The Refs Are Out to Get Us...
Hanlon's Razor, my version of it, and what to check before you blame someone
A champion racehorse disappears just before a big race, and the horse's trainer is found dead on the moor with his skull caved in. That's the setup of "Silver Blaze," a Sherlock Holmes story Arthur Conan Doyle published in 1892 (Doyle, 1892).
The police have a suspect almost right away. A stranger named Fitzroy Simpson had been hanging around the stables asking questions about the horse. He made his living taking bets on horse races, and his cravat was found in the dead man's hand. Motive, opportunity AND evidence!
Holmes wasn't buying it. His best clue was something that DIDN'T happen. The Inspector asks if there's anything else he'd like to point out, and Holmes says "To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time." The Inspector says "The dog did nothing in the night-time." And Holmes answers "That was the curious incident."
A stranger walking into that stable at midnight would have set the dog off and woken up the stable boys. The dog stayed silent, and Holmes concluded "Obviously the midnight visitor was some one whom the dog knew well."
It was the trainer, John Straker. He'd led the horse out onto the moor to nick a tendon in its leg so it would come up lame and lose (he was deep in debt from a secret second life). He struck a match to see what he was doing, the horse panicked, kicked him in the head and ran off. When Holmes finally reveals the killer to the owner, he says "The real murderer is standing immediately behind you."
It was the horse!
There WAS a crime in that story (Straker was fixing a race)… it wasn't murder.
Sound familiar? If you've ever been sure a parent, a staff member or the school down the street was out to get you… that's the police's mistake in that story, and it's an easy one to make at a school.
Occam's razor
Holmes never calls it Occam's Razor, but that's what he's using. The idea is named for William of Ockham, a 14th-century English friar, and it usually gets quoted as "entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity"… which is a fancy way of saying the simplest explanation that fits all the facts is usually the right one.
Funny thing, Ockham never wrote that sentence. A logician named W. M. Thorburn went looking for it in 1918 and traced the famous wording to a 17th-century writer, John Ponce, not Ockham (Thorburn, 1918). Ockham got the credit for somebody else's wording for almost three centuries (an honest mistake, I'm guessing… old quotes are rarely attributed right).
Hanlon's Razor…
I love Occam's Razor… but I love Hanlon's Razor even more. The version most people know goes like this:
"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."
Here's MY version:
Don't attribute malice or conspiracy when laziness or incompetence can better explain it.
Hanlon's Razor lets me see what's actually happening, and I don't walk around feeling like people are out to get me (when they probably aren't).
I changed three things.
1. I added "conspiracy"
Hanlon's version is about one person being mean on purpose. The stories we tell ourselves at a school usually have a GROUP in them – "the parents are talking," "the staff is against me," "the school down the street is going after my families."
Why do we jump there? Douglas, Sutton and Cichocka reviewed the research and found people are more likely to believe conspiracy explanations when they want to understand what's happening, feel safe and in control, and feel good about themselves and their group (Douglas et al., 2017). A bad enrollment month hits all three at once (which may be why it feels so personal).
Evelyn Rosset found that adults tend to read accidents as done on purpose, especially when they have to decide fast – she called it the intentionality bias (Rosset, 2008). A cancellation email comes in, you react fast… and "on purpose" is usually the first thing you think.
A real conspiracy needs several people to agree on a plan and keep it secret. When the Iowa caucus results app failed in 2020, conspiracy theories that the election was rigged spread fast (O'Rourke, 2020). The party blamed a coding issue in the reporting system, in an app that had not been properly tested statewide.
At your school, ask who would all have to agree to the plan and keep it secret. The longer that list gets, the less likely it's a plot.
2. I split "stupidity" into laziness and incompetence
Incompetence and laziness can look the same from the outside, but the fix for each one is different.
Incompetence means they CAN'T do it (yet). They don't know the script, or they've never been trained on the phone. The fix is training.
Laziness means they CAN and didn't. At a school a lot of what looks like laziness is a missing system – nobody owns the task, there's no deadline, or nobody checks. The fix is the system (and then the conversation about expectations).
Two business partners I worked with were exhausted, and about two thousand a month was slipping out of their billing. They weren't lazy – they both did a little of everything and finished none of it. I told them nobody owned anything cleanly. One person takes sales end to end, the other takes marketing end to end, and you stop reaching across the line to "help."
