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FutureVisions^SM

creating sustainable results in growth and performance

The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. The opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth. -Niels Bohr

Sometimes flipping things around provides a powerful new solution. Even if it's not a better solution for the problem at hand, it may well offer a useful solution to a different problem. Think of symmetry as translation with a twist. It takes an existing solution in a given context and turns it around to get a new perspective.

Take pricing, for example. The standard way of doing business is to have the seller state the price. Airlines advertise their price, and you, the customer, can take it or leave it. But is there another way of doing business? Jay Walker's Priceline.com made a big splash by turning the tables on pricing. Instead of having airlines offer prices that customers might accept, Walker set up a system in which the consumers offered prices that airlines might accept. This is a pure example of symmetry.

Let's try a few simple symmetry exercises. As you will see, the hardest aspect of the symmetry tool is having the courage to turn something around. The other way of doing something often seems so foolish that you censor yourself before you even start.

For example, recall our family-friendly version of DVDs that came from the airline or television translation. We could also have arrived at this idea using symmetry. One of the advantages of a DVD is that it typically comes with more material than was shown in the theater or on the video. There is the director's cut, often with extra scenes and more explicit violence or sex.

Let's try turning this around. Instead of providing more mate­rial, could the DVDs provide less? At first blush, this doesn't make any sense. Why would anyone want less? But instead of giving us the more explicit extra scenes of violence and sex, what about giving us an option to have these scenes cut a bit to make the movie more suitable for teens? And by providing this service, stu­dios might even make the family-value hawks in Congress a bit happier.

Volunteering Not to Answer: Everyone knows that when a teacher asks a question, students signal that they want to answer by raising their hands. What would it mean to flip this around? Well, of course, it would mean that students who raised their hand don't want to answer. Just because you can flip something around doesn't mean that you would want to. In this case, it seems pretty ridiculous to have students who don't want to answer rais­ing their hands in the class.

But wait a minute. Changing the meaning of hand-raising could offer some distinct pedagogical advantages. Isn't it better to force the students who aren't prepared to go to the trouble and embar­rassment of raising their hands? Maybe, maybe not. The point is that it's a closer horse race than you might think. As an experiment, Ian tried flipping the meaning of raising your hand and found that it improved the quality of class participation-particularly among shy students.

This is a classic solution in search of a problem. We start with an existing solution (raising your hand to answer a question), flip its meaning, and then ask whether it can work even better or work in a different context. In this case, it turns out that flipping the meaning of silence increases class participation. It's harder to be labeled uncool for just sitting there.

Although professors know all too well that raising your hand can be deemed uncool, the impetus for the idea was not initially to solve this problem. It was instead to simply do the thought experiment of flipping the default meaning of silence and to try to imagine what would happen. .

You probably remember the old joke about the soldiers who are asked to step forward if they want to volunteer for a dangerous mission. But just like Ian's class, the joke's punch line uses symmetry to flip the meaning of inaction-because what happens is the soldiers who do not wish to volunteer take a step backward.

Black Socks with Sandals: Hundreds of fashion magazines give advice on what to wear. In the U.K., Tinny Woodall and Susannah Constantine created a smashing BBC show and best-selling book with their essential guide, What Not to Wear.

Video Rentals. Let's keep flipping, but in a very different context. Is there any aspect of video rentals that could be flipped around? Well, having the customers rent to the stores doesn't make much sense." What about the "onerous" task of rewinding? Every­one knows that polite renters should rewind their videotapes before they return them. And most rental stores try to enforce this norm with "Please Be Kind and Rewind" stickers and the threat of rewind charges.

But what would happen if we flipped around the norm and asked people to rewind at the beginning instead of the end of their rental? The downside is that renters would have to endure a bit of delayed gratification while waiting for the movie to rewind be­fore watching. But the upside is that the task suddenly becomes impossible to shirk. You can't watch the movie unless you do your duty and rewind it. By simply flipping around the norm, video stores would avoid the hassle of enforcing the current norm.

We guessed that somewhere a video store would have figured this out. Sure enough, Star Video in Berkeley has the initial-rewind policy in place. Now, by the way, is a good time to put on your translation hats. Can you think of any other annoying tasks that might be better done before instead of after?

As teachers, we immediately think about the idea of cleaning the chalkboard. Although some professors insist on erasing their work at the end of class, others forget or shirk. But again, if we flipped the norm, there would be no way to shirk, because you couldn't teach Hamlet without erasing the prior class's accounting notes.

Interestingly, there is one arena in which this do-it-beforehand idea is firmly in place-the Laundromat. The Laundromats could, of course, ask their patrons to "please be kind and clean the screen after you use the dryer," but most lint screens say "please clean before each use" - not after. Again, the "before" norm eliminates the possibility of shirking.

These examples so far illustrate a common element of symmetry. In each case, we are changing the default-the meaning of silence or inaction. By default, we don't mean not paying your mortgage. We mean the preset condition that will prevail if you take no action, such as your word processor's default one-inch left-hand margin, which you must actively change if you want something else.

As we look around, we see many cases in which the default could go either way. Sometimes we will argue that one default op­tion works much better than the other-and that the existing legal default gets it backward. Those of you who aren't lawyers may be surprised to learn that laws are not all about forcing choices for people. It isn't "you must do this and you can't do that." Rather, many laws are just about establishing what rules obtain if people fail to "opt out."

Trespassing in the Woods

Existing default: Allowed unless property is posted with "No Trespassing" sign
Opposite default: No trespassing unless explicitly permitted

Right Turn on Red

Existing default: Allowed except where posted "No Right Turn on Red"
Opposite default: Prohibited except where explicitly permitted

Organ Donation:

Existing default: Not permitted unless prior consent has been given
Opposite default: Permitted unless prior denial has been given

Contributions to a 401(k) Plan:

Existing default: No contribution unless you opt in
Opposite default: Automatic contribution unless you opt out

One aspect of the symmetry tool is to learn to look for defaults in business (video rewind), law (trespassing), and everyday life ("regrets only"), and to ask whether flipping the default makes better sense.

It's More or Less Symmetrical: While experimenting with the default option is an example of symmetry, it is just one of many ways to employ this tool. Thinking about how to do things the other way around is a way to look for new business opportunities.

Consider, for example, one of the great innovations of the 1970s: the automated teller machine (ATM). Banks cooperate with each other through the ATM network to allow their customers to with­draw money from each other's banks. The result is a great cost saving for banks, as they need not duplicate all of each other's branches. Great idea, but to see what's missing, put on the symmetry hat.

What's missing is the deposit side of the ATM idea. Why can't a customer make a deposit to any bank from any other bank? In the U.K. and Australia, a person can go to a teller inside any bank and make a deposit to any other bank. But to our knowledge, no ATM system will allow cross-bank deposits. For example, a Citi­bank customer cannot make deposits to her account from a Chase machine.

To be symmetric about symmetry, we should also recognize that less symmetric can dominate the symmetrical one. Thus in some cases, the trick is to break the symmetry. The one-way toll is the classic example. It's better to pay in only one direction.

Right turn on red is another asymmetry. Left turn on red doesn't work as well, because you would be forced to cross traffic. Ah, but this suggests that left turn on red onto a one-way street would also be a good idea. Here again, California led the way.

Creativity requires spending time "doing nothing" - workaholism guarantees its death

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