Beauty of Second Degree Probes

I’ve been noticing this pattern again and again—just about enough to make this pattern a heuristic for my own understanding. “No lie can overcome a second degree probe”

If you probe a lie, just about enough, it reveals itself in due course. At work, I see this all the time. When a statement is just made, in a matter-of-fact way in which it assumes everyone already knows it, and when you ask “why it’s so?”, often, there is an explanation that’s provided to this statement. This is the first line of defense for a lie (or an assumption), and it might most likely exist.

But if you then question the explanation as well, and ask “why is this explanation this way, and why not X?”, you start seeing some cognitive dissonance in action. There apparently is not explanation to the explanation!

Some examples on top of my mind:

For a statement, such as “We need to restructure the team for better efficiency.”

First probe: “Why will this structure be more efficient?”

Response: “Because it reduces communication overhead.”

Second probe: “How exactly does it reduce overhead, and have we measured current communication costs?”

Response: …

Reveals no analysis was done, reveals it’s just a knee-jerk reaction to a directive from a C-level executive.

“Our customers prefer the premium version.”

First probe: “What data shows this preference?”

Response: “Higher conversion rates on the premium product page.”

Second probe: “But isn’t the premium page the default landing page, and how do we know preference versus just path of least resistance?”

Response: …

One might ask, well, it makes sense to do second-degree probes, but why not third-degree or fourth-degree probes?

The short answer here is that one could probe to various deeper levels, but they often don’t pass the test of succinctness, which is highly needed in meetings. You want to question the assumptions deeply, without being too intrusive.

It’s the right level of depth to know if there are any assumptions worth investigating further (perhaps not on the same meeting call, as you don’t want to be dismissed as a modern-day braggart Socrates here)

The moment I realised that this is a good heuristic, I started noticing this pattern everywhere (not just at work). Let’s take even investment advice:

Statement: “Real estate always appreciates over time.”

First probe: “What’s the historical data on that?”

Response: “Look at housing prices over the last 50 years.”

Second probe: “But what about Japan from 1990-2010, or specific regions during economic downturns, and how do we account for survivorship bias in the data?”

Response: “Umm…well…”

The second-degree probe is not a magic wand to shatter inherent assumptions, what it does tell us is that we don’t question our assumptions deeply enough. Sometimes it’s just a castle of glass, waiting for the right question to act as a pickaxe to shatter this whole foundation based on a false premise.