Your tank brain freakin’ LOVES this saying.
It feels wise. Safe. Fiscally responsible.
It’s also a perfect trap.
I wrote recently about the Einstellung Effect — how our brains get stuck using familiar solutions even when better ones are right in front of us.
This “ain’t broke” mentality is that effect in action.
It’s proven science, and it’s working against you with YOUR buyers.
Here’s what happens: As humans, we build complex workarounds for problems until those workarounds feel normal.
Then we defend them.
The tank brain is ready to go to war for it.
You might catch yourself doing this with your trusty notebooks.
When someone suggests you try a reMarkable tablet or digital solution like Evernote or Joplin (my previous and current preferred tools, in that order), your tank brain instantly responds: “But my notebook system works FINE!”
Does it though?
- You can’t search your handwritten notes
- You can’t back them up
- You can’t share them easily
- You have to manually transcribe important parts or correct OCR eff-ups
- You’re always buying new notebooks and storing old ones
But none of that feels “broke,” only because you’re so used to it.
Notebooks firmly installed. Chip on shoulder.
This is why truly innovative products often face such fierce resistance. Your solution is not even competing with other products on the market.
It is competing with the COMFORT of familiar problems.
There are other powerful status quo biases at work that I explain in detail in I Need That. It’s important to understand them all, to break through effectively.
Action for today: Force yourself to come up with three “ain’t broke” processes in your business or product that are not optimum but you’ve never really thought about improving. (You’re fighting your OWN biases now, so fight hard!) What workarounds have become so normal you don’t see them anymore? Look for things that require rework, where errors are introduced, and at the root cause of recent issues.
Need help identifying your blind spots and understanding biases? Let’s chat about finding hidden opportunities — just tap reply.
Laurier
Product Payoff: When DocuSign launched in 2003, most companies insisted their existing paper signing process “worked fine.” Today, (22 years later!) those same companies can’t imagine going back to printing, signing, scanning, and emailing documents. Oftentimes “not broke” only means “not seriously questioned yet.”