74 ◾ A Factory of One
each day. That paralysis impedes flow and wastes a significant
amount of time.
Sheena Iyengar, a professor at Columbia Business School,
conducted a famous experiment in which she showed the
effects of having too many choices.
15
She put jars of jam on
tables in a supermarket—different flavors in groups of 6 and
24—and offered samples to shoppers. She discovered that the
table with 24 attracted more visitors, but the table with 6 jams
prompted a greater proportion of people to buy (30% of those
who stopped at the 6-flavor table bought a jar, while only 3%
at the 24-flavor table made a purchase)—a 10-fold difference
in action.
The problem, as Iyengar pointed out, is that when con-
fronted with too many choices (she believed that ...