker 2: motivations to change their minds.

557
00:31:03,130 --> 00:31:06,410
Speaker 1: After the break, will return to the horrific Man Gulch

558
00:31:06,450 --> 00:31:21,370
Speaker 1: wildfire pro final twist in this cautionary tale. We're back

559
00:31:21,490 --> 00:31:24,050
Speaker 1: and I'm with Adam Grant, the author of Think Again.

560
00:31:24,170 --> 00:31:27,690
Speaker 1: And Adam, I've heard some of the Man Gulch story before,

561
00:31:28,250 --> 00:31:30,890
Speaker 1: but you've added a final twist. What is it?

562
00:31:31,490 --> 00:31:33,290
Speaker 2: I didn't know this when I sat down to write

563
00:31:33,330 --> 00:31:35,890
Speaker 2: the story. I thought that I was writing a story

564
00:31:35,930 --> 00:31:39,010
Speaker 2: about the failure to think again, about the escape fire

565
00:31:39,170 --> 00:31:43,130
Speaker 2: and about dropping tools. And as I read about Man Gulch,

566
00:31:43,490 --> 00:31:46,730
Speaker 2: I was horrified to discover that there was a deeper

567
00:31:46,930 --> 00:31:50,490
Speaker 2: and much more systemic failure to think again, which is

568
00:31:50,530 --> 00:31:54,090
Speaker 2: that the twelve smoke jumpers who died lost their lives

569
00:31:54,130 --> 00:31:56,450
Speaker 2: fighting a fire that did not need to be fought

570
00:31:56,490 --> 00:32:00,890
Speaker 2: in the first place. The entire field of wildland firefighting,

571
00:32:00,970 --> 00:32:05,330
Speaker 2: a whole industry, was guilty of decades of failing to

572
00:32:05,410 --> 00:32:09,370
Speaker 2: think again. I think the earliest record I can find

573
00:32:09,570 --> 00:32:14,090
Speaker 2: is the eighteen eighties, when scientists started writing about the

574
00:32:14,130 --> 00:32:18,050
Speaker 2: fact that wildfires are important in the life cycles of forests.

575
00:32:18,810 --> 00:32:21,090
Speaker 2: So if you think about what a fire does it

576
00:32:21,330 --> 00:32:24,490
Speaker 2: puts nutrients in the soil, it clears away dead brush.

577
00:32:24,730 --> 00:32:27,850
Speaker 2: It also opens up a path for sunlight. And if

578
00:32:27,850 --> 00:32:30,810
Speaker 2: you suppress wildlan fires, you end up with forests that

579
00:32:30,890 --> 00:32:33,530
Speaker 2: are too dense and that can lead to more explosive

580
00:32:33,570 --> 00:32:37,730
Speaker 2: wildfires and that kills force rather than allowing them to rejuvenate.

581
00:32:39,010 --> 00:32:42,890
Speaker 2: So that was known starting in the eighteen eighties. Man

582
00:32:42,930 --> 00:32:48,770
Speaker 2: Goulch happens in the nineteen forties, and it's not until

583
00:32:48,850 --> 00:32:53,370
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy eight that the US Forest Service finally eliminates

584
00:32:53,410 --> 00:32:55,850
Speaker 2: their policy that if anybody sees a fire, it has

585
00:32:55,890 --> 00:32:57,650
Speaker 2: to be put out by ten am the next day.

586
00:32:58,450 --> 00:33:02,130
Speaker 2: And what's crazy tim about Man Gulch is that wildfire

587
00:33:02,450 --> 00:33:05,610
Speaker 2: that killed the smoke jumpers happened in a remote area.

588
00:33:06,050 --> 00:33:09,090
Speaker 2: There's no human life at risk, and the smoke jumper

589
00:33:09,370 --> 00:33:13,650
Speaker 2: go in because no one in the community, the profession,

590
00:33:14,010 --> 00:33:18,610
Speaker 2: the organization has questioned the assumption that wildfires need to

591
00:33:18,610 --> 00:33:19,130
Speaker 2: be put out.

592
00:33:21,010 --> 00:33:24,250
Speaker 1: It's a real gut punch to think about that, and

593
00:33:24,490 --> 00:33:28,010
Speaker 1: it got me thinking about cautionary tales in general, because

594
00:33:28,850 --> 00:33:32,610
Speaker 1: most of the cautionary tales that we tell are about

595
00:33:33,610 --> 00:33:37,170
Speaker 1: intense moments where someone makes a mistake and It may

596
00:33:37,210 --> 00:33:41,050
Speaker 1: be an individual, or it may be an organization, but

597
00:33:41,170 --> 00:33:44,570
Speaker 1: the spotlight is on a particular time and place, and

598
00:33:44,650 --> 00:33:49,410
Speaker 1: I wonder how often there's something going on in the background,

599
00:33:49,410 --> 00:33:52,770
Speaker 1: something much more diffuse, something rotten in the culture or

600
00:33:52,810 --> 00:33:55,010
Speaker 1: in the structure of a whole industry or a whole

601
00:33:55,090 --> 00:33:58,970
Speaker 1: field that should have been fixed fifty years previously, and

602
00:33:59,010 --> 00:34:01,930
Speaker 1: that we don't talk about because the cool story is

603
00:34:02,210 --> 00:34:03,930
Speaker 1: it happens at a much faster pace.

