Curiosity II

Let Curiosity Be the Engine for You to Learn and Grow

“If I had 1 hour to save the world,

I would spend 55 minutes defining the problem

and only 5 minutes finding the solution.”

— Albert Einstein

Instead of finding the solution, why did the father of physics, Einstein, rather spent most of his time in defining the problem?

☝️The Full Picture

Have you wondered why sometimes when you have a question to ask, at work or school, people throw another question at you instead of giving you the answer directly?

Let me tell a little story that all Chinese know — it is about blinds and an elephant. An elephant was in town for the first time, and no one knows what that is. A few blinds approached the elephant in the room, and each came out with a different conclusion.

“It is flat, just like a wall.” one said. Obviously, he only touched the stomach part of the elephant.

Others said it is a pipe, a fan, a pillar for touching the nose, ear and leg part of the elephant, respectively.

The original version of the story, I believe, is from India, and the story spread in Asia, including Persia. Instead of blinds, in Persia’s version, the light was off so no one can see the elephant. In different versions, there are different numbers of blinds. But that is beside the point.

The point is, we can’t judge something out of limited or inadequate information. It is very biased and inefficient. “Don’t judge a book by its cover,” the very popular saying has the same logic. It is important to know the full picture of something before you came out with a meaningful action toward the information at hand.

This is why often time, when you ask a question, people throw a few more questions back as they need to know more about the situation. We shall dig in more and be more curious about the situation.

Do you have the habit of reading the entire email thread before answering the actual email? I do that all the time — I am a total information sucker; I just can’t have enough information. It is hard for me to answer something without more background information.

Curiosity is the best way to learn. We have established that. Keep on asking questions. Until we are clear about the situation, there is no point in finding a solution. I totally agree with the above quote from the great Einstein.

Will curiosity help us if we face asymmetric information?

☝️Asymmetric Information

We talked about the definition of asymmetric information in my last article of Curiosity I — I will not repeat it here. Basically, the information asymmetry exists when one side of the party has more information than the other side of the party. But today, let’s talk about examples with asymmetric information in our daily life.

• Situation A: “What is your best dish?” you ask that at a new restaurant.
• Situation B: “Do you have enough time to finish the project?” you ask this to your team member.
• Situation C: “Do you think I look good in that pair of jeans? Should I buy it?” you ask that to a friend or the sales in the clothing store.

In the above 3 situations, obviously, one party has more or better information than the one asking the question — these are not easy questions to answer.

Assume you are the waiter/waitress in Situation A. What is your Best Response (BR)? Are you going to be honest? Do you want to recommend a dish that is slightly more expensive so you may get a bigger tip (if there is a tipping system) or have a better sales figure? I don’t know about you — but I will go with the honest rule. If I recommended a dish that is not the best, and if the customers don’t like it, they may never come back. Moreover, I care about my credibility, and there is no way I want to lie about this.

If you are the project manager (PM) in Situation B, what should you tell your boss if you had enough time to finish the project? Should you be honest? Perhaps you pull several all-nighters to catch the deadline of it. Perhaps, it was a piece of cake for you. But what is your BR here? It is a complicated question to answer. If you told your boss that you found the time to be on the liner side, your boss might give you a tighter deadline for the next projects. Your boss may also think you are a more efficient PM, and thus other PMs may resent you. Other issues arise if you said you don’t have enough time to do this project.

It is easy if your friend looks great in that pair of jeans in Situation C. But what if your friend doesn’t look good in it? Should you tell the truth? Can your friend take the ugly truth? How would your answer differ if you were the sales of the clothing store?

The bottom line is, we can’t really rely on others to always take the honest rule. A waiter/waitress may not want you to order the best dish. A PM may not want his boss to know how he copes up with the project deadline. You may not want to discuss truly how your friend looks in that pair of jeans. Why? It is because telling the truth may not in line with their best interest. In addition, the problem of misrepresentation on the information is worsened if the two opposing sides have conflict of interest. “The greater the conflict, the less the message can be trusted.” According to Avinash K. Dixit and Barry J. Nalebuff, in The Art of Strategy.

☝️Manipulation on Information

As we live in a world with asymmetric information, information is not transparent. Besides being curious, dig into the situation, what else can you do to get more information?

Today I will talk about 3 important tools to help you understand how information can be manipulated: signaling, signal jamming, and screening. These are game theory terms.

A strategy to leak some information that is good for the player is called “signaling”. You put on a big smile to show you are a passionate server, and therefore you will not lie to your customers; this is a great signaling that almost everyone does in the service industry.

A strategy to reduce information leakage that is not beneficial for a player is called “signal jamming”. Putting on a happy face or a poker face if you have a bad hand when playing poker with your friends is a good example of signal jamming. You try to reduce the information for people to know you don’t have a good hand.

To learn true information from someone, you would set up a situation to screen it — this is call screening. Let your opponent choose what is the best to do to represent their case; this will help to reveal their real information. For example, you like to differentiate your customers according to their willingness to pay. You put out a discount coupon at the wall of the store. People who have more time could have a lower willingness to pay as they have the time to shop around and compare deals. Busy people tend to value their time more and don’t bother checking pricing nor coupons, thus have a higher willingness to pay. Putting out coupons at the wall of the store helps you to “screen” your customers into two groups.

☝️Curiosity — Learn and Grow

I hope you could master the above devices in manipulating information — it will help you understand more about the truth when information is asymmetric. I certainly learn a great deal from them and know how vital they are in helping me to survive negotiations and everyday crises.

I hope you are having fun reading today too. I really hope the reading is enticing enough for you to turn on your curiosity mode. Let the curiosity be your engine to learn and grow.

Thanks for today, and I will see you soon.

🀄️ If you like to see the Chinese version of this article, please visit here.