Do you think strategically?

Two examples that show very clearly what strategic thinking is. 

Do the test, asking two questions to an audience, whoever answers them both faster and correctly will win: 

 

-1- There are two equal bottles with an equal amount of different types of liquid (200 mL), but having the same color and no odor. If I take two spoons of 15mL from bottle A, and put it in bottle B, mix it well and then take two spoons of 6mL from bottle B, and put it in bottle A... Which of the two bottles will get more polluted? 

-2- In a tennis competition with 80 participants, we organize the groups so as to have the minimum possible number of elimination games. How many games will we need to have a champion?

In the first case, those who know a little algebra and logic can quickly formulate an equation with the milliliters informed...

In the second case, those who are used to matching groups of teams will quickly arrive at the groups and count the number of games to get to the champion.

Those who think strategically will be even faster.

In the first case, the amount of pollution is the same, because the quantity of polluting content in a bottle is exactly the one that has been taken from the other and vice-versa. There is no way it can be different.

In the second case, the strategic thinker will promptly say that are 79 games. To have a champion 79 competitors must be eliminated, with each elimination happening with one game, so...

Strategic thinking is to think hither, not thither - which would be incremental thinking, deadly poison to those who want to walk new paths...

Author: Claus Jorge Süffert