The method
The four steps
1. Premises. Every question carries assumptions. “Should I accept this offer?” assumes the offer is fair, that there are no other buyers, that now is the time and that you want out. Ayn names three to six of them and marks each one.
SolidShakyUnexamined
2. Options. The real options, each with what it costs, and at least one you did not name. The unnamed option is often the answer: it is usually a way to test a shaky premise before betting on it.
3. Steelman. The best case for the option you are leaning against. A decision that survives its strongest objection is worth more than one that never met it.
4. Decision memo. One page: what to do, why, what would change the recommendation, and what to check first this week. Where the honest answer depends on an unchecked premise, the recommendation is conditional and the check comes first.
The memo recommends; you decide. Ayn gives you the reasoning, not reassurance, and the choice stays with you.
Seven questions
The worksheet (“Think it through yourself” on the home page) asks these in order. They work just as well with a pen.
- 1
What are you assuming?
List what has to be true for your preferred choice to be right. Write each as a plain claim, not a question.
- 2
How do you know?
Mark each premise solid (you have checked it), shaky (you have a reason to doubt it) or unexamined (nothing tests it). Most real decisions have more unexamined premises than solid ones.
- 3
What if it is false?
Take the premise you would least like to be wrong about and follow the consequence. If the consequence is small, move on; if it is large, it is your first check.
- 4
What is the option you have not named?
Yes or no is rarely the whole menu. Look for a partial version, a test, a delay with a purpose, a different order or a third party.
- 5
What is the best case against your preference?
Argue the other side as its smartest advocate would. If you cannot, you do not yet understand the choice.
- 6
What would change your mind?
Name the fact that would flip your answer. If nothing could, that is itself a premise to check.
- 7
What do you check first?
Pick the action that resolves the most uncertainty in under a day. A call, a number, a document, a small test.
Where it comes from
None of this is new. Ayn puts four old habits of mind in one place and in the right order.
Aristotle
First principles
In the Posterior Analytics, Aristotle argues that demonstrated knowledge depends on premises that are true and better known than the conclusion. A conclusion inherits every weakness of what it stands on, so the place to look first is underneath it.
Aristotle, Posterior Analytics, Book I, chapter 2.
Ayn Rand
"Check your premises"
The phrase recurs in Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged (1957): when a character meets a contradiction, the advice is to check the premises, because contradictions do not exist in reality, only in mistaken thinking. Ayn takes the phrase as a method and nothing more; it does not speak for Rand or her philosophy.
Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged (Random House, 1957). See the library's page on the novel.
Gary Klein
The pre-mortem
Before committing, imagine it is a year later and the decision has failed, then write down why. Klein's technique makes it safe to voice doubts and surfaces the premises a team has stopped noticing. Ayn's "what would change this" list is a pre-mortem in miniature.
Gary Klein, "Performing a Project Premortem", Harvard Business Review, September 2007.
Steelmanning
The opposite of a strawman
To steelman a view is to state it in its strongest form before you reject it. The idea has older roots in the principle of charity in philosophy, and Daniel Dennett's version of Anatol Rapoport's rules asks you to restate an opponent's position so well that they wish they had put it that way.
Daniel C. Dennett, Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking (W. W. Norton, 2013), the section "Rapoport's Rules".
What Ayn will not do
- Decide for you. The memo recommends; the choice is yours.
- Pretend to be a lawyer, accountant, doctor or immigration adviser. Where the rules matter, checking with one is a first step.
- Invent facts about your situation. Where a number is missing, finding it becomes a first check.
- Speak for Ayn Rand. Ayn is independent. It is not affiliated with, or endorsed by, the Ayn Rand Institute or the Estate of Ayn Rand.