The Fastest Way to a Right Answer Is a Wrong Answer

One of my favorite sayings is, “The fastest way to a right answer is a wrong answer.” It is a simple saying that conveys several meanings about how you can approach life to be successful. It is an important to keep in mind as you approach difficult situations and hesitate because you’re trying to be perfect, save face, or avoid rework.

The saying came to me early in my professional career when I worked with people much more experienced and knowledgeable than I was about the topic that I was writing about (I have been in executive research and advisory for decades). I would find that I would spend hours creating something to get it as good as I thought was possible, and then I’d show it and the head of the research team would have several ideas that would completely change it on its head and I’d almost be back at square one.

At first, I had that “pride of ownership” problem that most high-GPA grads run into where they think there’s a “right” answer and “wrong” answer like in school that you just wish your manager would tell you…only to find out that, when you’re exploring something new, you are on the edge figuring it out yourself and there’s no “back of the book” (where the answers are in some textbooks) to tell you what’s objectively correct. But then, I had this idea. Because I was in Applications (aka software development) research at the time, I jokingly called it my “Agile” or “iterative” approach to research. Instead of spending a ton of time creating the perfect piece of research only to have to redo it, I’d get my ideas down as quickly as possible with as little effort as I could to convey the ideas so that I could get feedback on those. Once we fleshed out the ideas, I could then spend time perfecting it.

It worked really well, and while we’d go through several iterations, the output was of great quality (as long as I didn’t sacrifice quality for speed in later iterations). So what was going on? Well, I realized that my brilliant colleagues couldn’t tell me what the insight was, but they seemed to immediately be able to give me feedback on what I created as if they new exactly what it could be. The first version of this insight I called, “It’s easier to criticize than create.” (I’ve heard similar sayings elsewhere, but I believe that’s my rendition of it) You see this in the real world when no one wants to pick a restaurant, but they’ll immediately tell you that they don’t like your suggestion. So I used that human instinct to be indecisive with your own decisions but decisive about others’ to get the information that I needed to create good content. Hence, the approach of getting as quickly as possible to an answer—even if it was laughably wrong—so that people (myself included!) could look at the answer and immediately know how to fix or improve it.

I liked it so much that I used it for my book, The Meaning of Life: A guide to finding your life’s purpose, where I took the chapters and just started writing whatever I thought should go in them, only to read and reread them after each draft and writing better versions that flowed better and made all the points that I wanted to make. I used it in my job as well, and in the business world, the pace of change accelerates and accelerates, meaning that speed is the name of the game in many circumstances. As such, I felt like the “It’s easier to criticize than create” insight needed a rephrasing in that environment because the focus of business innovation is around ideas, experimentation, and speed-to-value. Hence the new phrase, “The fastest way to a right answer is a wrong answer,” which conveys the same point but with a focus on speed in idea generation, innovation, and decision making.

What I liked most about this new phrase is how it was multi-purpose. “It’s easier to criticize than create” is mostly just two reminders:

• Actually doing the work is much harder than the armchair quarterbacks and talking-head panelists who think they know what to do in every situation but were never successful themselves at doing the thing they’re criticizing.
• If you ever have writer’s block or get stuck on something, instead of staring at a blank sheet of paper and trying to come up with the best idea ever, write or draw something that’s the best you can come up with, review it (letting time pass in between if it helps), and then let your mind either see what’s wrong with what you made and/or think of something better. It often helps you make more progress than thinking until you figure out the perfect solution.