The label changes how YOU feel about the person. Bernard Weiner's work on attribution found that when we think someone failed because they didn't try (something they controlled), we tend to feel anger, and when we think they couldn't (lack of ability), we tend to feel sympathy (Weiner, 1985). Pick the wrong label and you'll walk into the conversation angry at someone who needed training.
3. "Better explain" instead of "adequately explained"
Hanlon's version says if stupidity CAN explain it, don't assume malice. With my version you ask which explanation fits the facts better. That's a probability question, and sometimes malice does win. Check the more likely explanations first. If malice still fits best, it may be malice.
Where Hanlon's Razor came from
The idea is more than 200 years older than the name.
| Year | Who | What they wrote |
|---|---|---|
| 1774 | Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther | "misunderstandings and neglect occasion more mischief in the world than even malice and wickedness" |
| 1812 | Jane West, The Loyalists | "Let us not attribute to malice and cruelty what may be referred to less criminal motives" |
| 1896 | H. G. Wells, The Wheels of Chance | "There is very little deliberate wickedness in the world. The stupidity of our selfishness gives much the same results" |
| 1941 | Robert A. Heinlein, "Logic of Empire" | "You have attributed conditions to villainy that simply result from stupidity" |
| 1980 | Robert J. Hanlon, in Murphy's Law Book Two | "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity" |
Goethe blamed misunderstandings and neglect, and Jane West pointed to "less criminal motives" – neither one said stupidity (Goethe, 1774/2001; West, 1812/2006). Neglect is a lot closer to my laziness-or-incompetence version than to Hanlon's. Wells said nearly the same thing in 1896 (Wells, 1896/1998), and Heinlein even gave the mistake a name, the "devil theory" (Heinlein, 1941).
The version with the name came from a contest. Arthur Bloch asked readers to send in new laws in the style of Murphy's Law, and Robert J. Hanlon of Scranton, Pennsylvania sent in the one that stuck (Bloch, 1980). Computer programmers passed it around for years and it ended up in the Jargon File, their dictionary of hacker slang, which at one point suggested "Hanlon" might be a garbled "Heinlein" (Raymond, 2003).
He was not. He was a real guy from Scranton… and that's about all anybody seems to know about him. Programmers assumed his name was a typo… which is kind of funny for a guy whose whole rule was about not jumping to conclusions!
The time I was the stupid one (ok not the only time)…
I remember one time when I had a vendor do a direct mail piece for me. I paid $3,500 for the ad (in 1998… that would be about $7,200 today), and I was supposed to get one mailed to me as part of the run... days went by... no postcard.... more days... no postcard... I called him (and he was always responsive on the phone) and no answer... left a message... called... left a message... called.... For 2-3 days I was pretty calm, and then I started thinking "That %$$%^^ took my money and didn't do anything!" "He's probably off to Hawaii taking a vacation!" and other thoughts with much more colorful language (think Billy Butcher in "The Boys," or even more colorful than my wife's cat uses – see his book with all his swearing, The Devil Gets Fed Twice A Day).
Finally, I got a call and started yelling at him... when I finally said "And why didn't you return my call?!" he said sheepishly… "I am really sorry Mr. Moody. My wife was in the hospital. She has stage 4 cancer and I didn't want to leave her during the treatment." Then he said "I'm really sorry about that – here's the address I have for you..." and the address... that I GAVE HIM... was wrong (I looked it up and sure enough it was wrong on the paperwork I sent him)... Who was the stupid one now? And who was a big jerk? (OK we all know, but don't answer that.)
A few days after that, calls started coming in (pre-internet, when people would actually speak on the phone), and it was one of the best ROI campaigns I ever ran... in fact, even more important, I still have some of the students from then (now Black Belts) training with me!
Lee Ross called what happened in my head those 2-3 days the fundamental attribution error – we explain other people's behavior by their character and underestimate the situation they're in (Ross, 1977). When the postcard didn't show up, I decided the vendor was a crook… and I never checked MY paperwork.
