Fighting the Instinct to Add

Just about a year ago, I first tread upon the “Less is More” path on this blog. It was early COVID and people were being urged to over-communicate but worried about wearing out their welcome with audiences. I made the point that usually “Less is more” comes from bosses who want to review less copy and hear less complaining about it when they do approve it. Employees were saying—and I believe have been saying—that less is not what they want. They want better. Hence, “Better is more.”

In this week’s The Economist, there is a report about an interesting study in which people were asked to strengthen a Lego structure. They almost always added something, even though the correct answer was to remove some.

Similarly:

Dr Adams conducted a series of observational studies. In one, participants were asked to alter a pattern on a grid of coloured squares to make it symmetrical. Although that could be done equally well by adding new squares or by deleting existing ones, 78% chose the additive option.

In fact, even when reminded of the ability to subtract, people still strongly inclined toward additive solutions.

I suspect this matches your experiences in real life. It certainly does mine.

The point the article makes is that this appears to be a defaut setting, or “cognitive bias,” that we need to be aware of. Put into a communication context, you might be told to increase understanding of the company’s strategic direction. Based on these studies, your first instinct might be to “flood the zone” with messaging—designed to supplement what was already being done.

Whereas here we see a different approach. You might increase engagement with less frequent communication that is more impactful. You can also subtract what isn’t working by replacing it with new messaging—perhaps re-created as something visual—a graphic or a video.

People won’t tire of insightful communication that makes a connection with them, which is a key part of the Resilient5 program. They don’t want less of that. Beware your instinct to default to the “additive assumption.”