604
00:34:04,730 --> 00:34:07,250
Speaker 2: I mean, it's maddening when you think about it. We've

605
00:34:07,250 --> 00:34:10,170
Speaker 2: seen so many disasters that are due to this kind

606
00:34:10,210 --> 00:34:14,890
Speaker 2: of deeper cultural failure of rethinking. You know, certainly pandemic

607
00:34:14,890 --> 00:34:17,970
Speaker 2: response falls in that category. The crash of stock markets

608
00:34:19,010 --> 00:34:23,890
Speaker 2: fits that bill pretty cleanly. Almost any example of a

609
00:34:23,890 --> 00:34:27,530
Speaker 2: frog in a slow boiling pot would probably align with

610
00:34:27,610 --> 00:34:31,130
Speaker 2: this issue. And as you know, it turns out even

611
00:34:31,130 --> 00:34:32,890
Speaker 2: that story needs to be rethought.

612
00:34:33,650 --> 00:34:35,730
Speaker 1: Because, yeah, the frogs will move right.

613
00:34:36,210 --> 00:34:38,450
Speaker 2: I mean, the moment you heat up the water to

614
00:34:38,490 --> 00:34:42,010
Speaker 2: the point of discomfort, the frog leaps out. I read

615
00:34:42,050 --> 00:34:44,930
Speaker 2: about that and thought, it's not the frogs who can't

616
00:34:44,930 --> 00:34:48,290
Speaker 2: think again, it's us. You hear the story, you assume

617
00:34:48,330 --> 00:34:50,770
Speaker 2: it's true, and you retell it. As opposed to pausing

618
00:34:50,810 --> 00:34:53,450
Speaker 2: to rethink it. I think that's a metaphor for so

619
00:34:53,490 --> 00:34:55,250
Speaker 2: many of the mistakes that we make in our lives

620
00:34:55,290 --> 00:34:58,610
Speaker 2: and in our world, which is we make an assumption

621
00:34:59,490 --> 00:35:02,090
Speaker 2: it proves to be a successful one in the moment,

622
00:35:02,690 --> 00:35:06,090
Speaker 2: it helps us achieve our goals, and we don't ask

623
00:35:06,530 --> 00:35:10,210
Speaker 2: whether then the practices that we build a around that assumption,

624
00:35:10,370 --> 00:35:14,090
Speaker 2: our best practices are time honored traditions were created for

625
00:35:14,130 --> 00:35:15,690
Speaker 2: a world that no longer exists.

626
00:35:16,650 --> 00:35:18,450
Speaker 1: Thank you, Adam. It's been fantastic.

627
00:35:18,890 --> 00:35:21,370
Speaker 2: Thank you honored to be a part of it. It's always

628
00:35:21,370 --> 00:35:23,450
Speaker 2: a little nerve racking showing up on a podcast that

629
00:35:23,530 --> 00:35:24,090
Speaker 2: I've listened to.

630
00:35:24,770 --> 00:35:27,570
Speaker 1: It is our honor to have you. I should say

631
00:35:27,570 --> 00:35:30,290
Speaker 1: that Adam writes amazing books faster than we can release

632
00:35:30,330 --> 00:35:34,010
Speaker 1: podcast episodes. So while in this episode we were discussing

633
00:35:34,010 --> 00:35:37,850
Speaker 1: his book Think Again, his more recent book is Hidden Potential.

634
00:35:38,170 --> 00:35:40,770
Speaker 1: It's not only packed with interesting stories and ideas, but

635
00:35:40,890 --> 00:35:43,970
Speaker 1: practical lessons too. You canvide all of Adam's books in

636
00:35:44,130 --> 00:35:48,010
Speaker 1: good bookshops, and you can listen to Adam Grant's podcasts

637
00:35:48,250 --> 00:35:54,050
Speaker 1: Rethinking and Work Life wherever you get your podcasts. For

638
00:35:54,130 --> 00:35:56,650
Speaker 1: a full list of our sources see the show notes

639
00:35:56,690 --> 00:36:02,890
Speaker 1: at Timharford dot com. Cautionary Tales is written by me

640
00:36:03,170 --> 00:36:06,650
Speaker 1: Tim Harford with Andrew Wright. It's produced by Alice Fines

641
00:36:06,810 --> 00:36:10,810
Speaker 1: with support from Marilyn Rust. Sound design and original music

642
00:36:11,010 --> 00:36:15,250
Speaker 1: is the work of Pascal Wise. Sarah Nix edited the scripts.

643
00:36:15,890 --> 00:36:19,250
Speaker 1: It features the voice talents of Ben Crowe, Melanie Guttridge,

644
00:36:19,330 --> 00:36:23,890
Speaker 1: Stella Harford, Jemmas Saunders and Rufus Wright. The show also

645
00:36:24,010 --> 00:36:27,010
Speaker 1: wouldn't have been possible without the work of Jacob Weisberg,

646
00:36:27,250 --> 00:36:32,650
Speaker 1: Ryan Dilly, Greta Cohene, Eric's handler, Carrie Brody, and Christina Sullivan.

647
00:36:33,450 --> 00:36:38,090
Speaker 1: Cautionary Tales is a production of Pushkin Industries. It's recorded

648
00:36:38,090 --> 00:36:41,850
Speaker 1: at Wardoor Studios in London by Tom Berry. If you

649
00:36:42,050 --> 00:36:46,250
Speaker 1: like the show, please remember to share, rate and review,

650
00:36:46,770 --> 00:36:48,970
Speaker 1: tell your friends and if you want to hear the

651
00:36:48,970 --> 00:36:52,450
Speaker 1: show ad free, sign up for Pushkin Plus on the

652
00:36:52,490 --> 00:36:56,650
Speaker 1: show page in Apple Podcasts or at Pushkin dot fm,

653
00:36:56,930 --> 00:36:58,010
Speaker 1: slash plus