breaking down 'are your lights on?' chapter by chapter

29 Jun 2025

part 1: what is the problem?

chapter 1: a problem

the famous brontosaurus tower story kicks things off. 73-story building, elevators are terrible, tenants threatening to leave. everyone immediately jumps to solutions: faster elevators, more elevators, outside shafts, whatever.

but the authors stop and ask… whose problem is this actually??

if you think it’s the tenants’ problem, you get solutions like “speed up elevators.” if you think it’s the landlord’s problem, you get totally different solutions like “raise rents so you need fewer tenants” or my personal favorite, “burn down the building for insurance.”

the key insight: the fledgling problem solver invariably rushes in with solutions before taking time to define the problem being solved.

we’re all guilty of this. someone says “the website is slow” and we immediately start optimizing database queries instead of asking… slow for who? slow compared to what? is slow actually the problem or just a symptom?

chapter 2: peter pigeonhole prepares a petition

peter the mailboy organizes a petition about the elevators. landlord ignores it. workers escalate - they show up at his house with picket signs and stink bombs. suddenly his wife gets involved and now it’s definitely his problem too.

this introduces the “walking in moccasins” principle. problems don’t get solved until the pain is shared. when one party feels pain in sync with another, that’s when resolution happens.

also learned: if it’s their problem, make it their problem. peter gets assigned to solve the elevator issue because he started the whole thing. taking initiative means it becomes your problem.

chapter 3: what’s your problem?

here’s where they define what a problem actually is: a problem is a difference between things as desired and things as perceived.

if you want the room at 72 degrees but it feels like 68, you have a problem. doesn’t matter if the thermometer says 77 - if you perceive it as cold, the problem is real.

peter learns this and realizes elevator problems could be solved by changing perceptions instead of reality. so they install mirrors by the elevators. people get distracted checking themselves out and stop noticing the wait.

then vandals cover the mirrors with graffiti. peter’s solution? give everyone crayons to make their own graffiti while waiting.

plot twist: during annual inspection, they find a dead rat jammed in the master relay. the elevators were broken the whole time, not slow by design. when they fix it, elevators work perfectly… but now everyone rushes to the subway at once and the landlord gets trampled to death.

phantom problems are real problems - even if the root cause isn’t what you think, the experience of the problem is genuine and needs addressing.

part 2: what is the problem?

chapter 4: billy brighteyes bests the bidders

billy is a programmer who gets hired to solve a bidding problem. company has sealed bids from competitors and wants to compute 4 million possible combinations to find the optimal strategy.

billy looks at the rules for 5 minutes and solves it instantly with basic logic. the executives don’t believe him because if you solve their problem too readily, they’ll never believe you’ve solved their real problem.

also: don’t take their solution method for a problem definition. just because they want 4 million calculations doesn’t mean that’s actually the problem.

chapter 5: billy bites his tongue

plot twist - billy later discovers the same problem was solved by another company using linear programming packages. cost them $1,400 and took 3 days. his 5-minute solution saved way more money but wasn’t trusted.

lesson: don’t mistake a solution method for a problem definition, especially if it’s your own solution method.

sometimes people want the comfort of a complex, expensive solution because it feels more legitimate than a simple one.

chapter 6: billy back to the bidders

billy realizes the whole bidding situation was probably rigged from the start. if everyone bought the “secret” bids and changed theirs accordingly, then the original bids were just meant to mislead competitors.

this leads to infinite recursion: if i know you know i know you know… it becomes impossible to determine what’s real.

you can never be sure you have a correct definition, even after the problem is solved.

but that’s okay. the real lesson is: don’t leap to conclusions, but don’t ignore your first impression.

part 3: what is the problem, really?

chapter 7: the endless chain

dan the engineer creates a tool to mark precise measurements on paper - aluminum bar with pins that punch holes exactly 8 inches apart. works great until someone sets it down pin-side up and the section chief sits on it, getting two precise holes punched in his rear end.

each solution is the source of the next problem.

they “solve” this by grinding the legs into semicircles so it can’t stand upright. but this probably creates new problems too.

if you can’t think of at least three things that might be wrong with your understanding of the problem, you don’t understand the problem.

chapter 8: missing the misfit

designers create solutions for people they never meet, leading to “misfits” - solutions that don’t match actual human needs.

example: disposable razor blades were great for men who cut themselves sharpening razors, but terrible for wives and maids who cut themselves disposing of the blades. eventually someone invented packages that could hold used blades, but it took years to recognize the disposal problem.

each new point of view will produce a new misfit.

solution: test your definition on a foreigner, someone blind, or a child, or make yourself foreign, blind, or childlike.

chapter 9: landing on the level

shows a circle and asks “what is it?” most people say “circle” immediately. but change the problem statement to “this shows a very unfamiliar object” and suddenly people get creative: “hole,” “hula hoop,” “helicopter landing pad.”

the lesson is about “semantic levels” - we unconsciously decide what type of problem we’re dealing with, which constrains our solutions.

as you wander along the weary path of problem definition, check back home once in a while to see if you haven’t lost your way.

