Do You Add Instead of Subtract?
Strategic Cognitive Biases on Sundays, part 3
When Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1997, he began with a big cleanup.
Jobs cut all of the desktop models except one.
He scrapped all portable models back to one laptop.
He ditched all the printers and other peripherals.
He cut out virtually all manufacturing, moving it offshore to Taiwan.
It was not what the Wall Street analysts had expected. But this business strategy proved to be correct.
When our strategy fails, our first gut reaction is to add, not subtract.
We add new products and employees.
We ramp up advertising pressure on customers.
Scientists call it ‘additive bias.’
In a paper titled “People Systematically Overlook Subtractive Changes,” researchers found that people systematically default to searching for additive transformations and overlook subtractive transformations.
We believe that more is better.
It comes from our basic need for safety.
Another study states that 67% of people have plenty of clutter at home but refuse to get rid of it in case they might need it again…
