In his first book ‘Alchemy’, advertising legend, Rory
Sutherland, focuses on the challenge of succeeding with nonsensical ideas. Rory
explains why we should let go of logic to enable us to generate better ideas
and solve business problems creatively. Here are 12 secret ingredients of
‘alchemy’:
1. The opposite of one good idea can be another
Conventional logic loves the idea of a single right answer.
This is because, once you’ve come up with the answer, no matter how narrow the
pool of material you’re pulling from, no one can fault you for following the
logic to its conclusion. No subjectivity or unnecessary deviation was involved.
However, this is a potentially disastrous approach if you want to generate fresh
thinking.
Before James Dyson got involved, vacuum cleaners were a
purely grudge buy. A utilitarian purchase that was only necessary if your old
one had died. Logically, it made no sense to reinvent vacuum cleaners as cool
looking high-ticket items. There was no demand for them. However, Dyson managed
to add a degree of excitement to a boring household item and, with that touch
of creative magic, created to one of the most successful products of the 20th
century.
2. Don’t design for average, design for an unmet need
Most models of problem-solving will cause you to come up
with a solution for a single, non-existent, representative individual with lots
of completely average characteristics. This route can send you down a cul de
sac, because it’s impossible to develop something you can be confident a
fictitious person will definitely like. Instead, focus on standout ideas that might
be readily adopted by those with an existing unmet need. Then you can make your
way into the mainstream.
Take the humble sandwich. An 18th century
culinary stroke of genius. The Earl of Sandwich was an obsessive gambler and wanted
his food in a form that wouldn’t require him to leave the card table. Hence,
the mad but simple idea of packing a filling between 2 solid slices of bread. No
need for cutlery or leaving the table.
3. It doesn't pay to be logical if everyone else is being
logical
In Military strategy, logical means predictable - your opponent
knows what you’re going to do before you do. Using logic alone makes it very
likely you’ll land in the same place as everyone else. In a crowded marketplace,
this creates a race to the bottom. Instead, figure out the logic model of your
competitors. Find where their use of it is too narrow and exploit this.
When people want to find a new home in London, they typically
consider their journey to work and start with the tube map. There are 2
problems with this. Firstly, landlords and estate agents also have the same
starting point. Secondly, people forget it’s an engineering schematic and not
actually a map. Instead, look for options near overground railways stations – they’re
likely to be cheaper and the train will get you into central London just as
fast as the tube.
4. The nature of our attention affects the nature of our
experience
An experience isn’t just good or bad as a result of how its
objectively judged. It also depends on expectations. Filling out a form with
your contact details is a drag if you’re completing a tax return, but its quite
exciting if you’re applying for a mortgage.
5. A flower is a weed with an advertising budget
In nature, you can see quite a lot of what seems like
pointless and inefficient behaviour. However, the extravagance of the display
is actually what conveys meaning. If you’re getting engaged, a diamond ring
demonstrates you have skin in the game. Similarly, when you’re getting married,
you don’t create a Facebook event to invite guests. You send out printed
invitations and you make your vows publicly.
When you focus on marcomms as a game of efficiency, you lose
sight of a large part of what makes broad reach campaigns work - namely that they’re
costly to generate, costly to deliver, and messages are displayed
indiscriminately. The evidence points to exactly those things that make campaigns
effective. Trying to make something efficient and trying to make something
effective are not the same thing. Flowers have evolved this way over 20 million
years. We’re still catching up.
6. The problem with logic is that it kills off magic
Albert Einstein was once told by Niels Bohr (Danish
physicist, philosopher and Nobel Laureate) “you are not thinking; you are
merely being logical”. Once you’ve devised what seems like a logical framework for
problem-solving, you’ve created something which is based on very simple rules.
Something which will dictate a single right answer. Unfortunately, where logic
exists, magic cannot.
If you want to improve a customer’s experience of your brand,
logic dictates that you improve the product itself, rather than the perception
of the product. For example, if you need to improve profitability at your
hotel, McKinsey would tell you to cut unnecessary staff, such as a doorman.
However, the presence of a doorman will enable you to charge more per room per
night.
People don’t perceive the world objectively and, assuming
that they do, means you’ll be confined to improving your product by doing
objective things. Context is a marketing superweapon and it works because it
works magically.
7. A good guess which stands up to empirical observation is
still science. It’s also is a lucky accident.
