My basic premise is that sometimes we consider all the factors that influence a situation yet overlook how there might be just one factor so important to make all other considerations irrelevant. I’ve called this phenomenon various things – worrying about weaknesses, the harm of the pro-con list, and perhaps most notably, the debate club mentality – but I don’t think I’ve always been very clear.
So, as is the requirement around these parts, when things aren’t clear I whip up an analogy. Imagine ordering a meal in a busy restaurant on a Saturday night. Actually, it’s not just busy, it’s hectic, it’s wild, it’s borderline chaos, and you are a little nervous because you have a diet restriction – no peanuts. NO PEANUTS. Got it? Reader, in this hypothetical, you are so allergic to peanuts that if you go to a baseball game and a vendor walks by yelling – ‘peanuts, peanuts, get yer peanuts here!’ – you start to sneeze and sniffle a little.
Keeping this in mind, you place your order and remind the server – NO PEANUTS. It’s a little busy, you add with a forced smile, and you’d prefer not to make life more difficult by, say, dying at your table during dinner.
No problem, we’ll make sure to keep your dish safe. Can I get you an appetizer to start?
Eventually, the meal arrives. You notice a problem right away – there are peanuts. Truth be told, there are peanuts everywhere, it’s a proper peanut convention on the plate. In fact, for the purposes of making this analogy just outrageous enough to protect innocent identities everywhere, let’s suppose your entrée is actually just a bowl of peanuts, a fact you notice moments before your quickly-shriveling eyes fall out of their sockets (editor’s note: Tim’s grasp on how peanut allergies work is a little shaky).
A few days later, you get an automated email from the restaurant (which you can read, even though your eyes fell out):
Dear valued customer,
Thank you for dining with us on Saturday night. We hope you enjoyed your experience.
We would appreciate it if you took two minutes to fill out a quick survey about your night.
Sincerely,
The Business BroYou open the survey and have a look. It’s pretty basic stuff – was the staff attentive, did you enjoy the environment, were the restrooms clean, and so on. As you look over the criteria, you suddenly realize – everything was perfect. The people were the nicest you’ve ever met, the lighting and décor in the restaurant was spot on, and the restroom was clean enough to serve as a backup dining room. Every single detail, in fact, was perfect and worthy of full marks – ten for ten in each category.
So, what’s been my point all this time when I talk about things like debate clubs? Really, my point is that the survey score you would give the restaurant is a zero. If you understand that, you understand my point (and probably better than I do, actually). If you don’t understand that, you’ll probably want to debate – but Tim, what about the bathroom, you said it was spotless?
I guess the point is – sure, the bathroom was sparkling clean, but there wasn’t anything about the bathroom's cleanliness that mattered once I was served an entire bowl of peanuts.
