Use Krehbiel’s Razor for smoother operations

It’s not about my beard. It’s about cutting through the misconceptions that sabotage projects.

Successful operations require aligning disparate systems toward a common goal. Sometimes those “systems” are people or groups of people. Krehbiel’s Razor is a mindset that breaks down barriers between people and helps find a way to solve problems and finish projects.

Sometimes the only way to solve a problem is to see it from someone else’s perspective. There’s a clever riddle that illustrates this.

Sarah, an HR manager at a university, has whittled down hundreds of applicants for a mathematics position to three finalists, and while they are all very smart, one seems to stand above the rest. She wants to do one final test, so she brings the last three candidates into a room.

Here’s the test. There are five hats in a box. Three are white and two are black. The mathematicians are lined up, and a hat is placed on each of them in a way that they can’t see what hat they’re wearing. The first in line can’t see any hats; the second in line sees only the hat of the first person; the third person sees only the hats of the first two. They’re told that the first person to say what color hat they have on wins, but that a false guess eliminates them.

After a long pause, one of them says he knows what color his hat is. Who is it, and what color is his hat?

I’ll give you the answer to the riddle a little later. First I want to talk about razors.

You’ve probably heard of Occam’s razor, which says when there are two competing explanations, the simpler one is more likely to be true. That’s because for the more complicated explanation to be true, more unlikely things have to happen. The simplest explanation isn’t always right, but it’s more likely to be right.

Less well known is Hanlon’s razor, which says “Never ascribe to malice what is adequately explained by incompetence.” (Some people say stupidity instead of incompetence.) Napoleon is supposed to have said something along these lines.

Hanlon’s razor is a remedy for the unfortunate habit of assuming people have ill intent. Often they don’t. For example, when you’re not invited to the meeting or the party after work, it doesn’t necessarily mean the organizer was slighting you. There are other possibilities that don’t require malice – like they were using the wrong distribution list, or they simply forgot.

I read about Hanlon’s insight and thought it could be taken a step further. Krehbiel’s razor says “Don’t assume malice or incompetence when it might be a matter of a different perspective.”

For example, let’s say Joe wants to get the attention of some people on a Zoom call, so he starts waving his hand. He gets very frustrated when two people keep talking and don’t recognize him very obviously trying to get their attention. Then he realizes they might be on “speaker mode,” and they were only seeing the person speaking – not his hand waving. IOW, they had no idea he was trying to get their attention. They weren’t being rude, they simply had a different view.

Don’t assume other people are seeing what you’re seeing, or seeing it from your perspective.

Krehbiel’s Razor also applies to the conflicts between marketing and IT. When IT says they need a requirements document, it’s very easy for marketing to interpret that as “go away, kid, you bother me.”

No, they really do need a requirements document.

And when marketing keeps changing what they want, it’s easy for IT to assume they’re hopeless flakes who don’t know what the heck they’re doing. In reality, they might be testing new concepts. They might be responding to customer input, or they may have a new directive from management.

Better communication would certainly help in both cases, but you also have to assume the other person might have a valid but different perspective on the problem. IT has concerns marketing might not be aware of, and vice versa.

Krehbiel’s Razor also applies to how we talk about political or social issues. My preference would be that we didn’t (in professional settings), but if it has to happen, remember that other people might not share your point of view. It’s rude and inconsiderate to speak as if everyone agrees with your perspective on a complicated or controversial issue.

In summary, Occam’s Razor says to prefer the simple explanation, Hanlon’s Razor says people might be stupid rather than vicious, and Krehbiel’s Razor says you might be assuming malice or stupidity when you’re the stupid one. The other person is just seeing the problem in a way that you’re not.

Back to the riddle.

To solve it, we have to start with the 3rd person, who can see the hats the first two are wearing. If they were both wearing black hats, #3 would immediately know he had a white hat on, because there are only two black hats. But remember that there was a long pause before anyone gave an answer. The third guy is smart and would have figured that out quickly. Therefore he must not be seeing two black hats.

Note that you not only have to look at it from #3s perspective, but you also have to trust that he’s smart and will come to the logical conclusion given what he knows.

The second guy is also smart, so he knows that both he and #1 can’t be wearing a black hat. Therefore, if he sees a black hat on #1, he knows he has a white hat. But if he sees a white hat, his hat could be black or white.

Number one is the top candidate, and he’s the one being tested. In order to solve this riddle, he has to look at it from the perspective of both the other two in the room, and he has to believe they’re smart too! He knows #3 isn’t seeing two black hats, and he knows #2 isn’t seeing a black hat on him. The fact that there’s a long pause tells him they are unable to come to the easy answers. Therefore he correctly answers that he is wearing a white hat.

Our fictitious HR manager gave this test because she understands Krehbiel’s Razor — that to be effective, it’s not enough to be smart. You have to be able to get outside your own point of view.

I hope the riddle makes the lesson a little more interesting. The point is that you shouldn’t rush to the conclusion that people are stupid or incompetent. They’re probably not.

When you’re a frustrated marketer working with the IT guy who seems to be blocking your every move, stop and consider that his behavior might not be motivated by malice or stupidity, but that he might have a perspective you haven’t considered. Learn his perspective and you both may be able to solve your problem.

The next question is how to make all this operational, which I address here: How to make Krehbiel’s Razor operational.