Do you know what Maslow's Hammer is?
And why it matters in business and in marketing?
Yes, the same Maslow as the pyramid.
In 1966, the American psychologist wrote in The Psychology of Science:
If the only tool you have is a hammer, it is tempting to treat everything as if it were a nail.
Maslow's hammer is a cognitive bias (also called the law of the instrument) that leads people to frame problems so their solutions seem to require precisely what we already have at hand.
It is one of the most common business biases, especially when we fall in love with a technology or solution and start there instead of analysing the problem we are trying to solve.
AI, for example, is a great revolution, but it is not always the solution to our problem, and forcing the tool would be a mistake.
It would be like tightening a bolt with a hammer: with enough patience we might manage, but it would take longer and risk injury.
Scientific research also risks using the method we know best rather than the most appropriate one for the specific study.
