 The 70% Solution
By Brian Beirl
D.D.S.
At midnight, May
17, 1968, the nuclear submarine USS Scorpion left Rota, Spain.
Its top secret orders were to sail west toward the Canary
Islands. As it slipped beneath the waves, the pride of the US
submarine fleet and its 99 crew men were never seen again.
It was heard from again. An explosion was recorded five days
later somewhere south west of the Azores. The tradition of the
navy is to locate the vessel as soon as possible in respect
for fellow sailors lost and to secure sensitive technology at
risk of falling into enemy hands. The search was made more
difficult by a number of factors. The sinking occurred during
one of the hottest times of the cold war, and there was almost
no information on its location at the time of the explosion.
Also unknown were its speed, direction, or angle of descent.
John Craven, a navy research scientist, was given the
seemingly impossible task of locating the Scorpion. The lack
of reliable information available to him led him to take a
very unusual approach. He would dust off the eighteenth
century Bayesian search theory. Thomas Bayes was an 18th
century mathematician that developed a system of combining
averages to find solutions to problems. The theory purported
to give one the best chance of finding a solution when seemly
insufficient information was available. Craven did know the
time of the sinking, the depth of the water, and a search area
of 200 miles in circumference.
In developing his search plan, Craven recruited the best minds
in the business: naval experts, scientists, mathematicians and
engineers. He gave them all the same information, albeit
limited, and asked for their best estimation of the location
of the Scorpion within the 200 mile search grid. He asked them
to work with complete independence from one another. Within
two weeks he had their calculated estimations. Using the
Bayesian Search theory he averaged them within the grid.
Although no one estimate was correct, the average of all their
estimates, found independently, resulted in locating the
doomed submarine. They found the Scorpion resting on the
bottom two miles beneath the surface within 200 yards of the
mathematical estimate!
An interesting bit of history, but how does it affect our
personally finding solutions in our lives. Let’s look at a
much less serious example of how the group may find the
answer. Just a few years ago, Who Wants to be a Millionaire
was one of the most watched television shows. The premise of
the show was the contestant would answer increasingly
difficult questions, for increasing prize money up to a
million dollars. However, the contestant could elicit help
from the studio audience or could call “experts” at home
called “life lines”. Over the running of the show some
interesting statistics emerged. The life lines working alone,
offered the correct answer 63% of the time. The majority of
the studio audience, voting independently, produced the
correct answer 91% of the time.
It is apparent that groups of people working independently
with “not all the facts” are very capable of arriving at the
best solutions.
Craven’ team had very little information but they obviously
had enough. How much is enough? According to the Booz Allen
Hamilton consulting group, the optimum amount of information
needed to make a management decision is 40-70% of the desired
information. If we make a decision with less than 40% our
chances of making the best decision are limited. If we wait
until we have more than 70% of the information, we have taken
too long and now our problem has evolved past our present
solution.
Consider how leaders traditionally make decisions:
The office meeting, ad hoc committee, board of advisors,
cabinet, etc.
A group of people sit together and discuss the best solutions
to problems. Some people inevitably do the most talking or the
boss is in the room and participants may feel intimidated and
defer to the ultimate decision maker. The group brainstorming
session misses the power of the uninhibited individual’s
thought.
Also there may be the decision culture of; “we need all the
facts to make the correct decision.” As we have learned,
waiting for all the information is most likely detrimental to
the quality of the decision. Also having individuals work as a
group may cause groupthink to appear.
The best way to make management decisions may in fact be
having people work independently on possible solutions then
have them present them individually. Then have the group
arrive at the best solution. Also keep in mind that not having
all the information, calls on the experience and intuition of
the group. This may be the most powerful and predictable way
to derive the best solution.
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