The Power of Comparison

Back in graduate school I had a unique opportunity. I got to take a special course: foundations of system’s engineering. What made it special was it was taught by a professor of practice, the former Secretary of the Navy, Donald Winter. Some of the lessons he taught have stuck with me, and one concept in particular. He explained that when you are evaluating a choice you could make, you should make sure to assemble an array of alternatives. And not just any array, but an intentionally diverse set.

It was a simple and actionable rule. If someone asks you “do you want pizza for dinner, you answer based on having ideas of what the alternatives are. If the alternative is “do you want pizza for dinner, or to eat nothing?” your answers might be different than “would you rather have pizza, burgers, or tacos?”

The requirement to consider diverse alternatives was my professor’s main point. He stressed that it’s easy to get carried away with really exciting alternatives (revolutionary ones) and so it was important to always include the more boring options too. In system’s engineering he called those “evolutionary” alternatives, though in many other domains I’ve seen a similar idea as the “do nothing” alternative.

I have written about this idea before, but today I was sharing it with someone in a work setting related to socializing decisions. Corporations are not a democracy, but I firmly believe we will get higher quality solutions if we can rely on the expertise of everyone and not just one person in charge. However, to rely on the expertise of a team, somehow the group has to share knowledge with each other and assess the collected information.

And this was where my colleague had an opportunity. He was trying to ask an employee if they should do A. My colleague had told the person “hey, you might want to do A for this reason,” and the employee basically said “Ok, that is a reason, and therefore we will do A.” However, the goal was a discussion, to understand if the reason was valid and therefore A was the best choice.

When he shared the setting, I could immediately sketch out an alternative to A which included B at a minimum. My colleague mentioned a third option C. But he was frustrated that the employee had latched onto A. That they were unable to have a productive conversation about whether the reason was accurate and if there might be other choices besides A that made sense.

I suggested that he frame it as a decision problem. We could do A, B, or C. What does the world look like in each of those scenarios? If we choose not-A, what other things might we need to do instead? What would the outcomes be in each case?

It has been long enough that I do not remember if my professor emphasized this point, but one of the key insights for me is it is crucial to compare actual alternatives. If we just say “should we do A or not-A?” it is incredibly hard to compare. Because not-A feels like the whole world is available to us. Either we can choose this one option, A, or we could have literally anything else. Who would ever choose A given those options?

And so, my recommendation to my colleague and all of you is when you’re trying to decide if you want to choose a specific option, compare it to concrete and specific alternatives. And try to make those alternatives representative of the many possibilities at your fingertips.