How we can navigate false value
False value exists as part of our culture and economy. We can ask questions and make choices that limit it.
This is the third post in a series on false value. You can read the first post here and the second post here.
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A friend posited over Diet Coke that most people fell into one of a handful of camps: Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Star Trek, or Superheroes.1
I myself dabble in most of these camps. In the case of Star Trek, I’m a Next Generation and Voyager fan, with the former proffering episodes that often serve as thought experiments to explore different cultural or scientific ideas.
One of the less-hyped inventions in the Star Trek universe is synthehol. According to Commander Data, it's an “alcohol substitute which is now normally served aboard starships. It simulates the appearance, smell, and taste of alcohol, but the intoxicating effects can be easily dismissed.”
The starship crews determined that the negative effects of alcohol outweighed any positive benefits when their lives were at stake, so they stopped consuming it. Yet they missed the social lubrication. Someone came along and created a substance that allowed the crew to experience the value of alcohol without the negative effects — thus ensuring the experience of drinking was firmly valuable.
Our choices drive the value economy. We can solve problems. We improve on what exists. We can create things that never existed before. We can also combat false value by saying no and making a different choice.
I’ve previously defined false value as the exchange for something we believe to be valuable but in fact offers no value. False value causes damage at an individual level, at a business level, and at an economic level. And once it’s metastasized to an economic level, it’s difficult to eradicate.
Difficult, but not impossible.
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Here’s what you can do
Before you can mitigate false value, you must recognize that it exists and understand where it comes from. Then there are five things you can do to help limit it — all of which hinge on asking questions:
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1. Understand what you value and why you value it. Then invest accordingly.
Value has multiple dimensions. What you value, why you value it, how you value it in relation to the other things you value, and how much you value it in different contexts or at different points in time will be unique to you.
As you reflect on these questions, identify the assumptions on which you base your answers. You may find that you’ve changed your mind or that once you unpacked it, that thing you thought you valued isn’t that valuable after all.
Then, adjust how you invest your resources. For example, I determined social media delivered no real value to my life. So I deleted the apps. Moreover, I bought a few more books. These choices shape the value economy as I’m not only signaling what I don’t value, I’m signaling what I do.
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2. Verify information.
Approach information with a healthy dose of skepticism. Do the stats tell you what the article says they tell you? Does everything wrap up in a neat little bow?
Consider the source and their motivations. Does the company publishing this white paper have a vested interest in this problem being a problem?2 Does the expert function as an expert or an influencer (regardless of their credentials)?
And where you can, do your own homework. Try to verify the facts being presented to you, and explore whether the argument holds up under counterargument.
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3. Understand how things work.
More specifically, take the time to understand how the pieces fit together. Tracing the flow of financial resources can often reveal why something works the way it does. It’s also worth talking to (when you can) the real people who participate in whatever you’re digging into. The marketing department has a tendency to frame things differently than the person with their hands in the mud.
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4. Cultivate who and what enters your sphere.
What you feed your mind influences how you think about the world and, in turn, what you value and why. That doesn’t mean only letting in people who see the world the way you do; different points of view serve a critical purpose. It does mean understanding what’s influencing you and how. When you ask for a recommendation or advice, be mindful of who you ask.
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5. Be able to make a case – and adjust based on new information.
Part of what limits false value is the marketplace of ideas. Now that you know what you value and why — as well as what you’ve identified as false value and why — take time to figure out how you articulate that to others when the opportunity presents itself. Remember, just because someone values something you don’t, doesn’t automatically make it false value.
Here’s what businesses can do
Perhaps this is excruciatingly obvious, but it bears repeating: don’t intentionally make your business a source of false value.
Assuming you’re striving to run a value-driven business, you should verify information, understand how things work, and cultivate your influences.3 Here are four additional business-specific things you can do to limit false value:
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1. Understand what the people you serve value.
People invest in your business for something. You need to understand what that something is, why they value it, how much they value it, and how they value it in relation to other things.
You will have to talk to real people. Period. While we need the Steve Jobses of the world to come up with something we never knew we wanted, assuming what the people you serve value means you’re running blind, you believe you know what they need more than they do (which generally makes you an arrogant shithead), or you’re likely manufacturing desire to get them to buy the thing whether it’s valuable or not (*cough* false value).
The people you serve define the value you exist to deliver. Your team, with all their ideas, passions, and expertise, determines how to best deliver it.
The challenge is that sometimes the people you serve don’t know what they value or why, so they give you a mixed signal. Worse, they may even look to you to deliver false value (even if that’s not what you intended to deliver). Developing strong questions and a curious mind will help as you navigate these waters.
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2. Identify false value and leave it in the mix.
