How novel should your business be?

Transcript

The word “creative” is a word that I hold in high regard.

So, I was surprised to learn that many people, maybe including me, have a subconscious bias against the word creative.

The organizational behavior expert Jack Goncalo, now at the University of Illinois, conducted a study using Harvard’s Implicit Association Test (IAT). This is a tool that is used to assess implicit attitudes towards everything from soft drink preferences to political beliefs.

Because the test assesses implicit bias, it identifies biases that are inconsistent with what a person says. The subjects of this study said overtly that they value creative ideas, but these same subjects that overtly value "creative" ideas would associate the word creative with negative words like “vomit,” and “poison,” and “agony.”

So, why? What explains that?

Goncalo explains that we humans have a bias against novelty because novelty presents risk, and it’s more difficult to incorporate into our brains and our lives. Novelty evokes the sensation of uncertainty, which feels dangerous to our survival.

We are trying to solve a problem in a new way, and our customers’ brains resist that very newness.

The way to thread this tight needle is to FIRST seek to feel familiar to your customer before showcasing your newness. Although you may be proud of how novel your business idea is, what your customer wants is for you to feel familiar.

Do you fall prey to the belief that the more novel your business is, the more compelling it will be?

Remember, don’t oversell your business’s novel-ness. Start with the familiar before you introduce anything novel.