A Story About Building Collective Intelligence Through Non-Fiction
Discovering how a psychology book develops productive disagreement and transforms collaboration is rarely what leaders expect — but for many, it becomes the insight that changes everything about how they understand disagreement and what it can accomplish.
Keiko had always been known as a collaborative leader.
As programme director for a healthcare technology company’s patient portal redesign, she was the person who brought people together, made space for diverse perspectives, and prided herself on building consensus across competing priorities.
Her facilitation was considered.
Her approach was inclusive.
Her stakeholders consistently praised her ability to make everyone feel heard.
But increasingly, Keiko noticed something she couldn’t easily solve.
The same conflicts kept resurfacing.
Smart people with legitimate expertise dug into positions. Meetings produced more heat than light.
Collaboration that should have generated integrated solutions instead created entrenched opposition.
Keiko was facilitating well.
But she was beginning to suspect that making people feel heard and helping them actually think together were not the same thing.
The Meeting That Broke Everything
The shift began in a conference room.
Keiko had brought together representatives from clinical operations, IT infrastructure, user experience design, and data security for what should have been a collaborative project kickoff.
Instead, it devolved into positional warfare.
Clinical insisted on comprehensive medical history integration.
IT declared the timeline impossible.
UX argued both were ignoring actual patient needs.
Security raised compliance concerns that seemed to invalidate everyone’s proposals.
Keiko had spent two hours trying to mediate — asking each group to present their requirements, hoping transparent communication would reveal natural compromises. Instead, it had created a forum where everyone performed expertise whilst dismissing others’ constraints as less important than their own priorities.
Walking back to her desk, she searched for resources on managing cross-functional conflict and came across repeated mentions of Think Again by Adam Grant.
The subtitle — “The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know” — felt almost mocking given her situation. She ordered the book that night, not particularly optimistic it would help.
The First Experiment
The following week, Keiko requested a second meeting — but designed it completely differently.
She opened with unexpected honesty. “I’ve been reflecting on our last meeting, and I realised I set us up for positional debate rather than collaborative problem-solving. I asked everyone to present their requirements as if we already knew the right answers. I’d like to try a different approach today.”
Instead of having each group present solutions, she proposed they start by collectively mapping what they didn’t know.
Three columns on the whiteboard:
“What we’re certain about.”
“What we think we know but should test.”
“What we need to learn.”
The shift was immediate.
When the clinical lead started to describe what the portal must include, Keiko redirected: “What evidence do we actually have about what patients want in a portal versus what we think they should want?”
The clinical team acknowledged they were extrapolating from physician preferences, not patient research.
IT stopped defending why things were impossible and started exploring what might be achievable with different scoping.
Security shifted from listing compliance barriers to identifying which approaches would satisfy regulations whilst enabling useful functionality.
By the meeting’s end, the team had identified three core assumptions that needed testing — and volunteered to run small experiments to gather actual evidence rather than escalating theoretical debates.
What Keiko Realised Afterwards
The more Keiko thought about Think Again, the more clearly she saw what the research had shown her.
Grant distinguished between three professional modes: preacher — defending our beliefs; prosecutor — attacking others’; politician — campaigning for approval.
When we’re in any of these modes, we’re not actually thinking.
We’re performing. Real thinking requires scientist mode — treating beliefs as hypotheses to be tested rather than truths to be defended.
Keiko recognised immediately what had happened in that first meeting.
Every stakeholder had been in preacher and prosecutor mode.
And she had been in politician mode — trying to make everyone feel heard whilst avoiding the genuine intellectual conflict that might actually lead somewhere productive.
She had been trying to reduce conflict rather than channel it toward collective discovery.
Those were not the same thing.
What Happened Next
A few weeks later, the data security lead insisted on authentication requirements that would make the portal nearly unusable for elderly patients.
Keiko’s instinct was to present counter-evidence.
Instead, she asked a question. “You’ve mentioned security as your primary concern. Can you help me understand how security is affected if patients can’t successfully access the portal and resort to less secure communication channels — like phone calls or faxed documents?”
The security lead examined his own reasoning.
Within ten minutes he’d identified the gap himself and proposed authentication alternatives.
External challenge would have triggered defensive preacher mode.
Internal discovery transformed the conversation entirely.
