The 3+ Principle: Overcoming Binary Thinking

How to Safeguard the Solution-Exploring Stage

Just because you’ve thought of a couple solutions, though, doesn’t mean you’ve eliminated your blind spots. Binary thinking is when you consider only two options to a problem. When you first look at the choice, it seems simple: We launch the product or we don’t. We take the new job or we don’t. We get married or we don’t. It’s black and white: “do” or “do not.” There isn’t any middle ground.

Most of the time, though, this type of thinking is limiting. Some decisions might seem to come down to a choice between this or that, but there’s often another option. An early binary framing can be a sign that we have narrowed the problem before understanding it. Checking for alternatives helps distinguish a real constraint from an assumed one.

When we start exploring a problem in detail, things become more complicated before we understand it well enough to see the alternatives.

A simple choice can reflect either a clear understanding of a problem or a premature decision to stop exploring it. As Frederic Maitland purportedly once wrote, “Simplicity is the end result of long, hard work, not the starting point.” Before reducing a problem to opposing solutions, check what that simplification leaves out.

This brings us to the next principle of effective problem-solving:

THE 3+ PRINCIPLE: Force yourself to explore at least three possible solutions to a problem. If you find yourself considering only two options, force yourself to find at least one more.

Developing a credible third option can reveal what matters in the decision even if we eventually reject it. The exercise is useful when it exposes a different way to meet the goal, rather than adding a token alternative to the list.

There are two safeguards against binary thinking. The first is this:

SAFEGUARD: Imagine that one of the options is off the table. Take each of the options you’re considering, and one at a time, ask yourself, “What would I do if that were not possible?”

Suppose you’re considering what to do about a job where you don’t get along with a coworker. Binary thinking tells you to stay or leave. Imagining that one option is off the table forces you to see the problem differently. Imagine that, for some reason, there is absolutely no way to quit your job: You must stay. Now you are forced to see things through a new lens. What could you do to make going to work every day more enjoyable, despite the problem with your coworker? What could you do to remain at your job and still move closer to your goals? What could you do to give yourself more options in the future so you’re not stuck feeling powerless? Maybe staying means having a hard conversation with your boss and your coworker that you haven’t had yet. Maybe it means putting in for a transfer to another department. Maybe it means asking your boss if you can work remotely.

Now try looking at this situation the other way. Imagine that, for some reason, there is absolutely no way you can stay at your job: You have to leave. What would you do? Would you call up old clients and see if they need help? Would you get hold of people in your network to see if they could make an introduction at their company? Would you pursue every possibility until you found yourself in a better position?

Sometimes we can’t do what we want when we want, like leaving a job that’s become difficult to endure. But that doesn’t mean we’re stuck. It may still be possible to improve some conditions or prepare for a later change. Reframing helps us look for a next step even when the preferred option is unavailable.

Temporarily removing an option is a way to test whether the original framing hid other paths. It does not mean that every apparent binary is false.

Here’s the second safeguard against binary thinking:

SAFEGUARD: Come up with Both-And options. Try to find ways of combining the binary. Think not in terms of choosing either X or Y, but rather having both X and Y.

Roger Martin, former dean of the Rotman School of Management in Toronto, refers to this technique as integrative thinking.5 Rather than grappling with seemingly opposed binary options, combine them. Simplistic Either-Or options become integrative Both-And options. You can keep costs down and invest in a better customer experience. You can stay at your job and start a side hustle. You can deliver for your shareholders and protect the environment.

F. Scott Fitzgerald once said, “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise.”

Unlike Fitzgerald, though, I don’t think you need to have first-rate intelligence to come up with Both-And options. The capacity for combinatorial solutions isn’t reserved for the gifted. It’s a skill that can be learned and used; it’s just a skill that goes untaught. The key is learning to live with the uncomfortable tension between opposing ideas long enough to see that there’s a solution that combines the best elements of both. And that’s what integrative thinking is all about.

Combining options takes work, and some trade-offs remain. One area where we tend to be pretty good at integrative thinking is vacation planning. We ask everyone involved what they want to do, and then try to find a place that has it all. This is why resorts or cruises offer a long list of activities: the more variety, the more attractive they are to groups with diverse interests. Guests in such places rarely face a hard choice between, say, the beach or the pool. They can have both.

You can apply the same thinking to other areas of your life, including your career. The solution to an unfulfilling job is rarely just one option in the stay-or-go binary, even if it seems that way at first. You can both stay and begin reaching out to your network. You can both apply for jobs and go to school in the evenings to acquire a new skill. You can both start a creative project and do more at your current job to give you the creative outlet you need.

Roger Martin put it this way: “Thinkers who exploit opposing ideas to construct a new solution enjoy a built-in advantage over thinkers who can consider only one model at a time.” Combining useful elements can create an option that the original framing excluded.

Consider Isadore Sharp, who created the luxurious Four Seasons hotel chain. Sharp’s first property was a small roadside hotel in the Toronto suburbs. His second was a large convention hotel in the heart of the city. Each property represented one of the conventional operating models of the time: either going small and focusing on personal service or going large and focusing on amenities. The hotel industry was stuck in binary thinking. Rather than choose between them, though, Sharp combined the intimacy of a small hotel with the amenities of a large one. The combination became central to the chain’s operating model.

Our personal lives also benefit from Both-And thinking. For example, we often expect our partners to fulfill 100 percent of our emotional needs. That’s a lot to ask of anyone, and many of us experience relationship challenges when disappointments inevitably result. But instead of asking, “Should I stay or leave?” ask instead, “Is there anyone else that could meet some of the emotional needs that my partner can’t? Is there a colleague that I could vent to at work? Do I have a friend who shares this interest or who will take this class with me?”

When we think of adding people to our lives, we start to open up Both-And options for ourselves. So instead of the usual relationship binary, “Should I stay or leave?” we start to say, “Whom else can I include in my life to help with everything beyond what my partner does well?”

The goal is a few credible alternatives, not an ever-growing list. When you hear yourself say, “Either X or Y,” it means you’re entering the narrow pathway between a rock and a hard place—a binary decision. Digging in and forcing yourself to add credible alternative options allows you to see solutions you may not have considered before.