Inversion is a model often cited by
Charlie Munger and is based around a couple of ideas:
- Problems can be easier to tackle when looked at backwards
- It's simpler to discount mistakes rather than discover something ingenious
Instead of trying to work through a problem as given, turn it on its head.
For example, imagine you are reorganizing the furniture in your living room. Instead of trying to figure out the perfect arrangement, invert the problem and look at the arrangements that wouldn't work.
or
If you're looking for ways to improve customer service, consider the things that wouldn't help and would make it worse.
Instead of adding inspired (and hard to find) solutions you start by discounting bad solutions.
So why does that help? It does a few things:
- Removes the pressure of identifying a hard-to-find ingenious solution and lets you quickly get traction
- Help to avoid stupid or harmful mistakes by identifying them early
- Makes you think about the problem differently, gives your brain a new approach vector.
Next time you have a problem, trying inverting it.
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