Triangle problems

How do you fit the triangle in the circle?

One way to think about Alchemy, said Rory Sutherland, is to think of a Sudoku puzzle. In Sudoku each column, row, and 3×3 box must have one through nine once and only once.

Sutherland’s suggestion is to shift back and forth between the rows, columns, and boxes. We’ve highlighted donation alchemy, wine alchemy, and magazine alchemy. Alchemy is like moneyball find secondary things that deliver value. An easy addition, from Sutherland, is good wifi and good seating.

Another way to consider Sudoku situations is as a triangle.

“This is why I like being in the field of addiction. It isn’t just about ‘the drug’ and it’s not just about ‘the person’ and it’s not just about ‘the society’. It’s about all three, it’s this triangle between social factors, personal factors, and drug factors. It’s a very complex equation but it’s fun because you can see different parts of the world and different weightings and different outcomes.” – David Nutt, London Real February 2020

Nutt’s podcast covers a lot of ‘the society’ solutions, where certain locales changed consumption patterns. Mostly the outcome change is about ease. When alcohol is less easy to consume – via where and when it can be purchases or how much it costs – then people drink less.

The triangle feels like a better analogy than Sudoku. The triangle can be rotated like a dial. We can move points A, B, or C or A, B, and C. The triangle also fits with a complex adaptive system view: if we move A down three and over two it will be in the circle but then B will be out. And it could affect C too.

Triangle problems joins our toolbox for problem solving along with: black box problems, profession problems, TiVo problems, and cooking problems. Each of these is a framing, if this is the problem here’s how to approach it.

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Thanks for reading.