The Power of Counter-Intuitive Thinking

During World War II, the British Royal Air Force lost a lot of planes to German anti-aircraft fire. So they decided to increase their armor. But where should they put the armor? The obvious answer was to look at planes that returned from missions, count up all the bullet holes, and then put extra armor in the areas that attracted the most shots.

The mathematician Abraham Wald had a different point of view. Instead of putting armor on the places with bullet holes, Wald wanted to add armor to the parts of the planes that returned without bullet holes. Why? Because the samples were from planes that returned. Wald realized that the planes with many bullet holes to the engines were not coming home. The extra armor belonged on the part of the plane that couldn’t survive a lot of bullets.

As a result, extra engine armor appeared on warplanes from that point forward. Once you understand the logic, Wald’s insight seems obvious. But it defies many people’s idea of common sense to protect the part of the plane taking the least damage.

In science, engineering, and life in general, you have to question your assumptions and the assumptions of others. Things that seem obvious are often wrong. Heavy objects don’t fall faster. The Earth isn’t flat despite what you might think if you just stand in one place. Continents really do move, but not on a time scale we notice.

Here are 5 simple applications of counter-intuition to business:

1.     If everyone's going one way, go the opposite way. It's usually better to do the opposite of what everyone else is doing or telling you to do. Be an ‘actor’, not a ‘reactor’.

2.     Perception is reality. You may build a market for your product, but what you think of it doesn't really count. The only thing that really matters is what customers think of it.

3.     You can accomplish more if you work less and sleep more. A well-rested person working 35-hour work weeks can usually outperform a sleep-deprived person working 50-hour work weeks in terms of quality.

4.     If you want to grow big, think small. Capturing niches is the best way to grow a business. Anyone whose goal is to build an empire or get rich will inevitably fail.

5.     When you have problems with others, the answers are within you, not them. I’ll leave this one open to your interpretation ;)

Can you think of any more?

Adapted from www.cbsnews.com and www.motherjones.com