Whether the people you serve simply have incorrect information or an attachment to false value, you need to leave that information in the data pool you work with to make decisions. CulturePulse uses multi-agent AI to build digital twins of societies, not only businesses. In my interview with the founders Justin E. Lane and F. LeRon Schults, Justin put it this way:
“Misinformation can be a powerful motivator in human behavior. . . . So why would we possibly want to take that out of the data stream? That creates two problems. One, we're neglecting information that's affecting people's behaviors and we're trying to predict behavior, so we need that information. Two, we end up just spending our time worrying about trying to get to some sort of ground social truth that may not be, and then later evidence might come out that shows that what we thought was misinformation was true information all along, but we took it out of the model so we didn't capture that and have that good understanding.”
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3. Be fully transparent in how your tools work.
Substack recently asserted that it created Notes and the concept of followers to help increase visibility and, ultimately, subscriptions to newsletters on its platform. I choose to accept that statement because the company has been largely upfront about its intentions, and this one aligns with its track record.
They can further avoid manipulation and the creation (accidental or otherwise) of false value by telling me how this tool works. For example, how does their algorithm choose what to show me? What behavior of mine does it track? Are they deploying anything to make me stay on the platform longer or exhibit some other behavior they’ve deemed beneficial?
If you’re manipulating my behavior to help me stick to my goals, maybe I’m okay with that. Still, I want to know that it’s happening so I can determine if it’s helping me to derive value or cultivating behavior I don’t want to exhibit. This applies to technology as well as well as other tools, practices, methods, systems, or approaches that you might deploy.
Bonus: Create an open forum to talk about these issues with the people you serve. It’s a great way to reduce negative effects and false value.
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4. Mind your incentives and your narrative.
Even if your business is not trying to influence or manipulate others negatively, the incentives you set and the narrative you share can be traps for creating false value. Monitor the metrics you choose to associate with incentives or benchmarks for performance. They can easily create negative behavior,4 so be prepared to adjust accordingly.
In your effort to imbue your passion into the story you tell, be mindful that not everything is world-changing or a matter of life or death. Many popular frameworks set you up to overstate, which can put you in the position of creating problems where one doesn’t exist. You must also avoid evangelizing. Yes, stories should engage people. No, stories shouldn’t be a method of brainwashing.
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Making different choices
While false value will likely always exist, we can respond in ways that contain it and even starve it.
Take alcohol. Historically, we dealt with the negative effects of alcohol by shaming those who abused it as a way of socially correcting the behavior. When that didn't work, we decided to tell people they couldn't have alcohol anymore by amending the U.S. Constitution.
It’s understandable that a movement started by women who only experienced the false value of alcohol — namely, their husbands drinking away their paychecks, then coming home inebriated to beat them and their children — would want to eliminate it and turn to legislation to make it happen.
Unfortunately, not only did the prohibition movement fail at preventing the false value associated with drinking, it successfully cultivated the mob.
While we don't have synthehol, we can choose to drink nonalcoholic beverages. For example, Athletic Brewing Company focuses exclusively on nonalcoholic beer. Founder Bill Shufelt noticed that his lifestyle could be described as high-performance, except that he was drinking five or six nights a week. So he stopped drinking. But he felt uncomfortable in social settings and was deeply unsatisfied with the options available because they tasted terrible.
Nonalcoholic beer has become the fastest-growing sector5 of the sluggish beer market, even if it only accounts for a tiny fraction of total sales — and Athletic is the king.6 It remains to be seen if we value a healthier lifestyle enough — and can adjust the broader social expectation enough — to continue to choose nonalcoholic beer. Only time will tell, but we can already see a shift.7
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We can choose the world we want to live in
One of the best things we can do when it comes to false value is to say no. To simply delete our social media accounts, stop playing the slot machines, and drink delicious beer-tasting liquid that has no alcohol in it.
If we don't feed the false value cancer, it will starve and die.
No, it’s not easy. It may require you to go against the social grain. You may even get side eyes. But it’s your life. You choose what gets your time, your attention, and your dollars.
Invest them in things that deliver meaningful value to you.
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I feel like Harry Potter should also be a camp.
That doesn’t immediately invalidate what they shared. Remember, value-driven organizations should be delivering value, which includes solving problems.
What you let into your business sphere includes the role models you point out for your team, the yardsticks and assessments you choose to benchmark yourself against, the skills and methods of education you offer your team members, the articles you recommend, and more.
Goodhart’s Law states, “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.” Read Adam Mastroianni’s excellent article on how that plays out here.
According to the Wall Street Journal article, in Germany, 10% of beers will soon be brewed without alcohol, according to the German Brewers’ Association, and Oktoberfest attendees can hardly taste the difference between a Pilsner and a Pilsner Alkoholfrei.
The Hottest Beer in America Doesn’t Have Alcohol by Ben Cohen in The Wall Street Journal. February 3, 2024.
According to the Wall Street Journal article, Athletic’s business model isn’t solely about replacing alcohol beer. They sell their beer as a complement because, for most people, it isn’t a replacement. As it turns out, 80% of Athletic’s customers still drink, according to the company.