Have you ever considered the power of negative thinking?
Like thinking about how to increase chronic homelessness. Or, doubling the crime rate in your city.
No, I’m not talking about wallowing in pessimism or dwelling on the dark side.
I’m talking about inversion – a technique for gaining insights by thinking backward.
Inversion, also known as subtractive aversion, is a powerful tool for problem-solving.
The idea is simple: instead of focusing on how to make a situation better, you consider how to make it worse.
It may sound counterintuitive, but by understanding what makes a problem worse, you can gain valuable insights into how to address it effectively.
Solutions to the rescue
Let’s take the issue of homelessness as an example.
It’s a complex and challenging problem that affects hundreds of thousands of people in the United States.
Most government and nonprofit practitioners who want to reduce homelessness start by thinking about how to provide more affordable housing, improve access to healthcare and job training, and provide other supportive services.
They’re solution-oriented.
But you’ve probably seen the growing numbers of encampments and panhandlers as you walk around your city.
Even as multiple expensive solutions are implemented, the problem continues to get worse.
Why?
Because the problem isn’t controlled by good intentions, visions of the future, or – despite how much we want it to be so – best practice “solutions.”
The problem has its own logic.
Thinking backward
So what if you flipped the script and considered how to make homelessness worse?
Note that you’re not actually going to make it worse – this is just a thought experiment.
What if you asked yourself,
“How could I exacerbate this problem?”
This type of inversion can help you identify and address more fundamental causes of the problem, rather than just treating the symptoms.
For example, you might ask yourself:
- How could I make the problem more expensive?
- How could I make the problem more dangerous or deadly?
- How could I make the problem intractable?
By answering these questions, you can start to gain insights into the systemic factors that are contributing to persistent homelessness, and start to see how different pieces of the problem are interconnected.
Let’s try it and do some brainstorming:
Q1. How could I make the problem more expensive? → Answer: Increase the cost of housing or decrease availability by…
- Increasing the number of building codes and regulations
- Increasing interest rates (and thus mortgage costs)
- Enforcing strict rent control (which ends up reducing housing supply)
Q2. How could I make the problem more dangerous or deadly? → Answer: Increase use of opiates like fentanyl by…
- Fostering uninhibited opioid prescribing practices
- Decriminalizing drug possession (e.g. meth)
- Reducing crack down on Mexican drug cartels and the transport of drugs across the US-Mexico border
(Note: This question is not about the debate over whether drugs are the cause or result of homelessness. Drug abuse can be the cause of homelessness for some, or can develop based on the stressors of homelessness. This question is about how drugs contribute to homelessness being dangerous.)
Q3. How could I make the problem intractable? → Answer: Support living environments that are hostile to getting out of homelessness by…
- Sustaining dangerous encampments
- Providing ongoing supportive housing that isn’t safe and secure
- Failing to provide needed support services or delivering uncoordinated support services
That’s just a start.
Your answers might be different, or you may ask altogether different questions.
The point is to start thinking beyond your idea of a solution.
Why?
Because your idea of a solution tells you nothing about the problem itself.
Conversely, the inversion method is valuable because it forces you to think more about tangible factors that directly affect the size and scope of the problem.
By doing so, you start to see the problem’s mechanics.
How it functions.
Its unique structure of interrelated variables.
You might also start to see how some well-intentioned actions, like extensive building codes and strict rent control, fail to address more fundamental causes of homelessness and may even create incentives that make the problem worse in the long run.
Two additional questions for inversion
In addition to thinking about how to make the problem more expensive, dangerous and intractable, try asking:
Q4. How can I get people to oversimplify the problem?
This happens all the time.
People think:
“We’ll get support us if we make our crusade about good versus evil, all or nothing.”
Well, maybe this works at first, but it can be a major problem in the long run.
Just think about how you could encourage people to focus on one aspect of the problem and ignore the bigger picture. And then demonize those who have a different or nuanced view.
Q5. How can I get people working at cross-purposes?
It’s the ultimate risk: we (self-professed advocates and problem-solvers) become our own worst enemies.
Just think about creating an environment where different groups are working against each other and preventing progress on the problem.
Altogether, by asking these five questions you can gain valuable insights into how a problem actually functions, and what factors most contribute to its size, scope and persistence.
Perhaps more importantly, the questions help you identify potential roadblocks and pitfalls, and let you see how many well-intentioned solutions only contribute to making the problem worse.
Avoid those mistakes and you’re already making progress.
Not bad for a few moments spent playing the devil’s advocate.
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See you again next week.
Whenever you’re ready, there are two ways I can help you:
→ I’m a strategic advisor for the toughest societal problems like poverty, crime and homelessness. People come to me when they want to stop spinning their wheels and get transformative, systems-level change.
→ I’m a coach for emerging and executive leaders in the social and public sectors who want to make progress on their biggest goals and challenges.
Let’s find out how I can help you become transformational.
