Your Business Probably Needs More Holes
Look at a concrete block.
Not exactly a triumph of design.
Grey.
Cheap.
Ugly as hell.
And full of holes.
Which is precisely what makes it interesting.
In 1887, American inventor Harmon S. Palmer patented a machine for moulding concrete building blocks with an opening through the middle.
Over the next seventeen years, he kept reworking both the machine and the blocks it produced.
By 1904, hollow concrete blocks could still weigh between 45 and 68 kilos.
Not ideal when you’re the mason lifting the bloody thing all day.
So Palmer had a problem to solve.
Notice what he didn’t do.
He didn’t invent some miracle lightweight material.
Nor did he make the block smaller.
He simply removed material where it wasn’t needed.
The block got better because there was less block.
In business, we tend to do the exact opposite.
When something isn’t working, our first instinct is usually to add.
Sales are down?
Add a campaign.
Customers are confused?
Add more copy.
The product isn’t selling?
Add features.
People aren’t aligned?
Add a meeting.
The meeting didn’t work?
Add another meeting to discuss why the meeting didn’t work.
More.
More.
More.
We behave as if every problem could be fixed by putting something else on top of it.
Because adding feels like doing something.
Removing feels like giving something up.
Turns out, this isn’t just a business habit.
It’s a human one.
Researchers have tested it.
In a series of experiments published in Nature, people were asked to improve different things.
Given travel itineraries to improve, people were more likely to add activities than remove them.
They added squares to visual patterns instead of erasing them.
Again and again, people reached for more before they considered less.
Then came the experiment that makes the whole thing painfully easy to see.
People were asked to stabilise the roof of a Lego structure so it could support a heavy masonry brick.
They had two options.
Add more Lego pieces, each costing ten cents.
Or remove the single block that was keeping one corner of the roof raised.
The platform would then sit flat on the layer beneath it.
Stronger.
Simpler.
Cheaper.
Yet around 60 per cent still chose the costlier route.
They added.
Which explains an awful lot about the way companies communicate.
When a message feels weak, companies rarely ask what they can cut.
They explain harder.
One more sentence.
One more proof point.
One more adjective.
One more box on the website.
All she needs now is someone to explain what the hell it means.
That’s how Language Debt builds.
Every addition made sense when somebody added it.
Together, they create fog.
The problem isn’t that somebody added something stupid. It’s that nobody took anything away.
Remember the concrete block?
Palmer didn’t ask what else he could put into it.
He asked what could go.
Try the same thing with your message.
What claim can go?
Adding lets everybody keep their thing.
And choices tell people what actually matters.
Sometimes the smartest thing you can add to a business is a hole.
PS. If you don’t know jewellery, know your jeweller. That’s Buffett’s rule. It’s the same with messaging. Smart ideas die in boring words. If you don’t know the game, find a partner who does, because your reputation is on the line. I help you think clearly so you communicate clearly. One story. Across your business. Even when you’re not in the room. That’s clarity for the bold, not the bland.