The Obvious Answer Ends The Party

Every guest at a murder mystery dinner gets handed a reason to be guilty. A little booklet, a character, a secret, a grudge against the victim that would look terrible in front of a jury. The kit is built so nobody at the table comes out clean, because a table with one obvious suspect is a very short dinner.

We just did one with the crew from the bar. These are people who read strangers for a living. From across the room they can tell who is celebrating, who is stalling before going home, and who wants to be left alone with a stout. They brought every ounce of that to the table, and before long a nice meal had turned into a deposition with appetizers.

Theories arrived with footnotes. Alibis got cross-examined between bites. Every motive needed a second motive to hold it up.

Then the reveal came, and it was the obvious one. The character the clues had been pointing at since the start. The one we had all walked right past because it felt too easy. (Picture a beertender patting down every pocket for the opener clipped to their own belt loop. Now seat the whole crew at one table.)

We hadn’t missed it. We had passed on it.

The obvious answer ends the party. Say the plain name in round one and dinner is over by eight. The arguing was the fun, and the complicated theories were how we kept the band from packing up. A clever theory also makes the person telling it look clever, while saying the plain name out loud makes you look like you skimmed your booklet.

Work runs the same game, except nobody has to write the red herrings for us. We bring our own.

A campaign comes in soft and the room fills with theories. The attribution is lying. The audience drifted. The algorithm changed on a Tuesday. Somebody brings a slide about creative fatigue. Meanwhile the obvious answer sits at the end of the table with its napkin in its lap… the offer wasn’t very interesting, or nobody could tell what we were selling.

A complicated theory gets you another meeting. The obvious answer gets you a to-do list, and that list usually has the room’s own name at the top. At dinner the obvious suspect was a stranger in a booklet. At work it tends to be us.

Customers make it stranger. When people walk away from something, they usually tell you why in plain words. Too expensive. Didn’t get it. Broke the second time. A smart team hears that and goes digging for the real reason, as if the customer had handed over a decoy. (I say this as a guy currently up to his elbows in survey crosstabs, convinced the good stuff lives three questions deep. It might… but I should still read the first answer like it’s true.)

So let the obvious answer go first. Say it out loud before the interesting theories get their coats off, then try to kill it. Sometimes it dies and the nuance earns its chair. Often enough to be embarrassing, it’s the last one standing. And if you run the room, make the plain answer cheap to say. A team that only gets applause for clever will hand you clever, and your customers’ boring complaints will die somewhere between the counter and the conference room.

We had a great night. The wrong answers were the best part of it, and at dinner that’s exactly what they’re for. At work they cost more, and they cost in the most comfortable way there is.

They feel like thinking.

Stay Positive & Check Your Own Belt Loop