The Spirit of Kaizen: Creating Lasting Excellence One Small Step at a Time

by Robert Maurer

OBSTACLE 5: LOOKING FOR ANSWERS IN THE WRONG PLACE In 2010, David H. Freedman wrote an article for Discover, “Why Scientific Studies Are So Often Wrong: The Street-light Effect.”1 It’s based on the old story of the man who is crawling around underneath a streetlight. A policeman comes up to the man and asks him what he is doing. “I’m looking for my keys,” the man replies. And then he points down the street and says, “I dropped them over there.” The officer is puzzled. “If you dropped them over there, why are you looking for them here?” The man believes the answer is obvious. “Because the light is better here,” he says. Freedman points out that we can all be like the man in the story; we all tend to look for answers in the places where the looking is easiest. I’d add that when our goals feel too difficult to reach, we try to distract ourselves by solutions where we are, relatively, more comfortable. Sometimes we even forget what our real goal is.