Inversion Thinking
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Recently, I was watching the video on the Decision Making for the Product Managers by NextLeap about the Inversion Thinking — Arindam Mukherjee talks about the Minimising Negative Consequences.
In the talk, he discusses the hypothetical failure scenario for LeadSchool with a Product Manager and from there tries to identify why the product is at stagnant growth.
Another example he gives is another example for Flipkart where they tried to imagine the scenario for the stagnant growth at Flipkart which helped them identify the need for scaling Flipkart to Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities of India
This reminded me of the Charlie Munger, from whom I got to first know the principle of the Inversion Theory — “Invert always Invert“
The principle is very simple -
Want to be smart → Invert → How do I avoid Stupidity?
Want to go investor → Invert → Avoid Losing Money
Wanna be healthy → Invert → How do I become unhealthy — eat junk, don’t get enough sleep, have bad relationships, take stress — avoid all of these
Inversion also comes in handy when you are going through a rough phase of your life. In the happier times, we are all lost in the dreamy and shiny world where everything is gonna come to us easily, and we control everything → Invert → You realize the actual problems that need to be addressed.
This is again one of the reasons why I really love the product management job — you solve the daily problems of every human — including yourself.