I recently came across something called Brandolini’s Law. It was first stated in 2013 by Alberto Brandolini, an Italian software engineer, and it says that the amount of energy needed to refute bullsh*t is an order of magnitude greater than the energy required to produce it. It’s also called the Bullsh*t Asymmetry Principle. Mr. Brandolini is hardly the first person to notice this. Winston Churchill is often credited with having observed that “a lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.” (In a beautiful irony, it seems that this attribution itself is BS. The remark was probably made by Cordell Hull, FDR’s Secretary of State, but people continue to credit it to Churchill.)
If Brandolini is correct that accurate information is at a fundamental disadvantage to nonsense, this has significant implications to market research. I often find that one of the most important priorities I face when conducting research is avoiding jumping to conclusions. I know my clients struggle with this as well. It’s unsurprising that this is a challenge. We are pattern seekers by nature, and so we look for explanations when presented with data. Humans are also naturally uncomfortable with not understanding something, and will sometimes prefer a bad explanation to no explanation. From an evolutionary standpoint, these traits have clear value. However, in this modern world, they don’t often serve us well. And exacerbating that problem is the fact that we’re usually under pressure to deliver findings and implications as quickly as possible—often on the spot.
With market research, rushing to judgement can work against you—particularly in the case of qualitative approaches, which allow us to watch findings accumulate over time. If you’ve ever sat in a focus group back room, or observed an online bulletin board, you’ve had the opportunity to see data be created in real time. Not only is it important to resist drawing conclusions before all the information is in, but, once you do have the data, it’s wise to give yourself some time to mull things over – psychologists call this ‘consolidation’ – before forming opinions. Doing so too hastily can lead to poorly-thought-out implications and unsound recommendations. And once these flawed ideas are articulated, they can spread like wildfire, and abandoning or revising them after the fact is nearly impossible – hence Signore Brandolini’s observation.
So, here are some practices I follow to avoid this problem:
-
I make a point of distinguishing very clearly in my own mind between the tasks of determining what I have heard and considering what I think it means.
-
While I’m conducting research, and for at least a few days afterward, I restrict myself to the first task, and hold off on the second. I strongly encourage my clients to do the same.
-
I’ll often schedule a debrief call with clients a few days after the research, the express purpose of which is to allow ourselves to engage in the second task.
-
I consciously give myself permission to change my mind about things in the days following the research.
-
I also strongly encourage all members of the research team to disagree with each other and me. As George Patton used to say, “If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn’t thinking.”