Those are great reminders, but “The fastest way to a right answer is a wrong answer” gives the insight new dimensions:

• People spend a lot of time trying to come up with the perfect solution given the information they have now without realizing that if they try something and fail, it will give them more information that will lead to a better solution. If they spend their time thinking, they are just trying to optimize with existing information, but failure gives you more/new information that can get you to a better solution than you could’ve ever come up with only the prior information.
• If you are having a hard time getting someone to express their wants or needs, give them a terrible answer so that it elicits a response. It’s not much different to how people instigate social media conversations. You say something controversial, and the previously calm, silent crowd all immediately has a strong opinion on the matter. It’s the same concept (but hopefully less anger-inducing). Get someone to react, and now you create contrast between the thing they don’t want and the possible thing that they do want so you can understand it.
• When making a decision, pretending to make it (by flipping a coin, for example) and feeling how you would react if that decision were final will tell you how you feel about whether it’s the right decision or not. If you feel bad, it was wrong…therefore, you now immediately know the right answer (i.e., the one you didn’t pick) or at least narrowed the options down by one (if it’s more than two options).
• If you’re completely unsure of something and have no idea where to start (different from bullet one, which assumes you know the problem or goal but are taking too long planning the solution), just trying something and seeing whether you like it or not or it works or not will make you better off at knowing what you want to do. For example, many people will never get a first job because they think they’ll be stuck forever if they pick the wrong thing. But there are so many people that jump between career paths multiple times within even just a decade—let alone the ~40 years that they might end up working until they retire (if they even decide to!). Similar to the first bullet, you gain valuable information, only in this scenario it’s about your preferences and not about the optimal solution to a specific/defined problem.
• Finally, it reminds you that failure can be a good thing—in fact, many people who fail a lot in life end up much more successful than people who never fail. Because people who never fail might not have been pushing themselves hard enough until they found their limits. Additionally, people who fail fast and fail cheap might be more dynamic and resilient so that they can overcome adversity than someone who tries to avoid failure at all costs (ironically, often giving up instead of failing). This helps you to avoid feeling bad or embarrassed about failure so that you don’t avoid it to your own detriment. (note: this is referring to failure as in experimenting with a new song, recipe, athletic training technique, or other endeavor; it is not referring to taking unnecessary risks like gambling or participating in dangerous activities that can harm or kill you before you have extensive training and experience)

And that’s what I love about the saying: it reminds me of all the ways in which you can get to the right, best, or optimal answer or solution for you. It’s not always about thinking hard enough or planning well enough (though that helps!). If you’re stuck, sometimes you just need to “get enough reps” and see where you went wrong so you get better and better until you do it in the best way possible. This applies to everything from seeing which martial arts you want to incorporate into your MMA fighting to which subjects you wish to become an expert in during your college tenure to knowing which brand of yogurt you want to use for your parfait (I used this technique recently to find out that I like blueberries with vanilla-flavored Greek yogurt and oats and honey granola—it took many combinations to get to the one that I like the most).

So if you are indecisive or unsure (or you’re trying to get an answer from someone who is), remember this advice: the fastest way to a right answer is a wrong answer. If you don’t know what you want, then trying something will immediately tell you whether it’s something you want or not, thus getting you closer to the right answer than just thinking about it. If you don’t know which option is best, then either researching or trying various approaches and seeing what worked and didn’t work and why will often get you to the approach that will work best for you faster than just looking at the first success story and hoping that it works for you. And if you can’t get people to talk, saying something blatantly false or stupid is the fastest way to get someone saying what’s wrong about that option so you might hopefully get closer to the attributes of the right option.

So, in these situations, don’t be afraid to be wrong. In fact, embrace the possibility of being wrong. Because the fastest way to a right answer just very may be a wrong answer that forces the brain to contrast what’s wrong with what would be right. It worked for Astronomy when people realized that you can’t measure the mass of a black hole but you can measure objects around it. It works for getting a seemingly quiet, indifferent person to all of the sudden become a loud, opinionated person regarding anything from what cuisine they’re in the mood for to what they need from a piece of software. It’ll work for you. Just be ready for how quickly it works because you’ll be amazed at how you’ll go from the problem of not having much information to having a ton of great ideas that you then have to narrow down and find the best one. It’s a good problem to have and much easier than staring at a blank piece of paper or having infinite options. When you know the wrong one, you’ll be able to quickly identify why it’s wrong and, therefore, begin to use that information to what would make something right and why.