Why Leaders Overpromise
The internet overfloweth with click-baity titles that routinely overpromise and underdeliver: "The only diet advice you'll ever need”, "This one little trick will change your life" or "How to triple your productivity in these 3 easy steps."
Why? Well, it comes down to how we make choices:
“People don’t choose between things, they choose between descriptions of things.” - Nobel Prize Winning Psychologist, Daniel Kahneman
In short, descriptions matter. Titles intrigue leads to more clicks (hate the game).
If you’ve ever told your friend a story but first needed to “sugarcoat it” or “church it up a bit”, you’ve also opted into better descriptions. After all, you didn’t accidentally burn the roast; you were merely testing a new caramelization method.
Political and business leaders also understand this, so they’ll sometimes make good-sounding promises in an effort to obtain scarce resources like talent and funding. Wise social behavior, this is not. Yet sometimes competitive circumstances reward this kind of overpromising.
The Problem With Realistic-Sounding Promises
Growing up, schooling teaches us that conclusions are formed like this: you collect facts then analyze and weigh them—only afterwards a conclusion is drawn. This style greatly resembles the scientific method where evidence precedes conclusions. And many decisions are actually made this way.
But being taught to make decisions rationally can lead to over-idealizing how decision-making actually happens. Recall that the scientific method is a relatively recent innovation that bucked the trend.
I used to think that when audiences decided between several proposals that somehow, "The best idea shall emerge victorious”. But an Ayn-Randian fairytale this is not.
“The way we think you have a debate, and then, somehow, the best idea will appear right to everyone. That’s not the way it works. The brain works differently…” - Krista Tippett, On Being Podcast
Your realistic-sounding promises might fall on deaf ears for a number of reasons. They may lack emotional resonance. They can rely too heavily on numbers. Or maybe they convey a sense of doubt from you to the audience when you’re trying to be careful.
On the other hand, skilled communicators may end up playing on vulnerabilities in human psychology to orchestrate better-sounding promises, which may also contain plenty of reasonable points. They’re banking on the most liked description emerging victorious.
Overpromising Can Sound Better
“There is a real social problem that if you realistically present to people what can be achieved in solving a problem, they will find that completely uninteresting. You have to overpromise in order to get anything done.” - Daniel Kahneman, The Freakonomics Podcast
CEOs and politicians often find themselves in situations where audiences may reward overpromising. They may say things like:
“Today for the first time in all the history of the human race, a great nation is able to make and is willing to make a commitment to eradicate poverty among its people” LBJ, 1969
“Read my lips: No new taxes.” - George H.W. Bush
Full Self-Driving Cars by 2019 - Elon Musk
Who doesn’t like the idea of eradicating poverty, low taxes, or full self-driving cars by 2019? But for various reasons, these promises were unrealistic. Yet they were more compelling than their alternatives.
The real goal was to win over voters, capital, talent or to generate enthusiasm which then might culminate in marginal improvements by thus-n-thus amount. But that’s passe.
Roses by Another Name
Meanwhile, back in our Rand-ian novel we might have gotten:
“The goal of my poverty reduction campaign is to reduce poverty by 7.5% percent.”
“If I’m elected President, I’ll work very hard to not increase taxes, but some things are beyond my control.”
“I’ve been busy campaigning and haven’t been able to formulate a plan just yet for how to end the war.”
“Tesla is working towards making partially self-driving cars soon-ish, then perhaps full self driving. It’s difficult to give a timeframe since the science is challenging.”
But society doesn’t want to merely lower poverty by 7.5%, they want to eradicate it. More realistic marginal changes code as less interesting.
Musk The Marketer provides us with more than ones’ fair share of overpromising. His example shows both sides of the coin: big hype yet some degree of execution. Many of his ambitious promises have fallen short (e.g. “1 million robo-taxis by 2020”, “full self-driving cars by 2019”, Promising Tesla Semis by 2019). His date with Mars likely won’t happen either.
But if instead, Musk jettisoned his marketing materials and stated Tesla’s or SpaceX’s realistic ambitions—of grinding out incremental progress on several fronts, that given enough years *might* eventually accumulate into something big—it wouldn’t have garnered the same interest. It’s doubtful Tesla or SpaceX would have obtained the same talent, enthusiasm and funding that helped deliver material results on EVs and reusable rockets.
Overconfident Leaders will Overpromise
“I’d rather be optimistic and wrong, than a pessimist and right.” - Elon Musk
Isn’t society better off, on average, if some of our leaders and entrepreneurs to overestimate their odds of success? It’s not clear that pessimistic-and-right public statements from leaders is the better deal.
Overconfident and optimistic leaders come with some delusions, which brings us to the second reason leaders overpromise. They fail to imagine all the difficulties up front.
Having delusions going into a long and arduous journey is perhaps a necessary prescription. If a crystal ball revealed beforehand all the challenges, exhaustion, setbacks, delays, risks, fraud accusations and the emotional toll that these individuals would face, they might not set out to do the big thing. And in fact, many of these charismatic individuals will ultimately fail along the way as life administers its doses of reality.
Lofty promises do sometimes pan out. In 1962, John F Kennedy said that the US would put a man on the moon by the end of the decade. But it wasn’t immediately clear then that the country watching Sputnik from Earth could quickly turn things around.
Underpromise and Overdeliver: A Wiser Strategy
Everyone overpromising all the time would spell disaster, which Kahneman rightly identifies as a social problem. You couldn’t assess all the claims. Trust would erode.
Besides overpromising being unwise because you tend to lose trust, it also requires the future to play out according to your will.
If you’re someone who wishes to honor your commitments and maintain a solid reputation, you’re probably going to want to default towards “underpromise and overdeliver”. It’s the better long-term strategy. It’s my recommendation for 99% of situations. But don’t forget that when competing against articulate peers for talent, funding or resources, you may be at a disadvantage.
Music to my Ears
This one little secret will massively improve your life: the descriptions you use matter. And competitive situations highlight this dynamic, which can cause leaders to overpromise (although it’s also the case that some overpromise because they’re delusional). Nonetheless, like chemistry needs catalysts, ideas do too.
Author’s Note
“You would think that the visionary sat at one end of the spectrum and the fraudster at the other end of the spectrum, but I think it’s one of those many things where they actually meet in the circle. I sometimes think the only thing that separates them is that the visionary gets lucky and it all works out and the fraudster gets caught in the middle. A lot of visionaries from Thomas Edison through Elon Musk have lied at various points in time and have said things that weren’t true in order to keep their employees and their investors believing in them so they can keep getting the money to fund their dreams.” - Bethany McCLean, The Knowledge Project Podcast
“If somebody offers you an amazing opportunity but you are not sure you can do it, say yes – then learn how to do it later!”- Richard Branson
“...it [overpromising] may be necessary to get the resources. It may be necessary to get the initial enthusiasm that is needed to do anything at all. There is so much inertia that realistic promises are at a major disadvantage. They’re at the major disadvantage because everybody else is overpromising.” - Daniel Kahneman, The Freakanomics Podcast