Hanlon's Razor at your school
| What happened | The malice story | The more likely explanation | What to check first |
|---|---|---|---|
| A lead never got a call back | "The front desk doesn't care about enrollment" | Nobody owns the lead list (laziness, meaning a missing system) or they're nervous on the phone and don't know what to say (incompetence) | Who owns new leads, what's the deadline, and have they been trained on the call? |
| An instructor is late again | "They don't respect me" | There's no reminder and no consequence, or a school or work schedule changed and nobody asked | Ask what changed, then set the start time and what happens when it's missed |
| A family stopped coming without a word | "They don't care about their kids" | A schedule change, money, or embarrassment that their kid is behind… and nobody called after the first missed class | Did anyone call after one missed class? |
| Two parents complain in the lobby | "They're organizing against me" | Two parents had the same bad experience and talked about it (that's what parents do) | Fix the experience, then talk to each family one at a time |
| A vendor bills you twice | "They're padding the invoice" | A billing software error or a duplicate entry (you've had it happen if you've been open long enough) | One email with both charges attached |
| Another school's ad looks a lot like yours | "They're copying me on purpose" | They may have hired the same marketing company or bought the same template (by the way, just about all Republican and Democrat emails asking for campaign money look exactly alike!) | Check where the ad came from before you call anyone |
| Most of your intro appointments never show | "These leads are junk" | Nobody spoke to those families after they set the appointment (an owner I talked to had a 14% show rate! UGH!) | Text a personal welcome video when they book, then call, text and email the day before and the day of (maybe mail, etc…) |
| Leads "dropped" this month | "The marketing company is ripping me off" | You're comparing against a different campaign that was shut off (another owner did this, and their website leads were up year over year) | Compare the same source to the same month last year |
| A parent "ignores" your emails | "They're avoiding me" | Your email is in their spam folder, or they only read texts | Call them! |
Most of the fixes are a system – somebody owns the task and somebody checks it. When a family wants to leave, make the phone call (see my article on the cancellation conversation for how to have it (Moody, 2026)).
The refs are out to get us
Like every sports fan, as a Phoenix Suns fan, I have suffered through many games where I thought the refereeing was biased. Last season we (well, the Suns did, but that's how crazy good fans talk) traded for Dillon Brooks, who is famously hated by everybody except his team… in fact, his nickname is Dillon the Villain (my wife, a more rabid Suns fan than I am, HATED Dillon and now she's reluctantly liking him... I guess that means the secret to her liking me better is to score points for the Suns).
Dillon gets a LOT of technical fouls (for non-basketball people, that's when you act up, yell at the refs, etc...). In fact, he led the league in technical fouls! Of course, we Suns fans are saying "The refs are out to get us! That wasn't fair!"... the same Suns fans (especially my wife) who the season before yelled "Kick that guy off the court! That was a tech, Ref!"... whenever she saw "the Villain" play. In either case the fans are sure the refs are conspiring against us, rather than acknowledging that being a ref is hard and they're going to miss some things. It's impossible to get all the calls right, so it doesn't even rate as incompetence (well, most of the time). But it's an example of where conspiracy or malice certainly don't explain anything, even though fanatics are 100% sure it's happening. Ok, that said, I am positive the refs are against the Suns!!!
Fans have been doing this for a long time. After a rough Princeton-Dartmouth football game in 1951, Hastorf and Cantril showed the same game film to students from both schools. The Princeton students saw the Dartmouth team commit about twice as many infractions as the Dartmouth students saw. Same film. The researchers concluded the two groups saw two different games (Hastorf & Cantril, 1954).
Your staff, your parents and you do the same thing (I do it every Suns game) – each side sees the calls that go against them.
When it really is malice
Volkswagen put software in its diesel cars that detected emissions testing and turned the full emissions controls on only during the test. The EPA issued its first Notice of Violation in September 2015 (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, n.d.).
Wells Fargo employees opened more than two million deposit and credit card accounts that may not have been authorized by customers, and the regulator said they did it to hit sales targets and earn bonuses (Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, 2016). The bad behavior was real, and the people who set those sales targets and bonuses helped create it (something to think about the next time you set a staff bonus).
I've seen it closer to home too. We had a member start instigating complaints, recruiting other members and threatening vendors. The original complaint was small. The recruiting cost more than the complaint ever could have, and it kept costing while we were deciding whether to address it. Handle that one directly and early.
What makes malice more likely? Three signals:
- It keeps happening after you fixed the system. If it happens again after you've trained them and set up a clear process, it's more likely a pattern than a mistake.
- Someone profits from it or recruits others into it. Cash that doesn't match the deposit, an instructor steering students somewhere else, or one member rallying the others.
- Someone is hiding it. Most mistakes are sloppy and out in the open.
