Concept
Consider the opposite
Considering the opposite is the deliberate practice of arguing against your own lean: asking what would have to be true for the option you dislike to be right, and asking disconfirming questions whose honest answers could hurt. It is the Heaths' defence against confirmation bias.
Once you lean toward an option, every piece of information you gather tends to support it, and this does not feel like bias from the inside; it feels like homework. The defence has to be built into the process. Assign someone, or yourself for ten minutes, to make the strongest case for the other side. Then replace open questions, which invite a sales pitch, with pointed ones: not 'is the team good?' but 'who left this team in the last year and why?' The Heaths pair this with zooming out to base rates and zooming in to close-ups, so that the story is checked against both the average and the texture.
A real-life example
Instead of asking the hiring manager whether the team is happy, a candidate asks how many product managers have left in eighteen months and where they went. The answer, four within a year of joining, changes the decision.
How to use it
- 1Write the question whose honest answer could kill your leading option, then ask it.
- 2Spend ten minutes making the strongest case for the option you dislike.
- 3Check the story against the base rate for cases like yours.