On a coast to coast flight. Figured I have enough time to come up with a puzzle.

As always send a personal message for your answer – do not put it in a public place like Comments section in Facebook.

I had heard this problem long time back and was struck by the simplicity of its answer. I am adding a twist to that question here.

You and fourteen more of your team members were having coffee at your office cafetaria one day. Your manager walked up to you and said “I have an interesting problem for you guys. All of you will get an increment if you can tell me the correct answer. I am going to pick a random person ten minutes from now and ask – ‘how many of the team members earn higher than the average salary of the team’ ?”

Now the trick is obviously nobody wants to divulge their own salary to anybody else. And nobody wants anybody to know whether he or she is making higher or lower than the average.

You can assume nobody is earning at exactly the average number.

The team members look up to you to devise a quick, easy and elegant way so that everybody will get that increment.

How would you do it?