Even then, check the facts before you decide.
Why I'd rather lean away from malice and conspiracy…
Some people lean hard toward malice and conspiracy (you probably know a few… every late payment is a scheme to them, and a missed call means you're purposely being ignored). I'd rather fall on the other side. I'm happier, and I spend my energy looking for solutions and ways to help (which usually leads to a better situation).
I understand the value in leaning toward malice and conspiracy… if you assume the worst, you're protecting yourself against getting hurt. You'd make decisions like firing someone or cutting a person out of your life. Sure, that'd protect you, but you might also miss an opportunity to fix things or build a relationship.
When Douglas and her colleagues reviewed the studies, they also found that believing in conspiracies doesn't seem to give people the understanding or control they're after… for many people it may be more appealing than satisfying (Douglas et al., 2017).
Reading bad intent into something that could go either way even has a name – hostile attribution bias. A review of 41 studies with 6,017 kids found a consistent link between that bias and aggressive behavior (Orobio de Castro et al., 2002). That's kids, so applying it to school owners is my extrapolation.
Summary
| Part of the rule | What it means | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Malice | They meant to hurt you | Rarely the best explanation – check the others first |
| Conspiracy | Several people planned it together | Ask who would have to agree and keep the secret |
| Laziness | They could and didn't | Build the system – an owner, a deadline and a check |
| Incompetence | They couldn't (yet) | Train it |
| Better explain | Which explanation fits the facts best | Look for patterns, profit and hiding before you decide it's malice |
| Why bother? | You see what's actually happening | You're less likely to walk in angry, you spend the time fixing it, and you'll probably be happier |
Next time you're sure somebody's out to get you, look for laziness or incompetence first. If you're wrong, you're taking a risk of getting hurt, but you're also choosing the chance to make things better. This week, take ONE row from the "Hanlon's Razor at your school" table and find out who owns it at your school… and you can always reach out to me.
References
Bloch, A. (1980). Murphy's law book two: More reasons why things go wrong! Price/Stern/Sloan.
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. (2016, September 8). Consumer Financial Protection Bureau fines Wells Fargo $100 million for widespread illegal practice of secretly opening unauthorized accounts [Press release]. https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/newsroom/consumer-financial-protection-bureau-fines-wells-fargo-100-million-widespread-illegal-practice-secretly-opening-unauthorized-accounts/
Douglas, K. M., Sutton, R. M., & Cichocka, A. (2017). The psychology of conspiracy theories. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 26(6), 538–542. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721417718261
Doyle, A. C. (1892, December). Silver Blaze. The Strand Magazine, 4. Reprinted in The memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, Project Gutenberg. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/834
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Heinlein, R. A. (1941, March). Logic of empire. Astounding Science-Fiction.
Moody, G. (2026, June 4). The cancellation conversation. Master Moody. https://mastermoody.com/articles/cancellation-conversation
Orobio de Castro, B., Veerman, J. W., Koops, W., Bosch, J. D., & Monshouwer, H. J. (2002). Hostile attribution of intent and aggressive behavior: A meta-analysis. Child Development, 73(3), 916–934. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8624.00447
O'Rourke, C. (2020, February 4). What we know about Shadow, Acronym and the Iowa caucuses. PolitiFact. https://www.politifact.com/article/2020/feb/04/what-we-know-about-shadow-acronym-and-iowa-caucuse/
Raymond, E. S. (Ed.). (2003). Hanlon's razor. In The jargon file (Version 4.4.7). http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/H/Hanlons-Razor.html
Ross, L. (1977). The intuitive psychologist and his shortcomings: Distortions in the attribution process. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 10, pp. 173–220). Academic Press. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0065-2601(08)60357-3
Rosset, E. (2008). It's no accident: Our bias for intentional explanations. Cognition, 108(3), 771–780. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2008.07.001
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U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. (n.d.). Learn about Volkswagen violations. Retrieved September 29, 2026, from https://www.epa.gov/vw/learn-about-volkswagen-violations
Weiner, B. (1985). An attributional theory of achievement motivation and emotion. Psychological Review, 92(4), 548–573. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.92.4.548
Wells, H. G. (1998). The wheels of chance: A bicycling idyll. Project Gutenberg. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1264 (Original work published 1896)
West, J. (2006). The loyalists: An historical novel. Project Gutenberg. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/19458 (Original work published 1812)