According to the philosopher Paul Feyerabend, who describes
himself as a methodological alchemist, the idea that all worthwhile scientific
discoveries have been made by obeying the strict rules of scientific
methodology doesn’t hold true. Instead, he supports an ‘anything goes’ type of
approach to finding solutions. Why would you let methodological purity restrict
the number of solutions you could produce? We’ve got to learn to be more
comfortable with progress that arises from happy accidents, which is how
penicillin was discovered.
Remember, as Steve Jobs said, to stay hungry and stay
foolish. This is a distinguishable feature of successful entrepreneurs who,
since they don’t have to defend their reasoning behind every decision, are free
to experiment with solutions that are off-limits to others within a corporate
setting.
8. Test counterintuitive things, because nobody else will
Some of the most valuable discoveries don’t make sense at
first, because if they did, someone would have discovered them already. This is
a bit risky, of course - if you have a bonkers idea and it fails, your job may
be on the line. Conversely, trying something rational is less risky. However,
there can be an extraordinary competitive advantage if you create a small space
in your business for people to test things that don’t make sense. The great
value of experimenting outside of the rationalists’ comfort zone is that most
of your competitors will be too scared to go there.
Consider the iPhone, perhaps the most successful and
disruptive product since the Ford Model T. It was not developed in response to
consumer demand or extensive focus groups. It was the brainchild of one
slightly deranged man, who simply didn’t like buttons. The iPhone shows that if
you go a bit mad and experiment, the pearl you find can be a remarkably valuable
one.
9. Solving problems using only rationality is like playing
golf with only one club
Rationality has its uses, but you improve your thinking by
abandoning artificial certainty and learning to consider the peculiarities of
human psychology. In other words, if you make assumptions on what’s important
to people, you’re basing your conclusions on a very narrow view of human
motivation.
For instance, if you are selling a product and you are
defining motivation to buy in economic terms, the solution logically boils down
to either fining people or bribing people. Those are perfectly worthwhile
solutions to behaviour change. Incentives do work. But that’s one golf club
among many. There are lots of reasons why people do the things they do, and
economic incentives only cover a small part of them.
10. Dare to be trivial
Sherlock Holmes tells us that paying attention to trivial
things is not necessarily a waste of time. The most important clues may often
seem irrelevant and a lot of life is best understood by observing trivial
details. No one complains that Darwin was being trivial in comparing the beaks
of finches from one island to another, because his ultimate inferences were so
interesting.
Small things, like optimising a call centre script, can have
an enormous overall impact. So does simply redefining the same action in
different contexts. Typing in your address when you’re filing your tax return
or adding your details to a mailing list feels like a waste of time. Doing
exactly the same to inform the delivery of a new washing machine feels much
more exciting. This is exactly where logical models and the idea of
proportionality fail us; we assume that in a rational and mechanistic system
big changes in behaviour require big inventions. In a complex system, this is
miles away from the truth.
11. If there was a logical answer, we would have already
found it
We idolise logic to such an extent that we are blind to its
failings. It doesn’t help that rational people are everywhere and control
everything, such as in finance team or procurement. When you set logical people
the task to solve a persistent problem, you’re more likely to fail. Your
problem is likely to be logic-proof, because the solution hasn’t yet been found.
There will most likely be a solution, but conventional, linear rationality
isn’t going to find it. These are the problems that hamper government decision-making
and divide politicians. The reason why the problem persists might just be
because no one has been brave enough to try an irrational solution.
12. Dare to look stupid
One of the ways to solve a problem is to ask a question no
one has asked before. There are several potential reasons why a specific
question hasn’t been asked before. One might be because no one has been clever
enough to ask it or, more likely, that no one was stupid enough to ask it.
There are copious amounts of questions that will make you sound incredibly
dumb, but you should never hesitate to ask them. The only reason they make you
sound like an idiot is because there is likely a preconceived, rational answer
to that particular question. But, as we’ve seen, rationality is the enemy of
alchemy.
We deploy more rigour and structure to our
decision-making in business because so much is at stake. However, another
potential explanation is that the limitations of a logical approach are what
makes it appealing – the last thing people want when faced with a problem is a
range of creative solutions with no means of choosing between them other than by
subjective judgement. It seems safer to create an artificial model that allows only
one solution and claim the decision was driven by the ‘facts’ rather than
opinion. What often matters most to those making decisions in business or
government is the ability to defend decisions – regardless of their outcome.
