The division of attention

Adam Smith’s theory on the division of labour first appeared in 1776, in the Wealth of Nations. The idea was later revived by The Coasters in their late-50s B-side My Baby Comes to Me.

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Well, she go to see the baker when she wants some cake

She go to see the butcher when she wants a steak

She go to see the doctor when she’s got a cold

She go to see the gypsy when she wants her fortune told

But when she wants good loving my baby comes to me

When she wants good loving my baby comes to me.

As the song suggests, rather than dividing his efforts between the supply of cake and fortune-telling, the baker would do better to concentrate on the former.

Similarly, the doctor is better off not diversifying into the provision of ‘good loving’ and leaving that market niche to the narrator, who seems to enjoy a healthy competitive advantage.

What is interesting about the division of labour is not just that it works, but that it works in many different ways. It arises from the simple insight that 10 people, each concentrating on one task, will do a better job than 10 people dividing their time between all 10 tasks. But it also works in other domains.

A butcher can stock a far greater range of meats if his storefront is not cluttered with cakes. On a trust level, meanwhile, a fishmonger will suffer more reputational damage from selling poor fish than a general retailer.

The interesting thing about the division of labour is that it isn’t all about labour at all; it’s also about the division of attention, of reputation, of expectation and of trust.

Perhaps the most important effect of the division of labour is the division of attention, and the effect it has on innovation. If you spend only 5% of your time screwing legs on chairs, it’s not worth inventing an electric screwdriver. If you spend 100% of your time screwing legs on chairs, you dream of nothing else.

Someone who buys something once a year is much less likely to help you innovate or improve your product than someone who uses it frequently. And something that occupies only 0.00001% of your attention is less likely to prompt thoughts of improvement than something that occupies 1% of your attention.

You have to be careful here, obviously. Frequent flyers are very different from infrequent holiday-makers in terms of what they want from an airline or a hotel. However, there is one area in which the frequent users will be disproportionately valuable – in removing irritating aspects from a user experience.

As an example, let me give you several things that drove me nuts when I was a frequent traveller: the hotel practice of trying to take your bags before you had checked in – which I found deeply alarming; completely inconsistent and incomprehensible shower controls; and inefficient queuing systems for the x-ray machines.

Such experiences probably arouse negative emotions in everyone who travels. The difference is that infrequent travellers are much less likely to give voice to their irritation. Something that irks you 20 times a year is perhaps 200 times more irritating than something you only encounter once.

A friend of mine is a great believer in specialist research among unusual users. When he wanted to look for innovations in corn plasters, he recruited a group of dominatrixes. There is no group more eager to help you find solutions to the pain of spending hours in incredibly uncomfortable shoes. 

Rory Sutherland is vice-chairman, Ogilvy & Mather UK

We hope you enjoyed this article.
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