chapter 10: mind your meaning

“nothing is too good for our customers” - does this mean customers deserve the best, or that giving them nothing would be too generous?

words are tricky. the book gives examples of $500k mistakes caused by misplacing “too” in a sentence.

once you have a problem statement in words, play with the words until the statement is in everyone’s head.

they provide a “golden list” of word games: change positives to negatives, change “may” to “must,” replace “and” with “or,” draw pictures of sentences, express words as equations.

part 4: whose problem is it?

chapter 11: smoke gets in your eyes

classroom with 11 non-smokers and 1 cigar smoker. instead of the teacher mandating a solution, they let the students work it out. the smoker voluntarily agrees to stop smoking if everyone brings interesting snacks to share instead.

don’t solve other people’s problems when they can solve them perfectly well themselves.

if it’s their problem, make it their problem.

chapter 12: the campus that was all spaced out

university parking problem. students start parking in the president’s space, he threatens expulsion, they escalate to slashing his tires. meanwhile some faculty take a different approach: try blaming yourself for a change, even for a moment.

instead of “there aren’t enough parking spaces,” they reframe it as “i’m too lazy to walk far” or “i need exercise anyway.” some professors start deliberately parking in the farthest spots and walking for exercise.

if a person is in a position to do something about a problem, but doesn’t have the problem, then do something so he does.

chapter 13: the lights at the end of the tunnel

new tunnel has a sign: “turn your headlights on.” but at the scenic overlook after the tunnel, tourists leave lights on and drain batteries.

engineer considers complex solutions, then just puts up a simple sign at tunnel exit: “are your lights on?”

if people really have their lights on, a little reminder may be more effective than your complicated solution.

this is where the book title comes from.

part 5: where does it come from?

chapter 14: janet jaworski joggles a jerk

janet travels to poland to visit her grandmother. gray bureaucrat claims she’s missing one notarized copy of her paperwork. instead of assuming “bureaucracy is evil,” she asks: where does this problem come from?

could be: attendant lost the copy, she never had it, bureaucrat is incompetent, bureaucrat has different goals, bureaucrat lacks authority to make exceptions.

by not attributing it to “nature” or “that’s just how things are,” she keeps the problem solvable.

chapter 15: mister matczyszyn mends the matter

janet stops treating the bureaucrat like “mr. grayface” and learns his name is jan matczyszyn. turns out he’s human, they bond over family history, and he helps her make a copy for the missing paperwork.

the source of the problem is most often within you.

brutal but true. how we approach people affects how they respond.

chapter 16: make-works and take-credits

some people create work for others, some people do actual work. the book gives an example of a ridiculous memo about comma usage in punctuation reports.

in the valley of the problem solvers, the problem creator is king.

sometimes the “problem” exists just to justify someone’s job. solution: route the memo back with “fascinating concept, let’s discuss” written on it and watch the originator tie themselves in knots.

chapter 17: examinations and other puzzles

students learn to game homework by knowing which week’s material will be covered, then get destroyed on comprehensive finals. but exam problems aren’t from storks - they come from professors with biases and limitations.

who sent this problem? what’s he trying to do to me?

understanding the source helps solve the problem. multiple choice tests can often be solved by analyzing answer patterns rather than doing the math.

part 6: do we really want to solve it?

chapter 18: tom tireless tinkers with toys

young programmer finds a toy company with shipping cost optimization problem. he discovers they could save tons of money by closing two factories and making everything at the most efficient one.

“that’s true, but we can’t accept that solution.”

“why not?”

“because the president lives near the atlantic plant and the chairman lives in kansas city. they wouldn’t move for anything.”

in spite of appearances, people seldom know what they want until you give them what they ask for.

chapter 19: patience plays politics

programmer builds tax assessment system, treasurer complains the total is off by one penny due to rounding. she offers to donate a dollar to the state to cover rounding errors for the next decade.

not too many people, in the final analysis, really want their problems solved.

some problems are more useful unsolved because they justify someone’s existence or provide an excuse for inaction.

chapter 20: a priority assignment

code breaker spends two years cracking diplomatic codes, only to discover they’re just expense accounts. “twenty-three bottles scotch, fifty-nine wine…”

do i really want a solution?

sometimes the solution is so trivial it makes all your effort feel worthless. sometimes solving the problem eliminates your job or reveals uncomfortable truths.

the book doesn’t end with a neat conclusion because that would go against its entire philosophy. instead it just reminds you that problem solving is never morally neutral, and to “thine own self be true.”

the whole point is that there are no perfect problem definitions, no final solutions, and no universal frameworks. just keep asking the right questions and stay suspicious of your own assumptions.

how many times have i built exactly what the client asked for, only to have them realize it wasn’t what they needed? how many features have i added that created more problems than they solved?

sometimes the best solution is to do nothing at all. the elevator in brontosaurus tower worked fine once they removed the dead rat. sometimes the problem really is just a dead rat in the machine, and all the sophisticated solutions in the world won’t help until you deal with that basic fact.