The Enhancement Factor Test for Relationships
Judge a relationship by how much more than double it makes you.
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~months to results
- Steps
- 7
- Confidence
- 58%
Deutsch starts from the problem situation: the set of problems a person is primarily trying to solve. Relationships, in his account, are for addressing it. Because of how knowledge creation works, two people addressing each other's problems are often far more than twice as effective as the same two people apart, and he calls the multiplier the enhancement factor. It scales enormously: an iPhone is only obtainable through an economy whose factor runs into the trillions, while going to a film with a friend might be twice as good and no more. The corollary is a reframe. Once you are in a problem-solving relationship that works, calling yourself constrained by it is perverse, in the same way that calling payment a constraint on trade is perverse. Payment is the condition of consent, and without those institutions the thing you wanted would not exist at all. The management version replaces instruction with proposal.
Origin
Naval asked Deutsch how his views on coercion and freedom survive contact with real relationships, spouses and co-workers who impose constraints. Deutsch answered by defining relationships as instruments for addressing a problem situation and introducing the enhancement factor.
Core principles
- 01Everyone has a problem situation, and that is what they are actually trying to solve.
- 02Relationships exist to address your problem situation and the other person's.
- 03Two people working on each other's problems are often far more than twice as effective.
- 04The economy's enhancement factor runs to trillions; a friend at the cinema is nearer two.
- 05Consent is the price of the enhancement, not a limit on your freedom.
- 06Coercion inside a relationship is a sign of an institution that has not been fixed yet.
How to run it
- 1
Name your problem situation
Write down the problems you are primarily trying to solve right now. Everything downstream is judged against this, so vagueness here makes the whole test unusable.
Pro tip Do the same for the other person; the pairing is what generates the enhancement.
- 2
Ask what each relationship is for
For every significant working or personal relationship, state which problem it addresses. Some, such as having children, are only available through a long-term relationship with shared institutions.
Watch out A relationship you cannot connect to any problem is not thereby bad, but you have no way to evaluate it with this test.
- 3
Estimate the enhancement factor
Compare what the two of you produce together against what you would each produce apart. Deutsch's benchmark cases run from about two, for enjoying a film with a friend, to trillions for the economy that puts an iPhone in your hand.
Pro tip Anything meaningfully above two is where the case for the relationship really lives.
- 4
Agree the scope before the work
In Deutsch's employer example, it should be understood by both sides what the person was hired to do, so they are on the same page. Scope agreed in advance is what makes later proposals feel like collaboration rather than orders.
Pro tip Write the scope down; unwritten scope is where prescriptive management creeps back in.
- 5
Replace prescription with proposal
The employer suggests an approach, the employee says they doubt it will work, the employer says they have an idea it might and asks them to try it. Deutsch calls that friendly interaction optimal, and the introduction of compulsion the point where it degrades.
Pro tip Invite the objection explicitly; a proposal nobody can criticise is an instruction wearing a disguise.
Watch out Punitive or prescriptive framing is the tell that the institution has an imperfection you have stopped noticing.
- 6
Reframe the price of consent
Paying for things is not a constraint on you, it is the condition under which the things exist at all. Treat the obligations of a working relationship the same way, as the mechanism rather than the cost.
Pro tip The move is to identify with the institutions rather than merely comply with them.
- 7
Honour the exception
Deutsch allows the case of the person who wants nothing from the economy, stays in the log cabin and works on maths, for whom interaction is an annoyance. Forcing that person into normal relationships impairs both their work and their happiness.
Watch out Do not use the exception to excuse avoiding relationships whose enhancement factor you have never actually estimated.
In the wild
Deutsch sketches how an employment relationship should run. First, both sides understand what the person was hired to do, so they start on the same page. Then the employer says how about this approach. The employee answers that it sounds good but they are sure it would not work. The employer replies that they have an idea it might, and asks them to just try it. Deutsch calls that kind of friendly interaction optimal, and says the relationship degrades as soon as an element of compulsion enters. He treats punitive, prescriptive management as evidence of an institution that has not yet been improved.
→ The same instruction gets carried out, but as a criticisable proposal inside an agreed scope rather than an order.
Deutsch uses the iPhone to size the enhancement factor at the extreme. No individual, and no small group, produces one. It exists only because of a massive set of institutions of consent, and the enhancement in cost terms is enormous. Against that, going to see a film with a friend might be more than twice as enjoyable as going alone, but it will never be trillions of times better, and it is still worth doing. The comparison shows the factor is a real, varying quantity rather than a slogan about cooperation.
→ A concrete scale for judging which relationships and institutions are producing outsized returns.
Common mistakes
Calling a good relationship a constraint
Once a problem-solving relationship is working, describing yourself as constrained by it is, in Deutsch's word, perverse. It is the same error as calling payment a constraint on trade.
Prescribing where you could propose
Punitive, prescriptive instruction gets compliance and destroys the criticism that produced the enhancement in the first place.
Assuming everyone gains from relationships
Deutsch allows the log-cabin case where interaction is pure annoyance. Forcing that person into conventional relationships impairs both their output and their happiness.
Is it for you?
Best for
Managers, co-founders and partners deciding how to structure a working relationship without falling back on compulsion.
Not ideal for
Someone whose work genuinely needs solitude, for whom interaction is an annoyance rather than an enhancement.
From the transcript
“everyone has a problem situation that is primarily what they're trying to solve to me relationships are for addressing one own problem situation”
“very often two people addressing each other's problems are far more than twice as efficient as each of them separately so there's an enhancement factor”
“when you are involved in a problemsolving relationship of any kind and then this works it's a good one and it works then it's perverse…”
From the episode
The Deutsch Files I