The Gladwell article is Titled “Open Secrets” and subtitled "The Formula: Enron, intelligence, and the perils of too much information." (New Yorker, Jan. 8, 2007).
He notes the difference is between puzzles and mysteries. Here’s a telling quote:
"If things go wrong with a puzzle, identifying the culprit is easy: it's the person who withheld information. Mysteries, though, are a lot murkier: sometimes the information we've been given is inadequate, and sometimes we aren't very smart about making sense of what we've been given, and sometimes the question itself cannot be answered. Puzzles come to satisfying conclusions. Mysteries often don't."
I think this may have some interesting applications to strategy and forecasting trends. For example, what does this say about intuition (blink!) versus analysis?
Here’s the link: http://www.malcolmgladwell.com/2007/2007_01_08_a_secrets.html
2.
Some quotes: " The national-security expert Gregory Treverton has famously made a distinction between puzzles and mysteries. Osama bin Laden's whereabouts are a puzzle."
"The problem of what would happen in Iraq after the toppling of Saddam Hussein was, by contrast, a mystery. It wasn't a question that had a simple, factual answer. Mysteries require judgments and the assessment of uncertainty, and the hard part is not that we have too little information but that we have too much. "
"If you consider the motivation and methods behind the attacks of September 11th to be mainly a puzzle, for instance, then the logical response is to increase the collection of intelligence, recruit more spies, add to the volume of information we have about Al Qaeda. If you consider September 11th a mystery, though, you'd have to wonder whether adding to the volume of information will only make things worse. "
"If things go wrong with a puzzle, identifying the culprit is easy: it's the person who withheld information. Mysteries, though, are a lot murkier: sometimes the information we've been given is inadequate, and sometimes we aren't very smart about making sense of what we've been given, and sometimes the question itself cannot be answered. Puzzles come to satisfying conclusions. Mysteries often don't."
"We were not told enough—the classic puzzle premise—was the central assumption of the Enron prosecution.... But the prosecutor was wrong. Enron wasn't really a puzzle. It was a mystery."
3.
"Watergate was a classic puzzle: Woodward and Bernstein were searching for a buried secret, and Deep Throat was their guide."
4.
"A puzzle grows simpler with the addition of each new piece of information: if I tell you that Osama bin Laden is hiding in Peshawar, I make the problem of finding him an order of magnitude easier, and if I add that he's hiding in a neighborhood in the northwest corner of the city, the problem becomes simpler still."
5.
"The German secret weapon was a puzzle, and the Allies didn't have enough information to solve it. There was another way to think about the problem, though, which ultimately proved far more useful: treat the German secret weapon as a mystery."
6.
"Puzzles are "transmitter-dependent"; they turn on what we are told. Mysteries are "receiver dependent"; they turn on the skills of the listener, and [Jonathan] Macey argues that, as Enron's business practices grew more complicated, it was Wall Street's responsibility to keep pace."
"Victor Fleischer, who teaches at the University of Colorado Law School, points out that one of the critical clues about Enron's condition lay in the fact that it paid no income tax in four of its last five years. ...Enron wasn't paying any taxes because, in the eyes of the I.R.S., Enron wasn't making any money."
"coverups, whistle-blowers, secret tapes, and exposés—the principal elements of the puzzle—all require the application of energy and persistence, which are the virtues of youth. Mysteries demand experience and insight. Woodward and Bernstein would never have broken the Enron story."
7.
"The report was posted on the Web site of the Cornell University business school, where it has been, ever since, for anyone who cared to read twenty-three pages of analysis. The students' recommendation was on the first page, in boldfaced type: "Sell."" |