While reading Malcolm Gladwell's book "What the dog saw" I came across this interesting difference and I think it helps most of us to find out what we are dealing with in life and in business (and in business life and in the business of life!).
According to Gladwell in his book
The national-security expert Gregory Treverton has famously made a distinction between puzzles and mysteries. Osama bin Laden’s whereabouts are a puzzle. We can’t find him because we don’t have enough information. The key to the puzzle will probably come from someone close to bin Laden, and until we can find that source bin Laden will remain at large.
The problem of what would happen in Iraq after the toppling of Saddam Hussein was, by contrast, a mystery. It wasn’t a question that had a simple, factual answer. Mysteries require judgments and the assessment of uncertainty, and the hard part is not that we have too little information but that we have too much. The C.I.A. had a position on what a post-invasion Iraq would look like, and so did the Pentagon and the State Department and Colin Powell and Dick Cheney and any number of political scientists and journalists and think-tank fellows. For that matter, so did every cabdriver in Baghdad.
Gladwell is an amazing mad scientist! He pays attention to what our national security expert talks about and helps us solve the puzzle(without any mystery!)
Example In the business world -
"It seems that Web Analytics probably fits into the "mystery" category. The problem is that we tend to think of it as a puzzle.." - check Avinash Kaushik blog at Link
In life we try to solve puzzles and we may think most are puzzles. Puzzles are when we try to think - give me some more information and I will find it!
Will your son become a master piano player ? Tell me when and how he practices paino every day and there I see a Beethoven and a Mozart if he is practicing 4hours a week for 10 years(apparently abandoning everything else!) . We solved a mystery. There is no puzzle here in hindsight!
After 10 years I can tell you about a master piano player but today this looks like a puzzle!
In a puzzle we blame the medium. Give me more , Give me more is the message!
In a mystery the problem is on the receiver and not the medium. The information may be available and sometimes too much information . What you infer with the information is what solves the mystery .
Take Enron (as the example) Gladwell sites in the book - all the data was in front of everyone. They didnt pay tax for 4 years because IRS believed they didnt make money . If someone took time to check the IRS records and the financial statements from the SPV(special purpose vehicle).
During World War 2 the Nazi propaganda minister gave all details on radio on an upcoming weapon (V2 bomber) and all it took was someone to listen to previous speech when the minister did acknowledge when U boats were devastated. The credibility was established that he would lie to his people to boost morale (even if he might lie to the world!).
Mystery requires the receiver to spread the information and solve with the given information without additional information!
Final exercise
Consider this from a blog
A wealthy man lives alone in a small cottage. Being partially handicapped he had everything delivered to his cottage. The mailman was delivering a letter one Thursday when he noticed that the front door was ajar. Through the opening he could see the man's body lying in a pool of dried blood. When a police officer arrived he surveyed the scene. On the porch were two bottles of warm milk, Monday's newspaper, a catalog, flyers, and unopened mail. The police officer suspects it was foul play. Who does he suspect and why?
What you solved was a puzzle or a mystery? Answer - Mystery not puzzle. You didn't need any information All you needed was to use the available information and found the murder was the paperboy.
Keep Solving
Sivakumar Manikaneswaran
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