The story of King Solomon and the baby is a well-known biblical tale that demonstrates Solomon’s renowned wisdom and his ability to render fair judgments. This story can be found in the First Book of Kings, chapter 3, verses 16-28, in the Old Testament of the Bible.
The story goes like this:
Once upon a time, two women came before King Solomon with a baby. Both women claimed to be the mother of the baby, and they were involved in a dispute over the child’s custody. They were living in the same house and had given birth to their babies within days of each other.
The first woman said, “O king, this woman and I live in the same house, and I gave birth to a baby while she was also with me in the house. Three days after I gave birth, she also gave birth. We were alone; there was no one else in the house with us except the two of us. During the night, her baby died because she lay on it. Then she got up in the middle of the night and took my son from my side while I was asleep. She laid him by her breast, and she laid her dead son by my breast. When I got up in the morning to nurse my son, I saw that he was dead. But when I looked at him more closely in the morning light, I saw that he wasn’t my son at all.”
The second woman countered, “No! The living one is my son; the dead one is yours.” But the first woman insisted, “No! The dead one is yours; the living one is mine.” And so they argued before the king.
King Solomon, renowned for his wisdom, listened to their claims and then ordered for a sword to be brought. He said, “Cut the living child in two and give half to one and half to the other.”
At this point, the true mother of the baby was revealed. The first woman, the real mother, cried out, “Please, my lord, give her the living baby! Don’t kill him!” However, the second woman said, “Neither I nor you shall have him. Cut him in two!”
Upon seeing the genuine concern and love displayed by the first woman, King Solomon immediately understood who the real mother was. He said, “Give the baby to the first woman. She is the real mother. Do not kill him.”
Using Tactical Screens To Elicit Information People Are Hiding:
When faced with making decisions within circumstances where our decisions depend on the goals and actions of others, we should be mindful of an unfortunate reality: people will withhold information, they will spin and misrepresent the facts, they will often enough, simply flat-out lie to us about what they really care about, want, or intend to do.
This doesn’t necessarily mean they’re bad people (although, of course, sometimes they are). People are untruthful or withhold information for all kinds of reasons. Perhaps they’re trying to protect our feelings. Maybe too much candor causes them to feel vulnerable and unsafe, etc.
Never the less, in situations where the stakes are high, we need a way to obtain credible information about what others care about or intend to do se we ourselves can make productive decisions with respect to our goals.
In the Bible Story above, King Soloman had a big problem – he had to discern who the real mother of the infant in question was but he didn’t know: (1) Which woman was lying and which woman was telling the truth, and (2) What the consequences of making the wrong decision would be.
In this case, King Soloman set-up a screen by threatening to cut child in half, and as a result was able to observe what both women truly cared about. One of them cared about the welfare of the child, and the other simply didn’t want the legitimate mother to have the child, so taking the child or having the child killed was fine with her either way.
Screens can be used to elicit private information being kept hidden, such as a participant’s type, intentions, preferences or values so that we can make better informed decisions about what we need to do.
Obviously, we can’t go around threatening to cut peoples’ children in half, but what we can do is set-up screens by mindfully constructing choices where observed responses reveal what people truly care about or what they really intend to do.
In their book “Think Like A Freak”, authors Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner described how the rock band Van Halen used a screen to ensure they were working with touring contractors who would respect the band’s desire to keep the band’s events safe:
“The band’s touring contract carried a 53-page rider that laid out technical and security specs as well as food and beverage requirements. On page 40 was the “munchies” section. It demanded potato chips, nuts, pretzels, and “M&M’s (WARNING: ABSOLUTELY NO BROWN ONES).” What was up with that? The nut and chip requests weren’t nearly so nitpicky. Nor the dinner menu. So why the hang-up with brown M&M’s? Had someone in the band had a bad experience with them? Did Van Halen have a sadistic streak and take pleasure in making some poor caterer hand-sort the M&M’s?
When the M&M clause was leaked to the press, it was seen as a classic case of rock-star excess, of the band “being abusive of others simply because we could,” Roth said years later. But, he explained, “the reality is quite different”.
Van Halen’s live show was an extravaganza, with a colossal stage set, booming audio and spectacular lighting effects. All this equipment required a great deal of structural support, electrical power and the like. But many of the arenas they played were outdated. Thus the need for a 53-page rider. “Most bands had a contract rider that was like a pamphlet,” Roth said. “We had one that was like a phone book.” It gave point-by-point instructions to ensure that the promoter at each arena provided enough physical space, load-bearing capacity and electrical power. Van Halen wanted to make sure no one got killed by a collapsing stage or a short-circuiting light tower.
