As I’m reading through Adam Grant’s excellent book Think Again, I keep being struck by one big thought — if Donald Trump had read this book, he might have been able to get reelected.
There are two big problems with that, of course: the book only recently came out, and “reading” versus “fully executing” content in a book are two different things. Still, let’s play along.
I used this same example in a similar post last month, but I think one of Trump’s biggest problems is that he wasn’t open to other experts, as he felt he knew “more than anybody” on a huge range of topics. Items that he claimed he knew more about included:
- Campaign finance
- TV ratings
- ISIS
- Social media
- Courts
- Lawsuits
- Politicians
- The visa system
- Trade
- The U.S. government system
- Renewable energy
- Taxes
- Debt
- Money
- Infrastructure
- Sen. Cory Booker
- Borders
- Democrats
- Construction
- The economy
- Technology
- Drones
It’s a huge list (details on those can be found here on Axios), but it showcased his biggest weakness. He’s clearly a pretty smart man, as you need to be in order to be elected president (and I say the same about Biden, Obama, Bush, etc), but if he had been willing to think again and trust others, it would have benefitted everyone greatly.
Of the 22 items on that list, the person that “knows more than anybody” for each one is almost certainly someone different for every single item. To think that you know the most about social media, taxes, construction and drones than anybody is just foolish.
Thinking deeper and reshaping your views can help a lot, and learning from others (and trusting those that know more) can take you even further.
