Outsmarting Obviousness
Against the tyranny of split attention and surface-level thinking
Obviousness fallacy is the notion that the options that are most convenient, most popular, and most easy to understand and manage, are the best ones.
By extension, the less convenient, less popular, and less visible options seem riskier, require more effort, and are just generally lower quality in some way.
One example of obviousness fallacy is doing what’s always worked. For example, a movie studio decides to make more movies following the same plots, or source the same or similar talent as the past, because it’s historically always worked. If the new movies succeed, then they believe there’s a causal factor; in reality, they’ve created a self-fulfilling prophecy that excludes many other possibilities.
Another example is when business leaders prioritize projects that promise quick growth and with metrics that are easy and convenient. For example, in marketing, this means focusing on channels instead of a wider strategy. Companies quickly dive into performance marketing methods like paid acquisition and programmatic approaches like search engine optimization, without investing in a brand and positioning foundation, with the hopes of quick returns. It works, until it doesn’t; Airbnb, Birdies, and authors like Ryan…
