Despite the popularity of the saying, Sherlock Holmes never actually said “elementary, my dear Watson.”
Regardless, we recognize the phrase refers to something which is easily understood – perhaps obvious – even if it seems confusing to others. Referring to the books, Watson is surprised and impressed when Holmes is able to figure out things from hard-to-detect clues, even though Holmes acts like it’s unremarkable.
A classic example happens in A Study In Scarlet when Holmes first meets Watson:
“Observation with me is second nature. You appeared to be surprised when I told you, on our first meeting, that you had come from Afghanistan.”
“You were told, no doubt.”“Nothing of the sort. […] The train of reasoning ran, ‘Here is a gentleman of a medical type, but with the air of a military man. Clearly an army doctor, then. He has just come from the tropics, for his face is dark, and that is not the natural tint of his skin, for his wrists are fair. He has undergone hardship and sickness, as his haggard face says clearly. His left arm has been injured. He holds it in a stiff and unnatural manner. Where in the tropics could an English army doctor have seen much hardship and got his arm wounded? Clearly in Afghanistan.’
The whole train of thought did not occupy a second. I then remarked that you came from Afghanistan, and you were astonished.”
Sherlock Holmes is using inductive reasoning which starts from specific observations to create a broad generalization. Unlike deductive reasoning which starts from a theory and continually tests whether it holds true, inductive reasoning develops the theory solely based on observations. Holmes doesn’t assume someone is guilty or not guilty; in fact, he doesn’t assume anything at all. Holmes looks for patterns to create a hypothesis.
In business and our personal lives, we should follow Holmes’ example and spend more time on inductive reasoning rather than deductive reasoning. This will help avoid jumping to conclusions. When gathering facts, rather than only paying attention to information that confirms our innate biases, we should consider radical open-mindedness.
Of course, all of this takes work and it’s certainly not easy. As Sherlock never said: it’s not elementary, my dear Watson.
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