In 1504, Christopher Columbus found himself on the island of Jamaica. His crew was upset and hungry. Zero morale. The supply of tropical food they had enjoyed for six months, courtesy of the Tainos that ran the island, was suddenly cut short. Christopher was beside himself; without food, his colonizing mission would be over. He spent days brainstorming a solution to resume the food supply. As he looked around the empty hull of the creaking ship, he saw it, illuminated by candlelight: a well worn copy of an astronomy almanac.
Right away, he knew what to do.
He marched out of the ship, and requested a meeting with the leader of the Tainos. During the meeting, he explained that his god was inflamed with wrath against the Tainos because they had withheld food from Columbus and his men, and would show his displeasure by turning the moon blood red. The leader of the Tainos called bullshit.
Two nights later, true to Columbus’ predictions, the moon turned blood red. The Tainos fell to their knees, trembling, begging him to intercede with his god, so that their lives would be spared. Columbus agreed to ask his god to spare their lives, on one condition; they had to resume the food supply. They acquiesced. Columbus prayed, their lives were spared, and the food supply was resumed.
Here’s the catch: Columbus knew in advance that the moon would turn red. The astronomy almanac he carried on board the ship had predicted a lunar eclipse, on that very date. What he had told them was an act of an irate God was in fact, a naturally occurring process. This situation perfectly illustrates the concept that will change your life: explanation asymmetry.
What is explanation asymmetry?
Explanation asymmetry is what happens when two or more people have completely different explanations for the same phenomenon. While it’s natural for our brains to come up with explanations for the events we encounter, depending on how your brain is wired, you might not come up with the same explanation as mine. The difference between the explanations we come up with is explanation asymmetry.
Why is it important to recognize explanation asymmetry? Well as a rule, the person with the explanation of a phenomenon that most most closely resembles reality always has the upper hand. The primary reason is that we are all trying our best to make the decisions that we think will help us get desirable outcomes for our lives. We fine tune the decisions we make based on feedback from the world. Making good decisions requires us to fully understand the situation we are faced with. When we do not fully understand what we are facing, we are likely to respond in a shortsighted, self-sabotaging way.
Like the leader of the Tainos, when we wrongly explain events, our response is likely to be wrong as well. Starting with an explanation that is closest to reality leaves room to expand and add beauty, imagination and purpose, using reality as a foundation. Reality possesses all the qualities of a great foundation. Reality is unambiguous, objective reference. On the other hand, starting with an explanation that is misaligned with reality leaves only room for disappointment and melancholy. The explanation asymmetry is not disappointing in itself; it is the late realization that your conclusions were drawn based on faulty data.
Explanation asymmetry also explains why your jewelry looks better under the bright lights of a jewelry shop, as opposed to when your wear it in public. The chain shimmered in an appealing way, not because it was worth it and the diamonds are flawless (your explanation ), but instead because of high intensity LED lights positioned over your head while you look at yourself in the jewelry store mirror (the real explanation). It takes real mental control to maintain the presence of mind required to make good decisions when you are subjected to hyper stimulation and choreographed process. The gulf between your explanation and the more realistic explanation is the difference between the jewelry’s standard price, and its premium price. In this case, explanation asymmetry could be worth an extra $3000.
The exception to the rule of explanation asymmetry, of course, is when reality becomes dark enough to permanently blight those who truly understand its explanations. At this point, being on the wrong side of explanation asymmetry works as a harm reduction technique. It preserves you to fight another day, and positions you to weather a storm that may break a reality maximalist, permanently.
The ethical use of explanation asymmetry
Smart people understand that explanation asymmetry plays a role in commerce as well. Think about what goes through the mind of your users, stakeholders, and customers when things go really well. This includes when the software you built solved a problem effortlessly, when the campaign you proposed brings in tons of new donors, and when the reforms you propose solve challenges the board has been working on for months. Their flawed explanation of what occurred and how you did it adds to the awe; their lack of experience means their explanations will err on the side of the fantastical.
You as the creator, on the other hand, have a much more mundane explanation of what you did to get results. Never rob your users and stakeholders of that magic; your work seems much more impactful when it is seen through the lens of those who cannot fully explain it. Instead, focus on communicating challenges and results. In this way, you communicate your value, while preserving the inexplicable flourish with which you get the job done.
It is a double edged sword, as it works against you when things don’t go well. When you are unable to deliver satisfactory results, explanation asymmetry leads others to draw unfavorable conclusions about the reasons why. The actual explanation for failure may be simple, straightforward, and outside of your control. Still, others will likely come to the conclusions that the lack of results was due to some inane factor. It shouldn’t surprise you if others conclude that your skills, approach, or direct actions are what led to the poor results. The same principle that raises your profile in good times works against you in a down cycle. Humans need explanations. As a rule, explanations need not necessarily be true, as much as they need to fill gaps in comprehension. In these cases, we take the opposite approach; instead of communicating challenges and results, we communicate process, cause and effect, in order to mitigate the harm caused by deeply skewed explanation asymmetry.
Coming up with explanations for why others are successful (especially when you are not)
We go to extremes when explaining why some people succeed easily, while others struggle. Our explanations attribute their success to luck, inheritance, ethnicity, or the Illuminati. On the other extreme, some naively think that all they did was work hard and save money. Neither of these are 100% true.
The point, though, is not to know which is true. It is to train your mind to recognize when you unknowingly come up with inaccurate explanations for success. This is key for one huge reason: If you come up with the wrong explanation for their success, you won’t be able to reproduce it.
Instead, your flawed explanations will lead to you taking flawed actions, which of course gives you subpar results. This can lead to us drawing the conclusion that they have access to hidden power, which means that there is no point in trying to reproduce their success. As a result, some of the greatest accomplishments in life go uncontested; worthy competitors sideline themselves due to their flawed conclusions that their competition can never be challenged.
The actual explanations for success are often more simple. As a result, they are overlooked in favour of more exciting, binary explanations. And so, success perpetuates itself by hiding in plain sight.