I Thought It Would Be Bigger

If you've ever been to Paris, you've probably been to the Louvre Museum. Pick a random “top ten things to do in Paris” list, and it'll be there somewhere, along with the Eiffel Tower. And I'm willing to bet that if you've been to the Louvre, you'll also have seen the most famous painting in the museum, the Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci.

I've been to the Louvre more times than I can remember – full disclosure: I used to live in Paris – but I've only seen the Mona Lisa once. Like many other famous “must sees” like the Manneken Pis in Brussels or the Little Mermaid in Copenhagen, it's not something I ever need to see again. Not because it's a bad painting, but because, like the two statues, the reality is a bit disappointing, relative to what I'd expected. So many other things in the Louvre are far more impressive. Yet, if you ever told anyone you'd been to the Louvre and not seen the Mona Lisa, they'd look at you in a strange way, as if to suggest the entry fee had been a complete waste of money.

Which is why, if you haven't yet been, do the touristy thing and see it. And then have a look around you.¹ You'll notice that hardly anyone is paying attention to anything else in the same gallery. Even though there are some stunning pieces of art on display there. Notice how I didn't even bother trying to dissuade you from seeing it. I just accepted that you would. Even though I've told you it's incredibly disappointing, you're going to want to go and see it for yourself.

On any objective level, that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Not that you're ignoring my advice, but that we all feel obliged to see it. But intuitively, we all understand why. Because it's famous, it grabs our attention over anything else. Incidentally, if you want to know why it's famous and what that has to do with Pablo Picasso, then I highly recommend reading You're Invited by Jon Levy,² where he reveals the entire story.

What we're experiencing with the Mona Lisa is something known as salience. When something is “Salient”, it means it is emotionally or physically striking in a way that grabs our attention over other things. Saliency typically arises from the contrast between items and their surrounding environment. That might be a brightly coloured coat against a grey background, or the number 12 in the following sequence: A D E 12 C R W.

S Is for Salient

“Salient” is the most complex of all the elements, which is why it comes last. The principle behind it is that the more salient our employees find what we are asking them to do, the more they will pay attention to it. Conversely, the less salient they find it, the less they will pay attention to it.

Since we only have limited energy capacity, we tend to deploy it on things we deem worthy of our attention. As we saw when we explored the concept of repetition suppression, this is highly subjective. We will pay more attention to things we've never seen before or things that seem unusual, over things we have seen before or seem usual.

Unlike the other elements in HUMANS, “Salient” is not exploring the likelihood of our employees doing what we are asking them to. Rather, it explores the likelihood of us having grabbed their attention. That can be good if we've done it in a positive way, or bad if we've done it in a negative way. Of course, just because we have their attention doesn't mean they'll do what we want them to. But, equally, if we don't get their attention, they won't know what it is we want them to do!

Since salience covers a broad range of dynamics, I thought I'd provide three simple examples of everyday attempts to make things more salient.

Coffee Shop

The first example comes courtesy of coffee chain Starbucks who use personalisation to make something relatively ordinary feel more salient. It happens when they ask you for your name when ordering coffee. By asking customers for their name when they order, they're making the experience more personal. It not only makes it easier to collect drinks – shouting “cappuccino” when you've got lots of people waiting for one is unhelpful – but it is also designed to make people feel like the coffee has been made specially for them. At least, that's what they tell us.

And those occasions when they misspell a name? It's a feature not a bug. In a noisy environment, under time pressure and with different ways you can spell names, let alone the fact there are some names the staff might be unfamiliar with, it is going to happen. Not to mention mischievous baristas who might intentionally mishear and customers who might fancy a name change. When it does, customers will definitely notice and many of them will share it on social media. That's not something you would do, if they got your name right.

Station Announcements

Making things unusual or fun is another way of making them salient and thereby grabbing our attention. In 2018, staff at London's Victoria Station noticed that passengers weren't always listening to important safety messages. So they decided to try something different and two members of staff asked their daughter to record announcements for them. Their idea was that the unusual sound of a child's voice would mean people paid more attention. They were right. Accidents on the escalators reduced by two‐thirds after the announcements were introduced.

During the pre‐Christmas period in 2021, they tried a different voice as part of a sponsored promotion. Singer Mariah Carey – famous for her multimillion selling song “All I Want for Christmas Is You” – asked festive revellers to take care on their way home. They didn't release any information on whether Mariah helped or hindered safety, but she certainly made it more salient.

Weather Forecasts

If like me, you find yourself watching weather forecasts, only to find you've not really paid much attention to what you saw, then there may be a good reason for it. In my case, it's obviously because I'm getting older and have a ridiculously short attention span. In your case, it might be because you're being presented with a lot of information that is sometimes hard to compute.

Usually, we watch a weather forecast for a particular reason. Most often to know which clothes we need to wear, but people with hobbies or jobs that are weather‐dependent will have other reasons. Yet very often the forecast is often overly technical or general in nature. I've lost count of the number of times I've been given a forecast for a big city like London and then gone out, only to discover that there are ten different microclimates I'm going to experience in just a small part of that city. As a result, I tend to pay little attention to the weather forecasts.

Very often, this isn't helped by the fact the weather is presented in terms that make very little sense to me. I can barely cope with temperatures that are presented to me in Celsius, let alone when I see a US forecast in Fahrenheit. So I was delighted to come across something called the “Trash Can Wind Meter”,³ which is used to make wind strength more salient to TV viewers. It does this by using a scale that doesn't require you to be a weather expert. Rather than using “wind force” numbers, the different categories are:

• Lid flipped open.
• Tipped over.
• In the neighbour's yard.
• Down the street.
• I've lost my trash can.

It's salient, because it's very easy to understand, highly actionable, and memorable.

Key Questions

To explore whether our employees are likely to find something more or less salient, we need to consider the following questions; as ever, all are worded from the perspective of the employee.

1. Am I aware of what they are asking me to do?
2. How relevant is what they are asking me to do?
3. How curious/entertained/excited am I about what they are asking me to do?
4. How appealing is what they are asking me to do vs. doing the opposite?