Problem Solving: Avoiding The Silver Bullet Approach
In fairytales you can simply deal with the menacing werewolf by using a silver bullet. Sometimes silver bullets can be hard to procure, but if you can get your hands on the ONE thing, problem solved. Now you and all the townspeople may rest easy and go back to your normal lives.
We naturally would like to solve real world problems. But sometimes this desire for solutions in a messy world can leads us to prematurely accept the one-thing-that-explains-everything kind, all too often. That’s the silver bullet approach to problem solving—falling in love with the one solution that seemingly resolves everything. If only real world dynamics were as clean as fairytales.
For example (and these are some low stakes situations), someone might say I didn’t workout today because I didn’t have time or I was late because of traffic.
These monocausal explanations (i.e. silver bullets) aren’t entirely false. Though the real problem is that partial answers like these often shut down critical thinking by anchoring to the main cause as if it were the only cause. “I didn’t have time” or “I was late due to traffic” are roughly right, there’s likely secondary causes leading to the outcomes; if they wish to either workout or be on time, they need to also look elsewhere.
Throughout life, you’ll continually be faced with many real world problems of varying difficulty and stakes. Unlike grade school problems, real world problems tend to be tangles and tangles of multiple causes—especially when people are involved. If you’re routinely blinded by the shinier explanations in life, you’ll miss valuable solutions.
If you wish to increase your odds in life by becoming a better problem-solver, you should be skeptical of the silver bullet approach that only works in fairytales; instead, always look for two causes.
The Problem with Silver Bullet Causes
For solving problems, he first explanation that comes to mind often shuts down further mental exploration—in a confirmation-bias-like way. The first thing becomes the only thing—killing creativity.
Complex problems, especially those with people, tend to have non-obvious causes that silver bullets miss; these are indirect and may require a bit of reverse engineering or imagination to uncover.
For example, take a young boy who lives down the street, imagine witnessing him light a pile of sticks on fire.
Why’d the sticks catch on fire? For the silver bullet approach, your analysis might look something like this.
(1)The boy struck a match and tossed it on the pile.
But let’s avoid the silver bullet approach come up with a few other ideas.
(2) The sticks were placed there. (3) Oxygen was present. (4) The sticks were dry. (5) His parents weren’t around. Etc, etc, etc.
The boy’s act of lighting the fire gets the attention and would pass as the cause, but the same event doesn’t occur without the latter. Secondary causes or contributing factors get less play even when their absence would have entirely altered the course of events.
Sports commentators often do something similar when deconstructing losses. They’ll point to obvious mistakes made late in the game instead of the earlier ones of equal significance.
Silver Bullets vs Looking for Two Causes
Silver Bullet Approach:
Sticks catch fire -> Young boy lit them on fire
Workout didn’t happen -> Didn’t have time
Late to meeting-> Traffic
Bridge fails -> Improper Material Selection
High prices -> Business X only cares about profit
Looking for 2 Causes Approach:
Pile of sticks caught on fire -> Oxygen present, someone put the sticks there, dry conditions, absent parents
Workout didn’t happen -> Didn’t consider 10-minute windows an option, workout at lunch, wake up earlier, use the stairs, avoid cat videos
Late to meeting-> Didn’t think about it being rush hour, got distracted, too optimistic about the flow of time, didn’t set reminder
Bridge Fails -> Lack of redundancy, improper maintenance, poor inspection practices
High prices -> Raw commodities cost more, mismanaged business, increased taxes
Looking beyond the-one-cause-that-explains-everything naturally breaks down the problem into smaller pieces, making complexity more digestible. It’s also the more imaginative approach, which is the innovation. By seeking two causes in your search for answers, you’ll inevitably wind up with more than just two ideas for solutions and improvements. You’ll also sound smarter in social settings if you’re voicing multiple reasons vs silver bullets - trust me.
Pro-tip: Your default response to “Why” questions should always be “Part of the reason….”. This does two things. It leaves open the possibility you missed something in your analysis, for which your audience might otherwise correct you. It’s also a reminder to yourself that there could be other reasons. (Hat tip to Naval)
Silver Bullet Problem Solving in Public the Public Domain
While grade school problems guide us toward the idea of silver bullets, many of the most valuable-to-solve problems in life are complex: there are many causes of varying gradations sometimes acting at subtle scales over long time frames. Cancer, dementia, weather patterns, stock market moves, and the rise and fall of nations will likely lack an E=MC**2 one-liner where complexity finally yields to simplicity.
This is part of the reason why the framing ‘The Cure for Cancer’ is misleading, because it suggests there’s a silver bullet—as if all we have to do is find this one cure.
Maybe the lesson there is it’s easier organize resources under the silver-bullet banner, instead of with more realistic lines like “We need funding for 1000s of separate projects that probably won’t work (but a few will) plus parking lots need re-striping”.
Conclusion: Always Look for 2 Causes
Valuable problems that either you or your peers haven’t already solved are going to be complex and of the multi-variate variety. If you want to improve your odds at solving them, you’ll need to avoid silver bullets, which can prematurely shut down thinking and reduce your luck.
Unlock your creativity by avoiding silver bullets and always looking for two causes.
Author’s Note
The problem isn’t where the solution is.
“To trace something unknown back to something known is alleviating, soothing, gratifying and gives more over a feeling of power. Danger, disquiet, anxiety attend the unknown-the first instinct is to eliminate these distressing states.” - Frederich Nietzsche