OR/MS Today - April 1998

April 1998

Oracle:
Contrarian Wisdom

By Douglas A. Samuelson

It happens even to the best of families. The OR/MS analyst's numerous abilities were insufficient to resolve some problems at home, so he and his wife began seeing a family therapist.

The first thing the therapist did was to tell them not to talk about the conflicts. "The more you talk about what you disagree about," the therapist explained, "the more you focus just on the things you don't like about each other. So try to put those issues aside, and let's talk about all the reasons you're together."

They worked at this for several weeks. Eventually, a bit at a time, they began to discuss things that annoyed each other. To their surprise, they discovered that many of their big conflicts had started over small misunderstandings.

"Now I have another suggestion for you," the therapist told them. "Whenever someone arouses a negative feeling in you - anger, impatience, whatever - try to stop and think about what would happen if you showed the opposite of what you're feeling. Maybe when your daughter is making you angry by pestering you, she's really asking for affection. Or when your son seems to rebel at everything, maybe he's really looking for some guidance."

"Or when my boss keeps bugging me about my work schedule, maybe he's really just looking for reassurance that I'll meet the deadline, because he's nervous about his boss," the analyst mused. "I hadn't thought of that. I was just irritated."

"Right!" the therapist encouraged him. "You can see this way of looking at things has lots of applications."

"It certainly does," the analyst agreed, "and not just for close personal relationships. I hadn't made the connection before, but I've been picking investments the same way."

Now it was the analyst's wife's turn to be puzzled. "What do you mean?" she asked.

"Our stockbroker calls it a contrarian strategy," the analyst explained. "We buy good companies in industries that aren't doing so well. When an industry gets hot, and everyone is rushing to buy, that's when we sell. The idea is, nothing goes either up or down forever, and most people bet that what has been happening will keep happening. You usually can't go too far wrong just betting that no trend will last forever."

"Good thinking, usually," the therapist concurred, "although it hasn't worked so well in this boom market we've had for the last few years." (It seems the good doctor had been playing the market, too.)

"Even in this market," the analyst said, "there have been some opportunities. Remember when there was all that talk about new health care laws a couple of years ago, and some of the pharmaceutical companies looked risky because of class action lawsuits? There were a couple of nice bargains in there."

"The ones that make antidepressants have done well," the therapist remarked dryly. "I should have expected that."

"But there's more," the analyst continued. "At work, I've seen that people who are super-friendly are usually up to something. My real friends will just come out and tell me if they think I'm wrong. We've got some very political types, though, who smile and agree with everything and then rip you when you're not around. I just hadn't realized, until now, how important a leading indicator that phony friendliness was.

"And I wonder how well it would work with larger-scale analysis," he continued, now caught up in this new way of looking at things. "I already know that managers in trouble usually have great things to say about how well things are going, while those who are doing better tend to downplay it. I just hadn't realized, before, how much information you could get from that."

At this point his wife chimed in, "This fits with something else you've mentioned. I think one of the quality management experts claimed that a good way to spot a manufacturing company with poor quality was to look for one with a great reputation for service."

"Right," the analyst confirmed. "That was Philip Crosby. If they're really good at fixing what they sell, maybe they're getting too much practice."

"I know that the women I think are most unstable are the ones who know all the current information about psychotherapy," she added.

"And probably all the current 'self-help' bestsellers," the therapist grimaced. "I see it all the time."

"Yes, they're always ready to tell me what I should be doing - the more messed up their lives are, the more they think they can straighten out mine," she said.

"I'd say the same for the managers I've worked for," the analyst chuckled. "The best ones seem to have a lot less to prove."

"You've told me lots of times how little guys have to seem ready to fight, and big guys want to seem gentle," his wife pointed out. "We were talking about Stevie's problems at school, but people seem to carry those behaviors on through life - especially men."

"We can talk about this men-women thing some other time," the analyst quickly objected, as all three of them laughed. "See?" he added. "I have learned something about when not to argue."

NOTE: After I wrote "Waiting for Guido," a story about a professional killer, a number of people asked me to help them get in touch with him. I would like to point out again that these columns are FICTION, and any inferences about the author and his acquaintances are made at your own risk. - DS

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