Why does everyone think someone will say something, but nobody does?
How often have we seen a product, service or project announced, and just thought, “What the actual {insert expletive of choice} are they actually thinking?”
The answer often ought to be “Why the {insert expletive of choice} did nobody speak up?”
Well, I’m sure we’ve all been in meetings were the ‘boss’ says “I have a bold new vision”, which lands like a lead balloon, and everyone sits there thinking someone will say something, but invariably nobody does.
That’s called groupthink, and it’s actually one of the most costly biases we come across, because it’s often cited as the reason why biblically bad ideas don’t get killed off, until it’s too late.
And today, Sky has just fallen to this most insidious of biases with it’s new service Halo.
In principal, Halo seemed like a good idea, in practice, somebody should have asked whether it would land as intended. It looks like nobody did. There would have been focus groups, surveys, meetings and discussions, across a number of streams. Nobody, however, put their hand up and said, “Er, pink text and ‘hot girl walks’ might get slammed, don’t you think?”
In classic groupthink style, it appears everyone style, everybody hoped someone else would be that guy… or girl!
Next we’ll see another bias at play, as everyone involved comes out and proudly proclaims they just new it wouldn’t work, that’s hindsight bias!