But every time the band pulled into a new city, how could they be sure the local promoter had read the rider and followed all the safety procedures? Cue the brown M&M’s. When Roth arrived, he’d immediately go backstage to check out the bowl of M&M’s. If he saw brown ones, he knew the promoter hadn’t read the rider carefully and that “we had to do a serious line check” to make sure the important equipment had been properly set up. He also made sure to trash the dressing room if there were no brown M&M’s. This would be construed as nothing more than rock-star folly, thereby keeping his trap safe from detection. But we suspect he enjoyed it all the same.”
It's About Information In Context:
When setting-up a screen, what you’re after is credible decision-making information that you can use to make productive choices.
It’s worth noting that sure, we can set up screens to elicit for example, if people are strictly honest or if they will lie to us on occasion, but as noted earlier, there are lots of reasons people might not be truthful, and not all of them are for nefarious reasons.
For me personally, I don’t care much about throwing around screens unless I need information to make decisions about what I need or want to do about specific problem and that problem requires I have some idea about what people are likely to do.
For example, one of the things I have done is attach a small membership fee to access our private network and strategic resources. I do this because I know that spammers, trolls, and stalkers are highly unlikely to pay us a single penny, especially if they know that their money is going to be used to undermine their goals.
In other words, our membership fee is BOTH a source of project funding and a tactical screen to keep out the people who shouldn’t be wandering around our private community, either because they’re here for dishonest reasons or because they don’t truly care enough about the problem to exert even a small commitment. For us, the membership fee serves two screening purposes: keeping the undesirables out and identifying who truly wants to be here so we aren’t wasting our resources on those who aren’t serious.
This brings up and important point: try and keep your screens focused information needed to make a decision within a specific context you are trying to navigate.
For example, if you’re a dad looking for a family law attorney, an ad claiming the lawyer is a father’s rights advocate would most certainly pique your interest. Of course, they might indeed be father’s rights advocate, but that doesn’t mean they are any more successful at actually accomplishing what you want than any other attorney who charges far less. And of course, they might even be more or less lying and simply working what they perceive to be a lucrative marketing angle.
A good screen on any lawyer in this context might be to ask for five to ten references before signing any retainer contract. If they refuse to provide them, then you know they don’t want you talking to their other clients. Or perhaps they’ll provide you with a few, and in that case, you’ll want to ensure the references they provide are honest ones, so you’ll want to set-up screening questions for those as well.
Or as another example, consider the ex. Here, the context of your relationship has changed at least a little or in high-conflict cases, dramatically. In any case, you should not rely on behaviors you have learned to trust within the context your marriage or previous relationship. Instead, you should toss out a tactical screen and see how your target is going to respond within THE SPECIFIC CONTEXT OF DIVORCE OR CUSTODY PROCEEDINGS. It may be that nothing has changed and the two of you can work things out. However, just as likely, the ex may now see you as his or her advesary, and all forms of deception, manipulation, and coercion are now on the table, so you will want a tool to expose any of that early in the process.
For example, if he or she as promised you an agreement, you might impose a deadline by which to have a signed agreement within you or your attorney’s hands. If it doesn’t show up, or if it has been changed from the terms you agreed upon, you now know you were being misled and have in your hands what they really want and this this should now guide how you interact with your ex in the future.
How To Set-Up Your Own Screens:
Screens don’t have to be complicated. All they need to do is give the target a choice that reveals any private information they may be hiding so that you can use it to make productive decisions. Here are the steps:
(1) Understand The Context Of The Decision. What is the environment, what are your goals, what are the stakes for making a correct or wrong decision?
(2) What Is The Information You Need To Make A Decision: In most cases, what you want to know is what their intentions really are. But, you can screen for all kinds of useful information: values, character traits, knowledge of something you want to know. You just have to decide what hidden information you are after.
(3) Mindfully Construct A Choice Set For The Target: Compel the target to make a decision that reveals what they really care about. A good way to do this is give the target an option that requires some form of effort, cost, price, or public commitment to confirm that they’re being honest with you. If they aren’t willing to do that, then the absence of confirming behavior is valuable information that you can use to arrive at your own decisions.
Remember, talk is cheap and actions speak louder than words. When dealing with others, attach little value to what they say they care about, and great value to what you observe them actually doing or not doing.
I’m happy to answer any questions you may have about setting up tactical screens. Please post your questions in the support forums and I’ll help you out!
Regards,
Michael (Huckleberry)
