The Difficulty of Being Attractive

Gurcharan Das speaks eloquently about The Difficulty of Being Good (2009, Penguin, New Delhi). I would like to speak about the difficulty of being attractive even when one is good. Indeed, very good.

I should know. Because I'm a shopping cart. I'm so good that these days you will not go back to a supermarket if you don't find me there. But my life wasn't that sexy in my early days. In fact, nobody wanted to touch me when I first appeared on the scene in 1937. You can read the full story of my troubled childhood at http://www.ideafinder.com/history/inventions/shopcart.htm. Here let me give you a brief account.

My creator, Sylvan Nathan Goldman, thought up the wonderful idea of a light, foldable metal chair with two wire baskets and four wheels. He was sure that his self-service customers would rush to embrace me because of the convenience I offered to those who wanted to move groceries from the shelves to the checkout counter. But Goldman was thoroughly disappointed. Young and not so young men wouldn’t touch it – it militated against their macho image. I would have been a perfect choice for young women, especially those with kids. But they wouldn’t touch me either; they found me unfashionable. Apparently I reminded them of prams. Only a few old men and women would use me. That further dented my image and punctured any hope of being adopted by the majority of the shoppers. I would sit forlorn like an unwanted, unappreciated old maid.

But my maker was a smart persuader. When repeated advice to shoppers to use such a wonderful, sensible invention fell on deaf ears, he hired a few models of both sexes and different ages. Their job was to pretend to be shoppers, walk down the aisles, load me with groceries, and check out. At the same time, Goldman also had greeters at each of his shops drawing the genuine shoppers’ attention to these attractive men and women pushing me around and encouraging them to do the same.

That did the trick! Then there was no stopping. There was no going back. I was given several makeovers down the decades. I have been firmly embraced by millions of supermarket shoppers who wouldn’t know what to do without me.

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 The story of the shopping cart’s childhood tells us a lot about the way we get persuaded. We are reluctant to violate conventions and social norms even when we’re convinced about the usefulness of certain things that go against them. Being good is not enough to be attractive. We need to get someone’s recommendation, endorsement before we become emboldened to change our ways and adopt new ways.

What are the lessons for managers who want to introduce change in their organizations?

I would like to hear from you about your experience of both success and failure in introducing change. Have you ever tried out anything the Goldman way? If you haven’t, would you like to try and write about it?