Have you noticed that when we place too much emphasis on efficiency, we sometimes lose our emotional connection with a brand, service, or goal? Airplanes, for example, are now more efficient, yet flying is less enjoyable. Frankly, if you are not in business class, the poor experience is obvious. You may be wedged between two other people, and if they are asleep, getting out to use the restroom becomes an ordeal.
Have you also noticed that planning an international vacation yourself can take more time than booking through a travel agency? You need to find the perfect flight that fits your plans, book the right hotel through lengthy online forms, and navigate a complex visa application process.
We live in a digital world and tend to make everything more efficient. This mindset has also had a significant impact on business, mainly because speed and “scalable” approaches support profitability. We value quality less and repeatedly ask, “Can it scale?” If the answer is no, we simply keep pushing. The internet draws us deeper into this mindset at the cost of emotional experience and stability.
We work ourselves to the bone perfecting product or service functionality, often at the expense of emotional experience.
But the issue extends beyond flying or booking a vacation. We sometimes sacrifice a sense of safety for “efficiency” or the illusion of moving faster.
London's Black Cabs
Parents are understandably cautious about sending their children to school or putting them in a taxi with strangers. If they consider an Uber Pool, many questions may come to mind. The most important is, “Can it be trusted?” Sending a child somewhere with a complete stranger can sound almost unthinkable.
This is not only about putting children in taxis. It points to a broader issue: our subconscious sense of safety and trust. I recently heard Rory Sutherland, vice chairman of Ogilvy & Mather, say on a podcast, “I would rather send my two daughters to school in a black cab than in an Uber.”
Why might that be? Driving a black cab has a high barrier to entry. Applicants must pass the Knowledge test, a process that takes about four years on average—typically two to four years. For most people, that is a significant threshold. From the perspective of “modern thinking,” it is inefficient because modern thinking expects everything to scale. To pass the Knowledge, a driver must memorize 320 routes across 25,000 streets before receiving a license. Drivers must therefore be able to navigate the city without GPS and make immediate decisions based on road conditions.
All of this comes down to how much someone has invested in the profession. We would not allow a surgeon to practice immediately after graduating from college. As others might say, they have “skin in the game.”
One interesting argument is that, compared with other taxi drivers, a black-cab driver is less likely to rob a passenger on the way back from the airport. There is little reason to trade four years of hard work and the effort required to pass the test for the £100 a passenger might be carrying.
To me, this barrier to entry also provides a form of assurance. The person driving knows better than GPS which route is shorter or faster and which places to recommend, because that expertise is central to the job. An Uber driver may appear less professionally prepared because the entry barrier is lower and the required investment is smaller. Of course, some excellent Uber drivers can match or even surpass black-cab drivers.
When barriers to entry give way to “efficiency” and “scale,” we lose the crucial emotional qualities of trust and quality. Whenever you try to make a product more efficient, remember that, in modern thinking, efficiency often means cutting something—including quality, trust, safety, or another essential ingredient of emotional experience.
Electric Cars and the Price of a Better Future
A car brand becomes iconic through sound, design, or both. With nearly all modern cars beginning to look alike—with similar forms and similar shortcomings—the remaining point of distinction is often the sound of the engine and exhaust. Environmental concerns now require every manufacturer to move toward electric vehicles and bring them to market.
Electric cars are enjoyable to drive. They are fast and offer many advantages, but they lose one essential part of the experience: the roar of an engine that sends the driver's adrenaline soaring. Sound is a basic part of everyday life because it provides feedback about what is happening around us. That is why we can listen to a favorite song—or the voice of someone we love—again and again over many years. The same principle applies to cars: some people become excited the moment they hear a particular car. Sound creates an emotional bond with us.
The price of a more efficient, “better” future is that all electric cars sound the same. This not only removes a defining characteristic of the automobile but may also increase the risk of accidents. A University of California, Riverside study found that people had to be 74% closer to an electric vehicle than to an internal-combustion vehicle before they could hear it passing. Another study indicated that electric vehicles were more likely to strike pedestrians, with a 40% higher probability of injury than internal-combustion vehicles—an ironic outcome for a better future.
Should we abandon the idea of promoting electric cars to reduce air pollution? No. Yet at present, the future of electric vehicles seems unremarkable to me. Admittedly, few people notice or ask for anything different. Still, we are losing what we call “nostalgia” and the emotional bond between people and cars.
How LEGO Nearly Destroyed Itself
1990, LEGO's sales were declining. Research suggested that the “digital generation”—men and women born after 1980—sought instant gratification and was easily distracted, which frightened the management team. Nearly every study they conducted indicated that future generations would lose interest in LEGO and lack the time or desire to build complex things.
LEGO almost accepted this conclusion completely and considered making its toys appeal to younger children. The idea was to simplify LEGO bricks so people would invest less effort in building. Fortunately, after executives revisited their “young users,” they realized how badly mistaken they had been.
In one home, they spoke with an 11-year-old about his hobbies and leisure activities. When they asked what made him proudest, the boy showed them a worn pair of Adidas sneakers. At that moment, the research team realized:
Through play and mastery of a chosen skill—whatever that skill may be—children gain social recognition among their peers. If a skill is worth pursuing, they will stay with it until they master it, no matter how long it takes. For children, the point is to invest effort and ultimately show a tangible result—in this case, a worn pair of Adidas sneakers. —Martin Lindstrom, Small Data
On another occasion, a 10-year-old proudly showed how he had completed a model of the Taj Mahal. This made me realize that apparent trends are not always correct. You need to understand real human nature, develop a deep understanding of users, and only then act. If the effort is worthwhile, people do not mind making it.
Imagine what would have happened if LEGO had adopted a strategy of making its products simpler. Players would have lost their emotional connection to the product. In LEGO's case, that experience is created by complex structures, extensive detail, long hours of practice, and the entire journey of trial and error that eventually leads to success.
Overall, efficiency does not always mean better. Products and services depend on emotional or experiential bonds between customers and brands. Emotional connections with products can be formed through different qualities, including safety, speed, and comfort.
Before removing the intermediary, simplifying a product, or adding another unnecessary feature—especially when acting only because everyone else is doing it—ask yourself: Will this create any value for my customers? I mean real value, not an abstraction or an idea on paper, but value in real life, in real homes, and in genuine face-to-face interactions.
