Inversion
inverting · think backwards · inversion model · inversion thinking
Solving a problem by asking what would guarantee failure, then avoiding that. It is easier to identify reliable ways to lose than reliable ways to win, and the list is usually shorter.
In practice
'How do I grow this business' returns vague answers. 'What would guarantee this business is dead in a year' returns a specific list, and most items are within your control.
The common mistake
Using inversion as the whole strategy. Avoiding every way to fail produces a business that cannot die and has no reason to exist.
Inversion is solving a problem backward. Instead of asking how to reach an outcome, ask what would reliably prevent it, then avoid those things.
Why it works
The routes to success are many, uncertain and specific to circumstances. The routes to failure are fewer, more predictable, and largely the same across situations. A list of ways to ruin a business is short and reliable; a list of ways to build one is long and contested.
Avoiding known failures is also higher confidence work. You can be reasonably sure that running out of cash ends the business. You cannot be equally sure that any particular growth tactic will work.
Using it
On a plan. Before committing, ask what would guarantee this fails. Write the list. Most of it will be within your control, and the plan improves more from removing those items than from adding tactics.
On a decision. Ask what the worst version of this looks like and whether you could survive it. Decisions that cannot be recovered from deserve different treatment from decisions that can. See decision under uncertainty.
On a goal. "How do I get promoted" produces vague answers. "What would guarantee I am not promoted" produces a specific and uncomfortable list, and the items are usually things you already know.
On a system. Ask where it is fragile before asking where it could be optimized. Removing a failure mode is more dependable than adding an improvement, because it survives being wrong about your model.
The limit
Inversion protects and does not create. A business that has eliminated every failure mode and has no customers has avoided its way to nothing.
It is a filter applied to plans rather than a substitute for having one. The useful sequence is to decide what you are trying to do, then invert to find what would stop it, then proceed with those removed. See Poor Charlie's Almanack and second-order effects.
Concept web
Open the full webQuestions
What is inversion as a thinking tool?
Approaching a problem backward by asking what would guarantee failure and then avoiding it, rather than asking directly how to succeed.
Why is inversion useful?
Because failure modes are fewer, more predictable and more consistent across situations than routes to success. Avoiding known failures is higher-confidence work than selecting among uncertain tactics.
What are the limits of inversion?
It protects rather than creates. Eliminating every failure mode does not produce customers, so inversion works as a filter applied to a plan rather than as a replacement for one.