When clinical and UX teams deadlocked over whether medical history should be comprehensive or simplified, she paused and asked: “What would a solution look like that doesn’t choose between these priorities but addresses the underlying concern driving both?”
Neither side won.
Both achieved their actual objective more effectively than either’s original proposal would have.
The Shift
One insight changed how Keiko approached collaboration.
From
Managing disagreement
To
Channelling it toward collective discovery
Instead of asking: “How do I get everyone to listen to each other?” She started asking: “What are we assuming — and what would we need to learn to test it?” And the meetings changed almost immediately.
When the Executives Pushed Back
Two months into applying Grant’s frameworks, the executive steering committee sent back feedback that rejected the collaborative approach entirely. “We need decisions, not ongoing discovery. Please present a finalised solution proposal by next month.”
Keiko’s immediate reaction was frustration.
She drafted a response defending her process, marshalling evidence about innovation research and cross-functional best practice.
Then something made her pause.
She returned to Think Again with different questions — and recognised she was falling into the same trap she’d been helping her team avoid.
She was in preacher mode, defending her collaborative approach as the right way, without genuinely examining whether the executives’ concerns might reveal something valid she was missing.
She scheduled a conversation with the steering committee chair, entering it in scientist mode rather than preacher mode.
What emerged shifted her understanding significantly.
The executives weren’t dismissing collaboration.
They were working with information Keiko didn’t have — competitive pressure, contractual commitments, board expectations about innovation pace.
And they were raising something she’d missed.
Her team had gotten so skilled at identifying what they didn’t know that they were struggling to commit to decisions despite having resolved the critical uncertainties.
Productive rethinking had quietly become analysis paralysis.
She brought this insight back to the team with the same honesty she’d brought to the executives. “I’ve realised we’ve gotten so skilled at questioning assumptions that we may have lost sight of when we’ve resolved enough uncertainty to move forward.”
The Teaching Insight
Keiko discovered that productive disagreement wasn’t about questioning everything indefinitely.
It was about knowing the difference between unknowns worth resolving before you commit and interesting questions you can address through iteration after you do.
When she stopped asking “How do I get people to agree?” And started asking “Are we in discovery mode — or are we avoiding the discomfort of commitment?”
Two things changed.
Her teams made better decisions.
And the disagreement that had once drained everyone became the mechanism through which their thinking sharpened.
Why This Matters
Professional collaboration often focuses on reaching agreement — finding common ground, managing conflict, building consensus.
But genuine collective thinking requires something harder to facilitate.
The willingness to treat your own beliefs as hypotheses, to stay curious about what you might be wrong about, and to recognise when disagreement is revealing something important rather than simply creating friction.
When we read research-based non-fiction, we gain access to frameworks that help us see those distinctions.
Not because the book tells us what to do.
But because it shows us what we’ve been doing — and what becomes possible when we stop performing open-mindedness and start practising it.
Keiko’s story shows what happens when that understanding moves from the page into the room.
And like the best psychology books, it keeps revealing new things the longer you stay with it.
This is an extract from How a Psychology Book Develops Productive Disagreement and Transforms Collaboration — a School of WorkLife Story Lesson.
The complete lesson follows Keiko’s full journey — including how insights from Think Again changed how she approached her team, the executives who challenged her, and her own relationship with certainty — and what she discovered when she returned to the book several months later. It shows how you can apply the same perspective in your own work — learning to recognise the thinking modes that either enable or prevent genuine collective intelligence, and developing the capacity to channel disagreement toward discovery rather than defence.
Experience the complete lesson: How a Psychology Book Develops Productive Disagreement and Transforms Collaboration Learn how research-based non-fiction that explores the psychology of rethinking can develop the capacity for productive disagreement and transform how you think together with the people you work with.
Deepen the practice with the WorkLife Compass Guided Programme:
The Power of Non-Fiction: Developing Connection Through Reading — Discover how research-based reading strengthens belonging, trust, and the collaborative intelligence that shapes a working life.
This story was inspired by my book, WorkLife Book Club Volume One Shoreditch by Carmel O’ Reilly — following members of a London book club as they navigate WorkLife challenges through the wisdom found in the books they read together.
Work With Me: Individual WorkLife Coaching, Commissioned Learning Resources, Speaking Engagements and Organisational Partnerships.
Support This Work: Your support makes a difference and helps me to continue creating resources that are accessible to everyone. Thank you. Carmel
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