The Doorman Fallacy

The Doorman Fallacy

When something is reduced to its most visible element.

There is a famous story about a doorman at a renowned London hotel. The story revolves around the fact that the hotel wanted to fire a doorman in order to save some money. This seemed to be the quickest and simplest solution to achieve their primary goal.

So, the hotel management made the decision and informed Human Resources, which terminated the employee’s employment at the end of the month.

But a few weeks later, complaints began to surface. Guests were left standing in the rain waiting to enter, or were unable to hail a taxi as quickly as would be desirable for such a prime location.

Everything had gradually become much colder.

Rudy Sutherland argues that this is one of the worst mistakes that can be made by businesses in the so-called modern world.

The hotel management assumed it could define the employee’s duties as simply “someone who opens doors,” since that was precisely his job title and the reason he had been hired in the first place. They considered only the job description of the position that was to be eliminated: Doorman—someone who opens doors.

But in reality, his role was much more than that. I would even say that this function was almost secondary among so many others that stood out and that, in practice, had far more influence and importance than what was stated in the “formal” description of his job title.

He welcomed people as they arrived, or greeted those leaving in the morning to go for a walk or visit museums, or bid them farewell with a warm “We hope to see you again soon” when he noticed they had just checked out. He received letters and packages for other departments and reduced the mail carrier’s wait time at the front desk. He would ask taxi drivers to wait a minute, since the guest was almost finished being assisted by the receptionist, or had simply gone to the lobby restroom to freshen up and was almost back. He was the one who remembered and greeted long-term guests by name.

“Doorman” had indeed been the title given to him on his first day of work, but over the years, his contributions went far beyond the duties described and for which he had been hired for that job.

Sutherland calls this phenomenon the “doorman fallacy,” and it occurs when we define a job by its most visible elements, ignoring or neglecting everything else about it.

If a company fires a receptionist because “anyone can answer emails,” it is actually also letting go of someone who can remember the names of clients’ children or the personal struggles some clients are facing.

If a company closes a branch or a local representative office because it stands to gain substantially from implementing and developing an online sales app or an automated customer service system (using artificial intelligence, for example)—which costs a fraction of the employees’ salaries and the monthly rent for the physical space where that branch is located—it ends up neglecting an individual’s ability to make small talk.

In this way, the “Doorman Fallacy” is much more than just a business strategy. It’s about the latest obsession with metrics—the tendency to do away with anything (a facility, a structure, or an employee) that can’t be justified on a spreadsheet.

This is when metrics are confused with what we cannot immediately understand or measure.

But virtually all jobs and interpersonal and professional relationships are much more than what can be perceived. And it’s a crazy choice to reduce a person to nothing more than a set of numbers or business objectives.