“The obstacle is the way.”
– Marcus Aurelius
The ship’s engine failed. The ship’s owners tried one ‘professional’ after another, but none could figure out how to fix the broken engine. They brought in a man who had mended ships all his life. The old man arrived with a large bag of tools and immediately went to work. He scrutinized the engine, top to bottom.
The owners monitored him carefully, hoping he would know what to do. A few minutes later, the old man reached into his bag and pulled out a small hammer. He gently tapped the engine, and it chugged back to life. He put his hammer away and declared that the engine was fixed!
A week later, the ship’s owners received an invoice from the old man for €10,000.
What? The owners exclaimed. “He hardly did anything!”.
So they wrote to the man, “Please send us an itemised invoice.”
The man sent an invoice that read:
The tap of a hammer………………….. $2.00
Knowing where to tap…………………….. $9,998.00
We have all experienced some version of this story: the plumber, the consultant, the therapist. This is an often-overlooked aspect of innovation and new product development. The following stories illustrate the importance of empathy, jobs-to-be-done research and understanding the balance of friction and progress.
Betty Crocker – Egg on Your Face
In the 1950s, General Mills’ “Betty Crocker Cake Mix” offered a quick and effortless solution for creating delicious homemade cakes. “Just Add Water” to effortlessly bake a cake without all that measuring and mixing. The convenience factor seemed irresistible. Surprisingly, despite its promise of simplicity, the initial sales of the mix were disappointing. The product bombed.
Advertising Take 1 (a somewhat misogynistic ad, typical of the era).
General Mills engaged a team of psychologists to reveal the true resistance to the breakthrough product. They realized that by making the process too convenient, they had unintentionally undermined the consumers’ sense of personal involvement and achievement. It was a little too convenient, so the company strategically decided to revise the recipe. They introduced some friction, the requirement to add an egg to the mix, thereby necessitating a small effort on the part of the consumer. This seemingly minor alteration had a remarkable impact on consumer reception. Suddenly, people felt more engaged in the baking process. They could take pride in contributing their personal touch to the final product. Sales soared.
Advertising Take 2 (notice the virtue of the egg).
The concept of the paradox of convenience extends beyond baking mixes. It resonates with various industries and products. One of the surprising first-hand stories I learned comes from a previous guest on The Innovation Show, Friederike Fabritius.
The Miracle Drug Nobody Wanted
Friederike was part of an elite four-person consulting team hired to travel to the pharmaceutical company’s headquarters. A multinational pharmaceutical company struggled to launch a thrilling new product—a pill as effective as chemotherapy against cancer, with fewer side effects. This pill did not cause hair loss, vomiting, severe anaemia, and other chemotherapy reactions. It saved patients from spending hours tethered to an IV. Surprisingly, cancer patients consistently chose chemo over the new pill in prelaunch marketing tests despite these benefits. Nobody wanted this breakthrough drug.
Here’s what Friederike and her team uncovered. Patients didn’t trust the pill because it didn’t have side effects. Why? It turned out that suffering through chemo made patients feel like it was working. They didn’t trust the pill—precisely because it has fewer side effects. Subconsciously, patients viewed chemo’s side effects as a reassuring indication that they were taking the most potent medicine to fight their cancer. Getting ill from chemo was the price they expected to pay for regaining their health.
Armed with this insight, the pharmaceutical company decided to make the pill bigger and emphasise how unpleasant the (few) side effects were and how uncomfortable the pill was to swallow. The company’s sales team was instructed to tell doctors to emphasise these factors to their patients. The miracle drug nobody went on to become a top-selling product.
Even though it doesn’t make sense on paper, sometimes, the obstacle is the way.
Thanks for Reading
This week we have three episodes: “The Game of Innovation” by David Cutler. David talks about constraints in innovation in his book “The Game of Innovation”. The winner of that book is Andrew M, a paid subscriber (thank you). Paid subscribers of our Substack have 3x chances to win (plus extra content and more).
We also caught up with the founder of Hogan Assessments, Robert Hogan, who pioneered using personality assessments to detect good and bad leadership potential.