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Inversion
Turn the problem around.
Find what you can prevent.
Before adding more steps to your plan, ask what could reliably derail it. Use this approach associated with Charlie Munger to identify avoidable mistakes—then return to the work that moves you forward.
Try the inversion worksheet ↓Free to use and print. No account needed.
A different question
What would make this fail?
In his 2007 USC law commencement address, Munger described turning problems around: consider what would cause harm, then work to avoid it. He connected inversion with problem-solving in algebra and applied it to everyday conduct. [1]
Both questions matter. Preventing failure does not, by itself, create a useful result. The exercise below uses the backward question to improve a forward plan.
Put a boundary around the exercise
Three failure modes. Three responses.
Define the result
Write what you want to deliver, for whom, and by when. “Finish the project” is too vague to test.
Describe the breakdown
List three specific ways you could miss that result. Use causes you can examine, such as late feedback or an untested handoff.
Turn causes into actions
For each cause, choose a prevention step, an early warning sign, or a fallback. Give the step an owner and a date.
Return to the goal
Pick the most useful safeguard to put in place now. Then continue the actual work and review the plan when conditions change.
This four-step exercise is our editorial adaptation, not a checklist written by Munger.
A worked example
A short guide, due Friday.
A fictional three-person team needs to deliver a two-page welcome guide for volunteers by Friday afternoon. Their first plan says “write, design, send.” It misses several ways the work could go off track.
Failure mode 01
Everyone imagines a different result.
Cause: the team starts before agreeing what volunteers need to know.
Safeguard: the writer sends a one-paragraph brief and a section list to the coordinator on Monday. They agree the intended reader and essential information before polishing.
Failure mode 02
Feedback arrives after the deadline.
Cause: the coordinator does not see the first draft until Friday morning.
Safeguard: the writer shares a rough draft Tuesday. The coordinator reserves Wednesday for review. If a question remains unanswered, they flag it rather than inventing the answer.
Failure mode 03
The finished file is difficult to use.
Cause: small text or a broken link goes unnoticed on the designer’s screen.
Safeguard: the designer tests the exported file on a phone and checks its links Thursday. A volunteer checks whether the instructions are understandable.
The team begins with the brief because it can expose a disagreement before the writing and layout work grows. They still have to produce a useful guide; the safeguards simply make some avoidable mistakes easier to catch.
What about problems outside our control?
You cannot prevent every disruption. For a dependency you do not control, identify an early warning sign, a fallback, and who needs to know. If there is no practical response, record the uncertainty instead of pretending a checklist removes it.
Put it to work
Your prevention plan.
Use these prompts on paper or print the worksheet. Start with one real project and three plausible failure modes.
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Inversion worksheet
Success Archives · successarchives.com/inversion/
My intended result
What should exist, for whom, and by when? What would count as useful?
1. Failure mode → prevention
Specific cause / safeguard or fallback / owner / date.
2. Failure mode → prevention
Specific cause / safeguard or fallback / owner / date.
3. Failure mode → prevention
Specific cause / safeguard or fallback / owner / date.
My next action and review point
Which safeguard comes first? What forward work continues next? When will I check the plan?
Keep the useful parts
Prevention should support progress.
- Be concrete. “It might go badly” is a worry. “No one has agreed who reviews the draft” suggests a fix.
- Do not treat every imagined failure as equally likely. Use what you know about the project and ask where your assumptions need checking.
- Avoid blaming people. Focus on missing information, unclear responsibilities, dependencies, and weak checks that the plan can address.
- Stop before the list becomes the project. Choose a few meaningful safeguards and return to producing the result.
Attribution
Munger used the idea. He did not claim it began with him.
The speech transcript explicitly refers to inversion in algebra. We present his practical use of reverse thinking, not a claim that he invented inversion. USC’s contemporary announcement confirms his role as the speaker and also describes his emphasis on knowing what to avoid. [2]
The worksheet’s three rows, project example, owner/date fields, and review prompt are our additions. They are a planning exercise, not a proven guarantee of performance or an investing strategy.
Sources & editorial notes
- Charlie Munger’s 2007 USC law commencement address — transcript reproduced by James Clear — see the passage on reversing problems and inversion in algebra. This is a third-party transcript, not USC’s official transcript.
- USC Gould: USC Law Commencement 2007 — the university’s announcement of the May 13 event and Munger’s keynote.
Sources reviewed September 16, 2026. Examples and worksheet are original Success Archives material. Source links are ordinary references; this guide contains no affiliate links.