Small doses
If you go to a health food store and buy some pills with selenium, colloidal silver or other mysterious substances in them, it’s possible that they’ll make you feel a bit better. On the other hand, if you take a large dose, you’ll get sick or possibly die.
In very small doses, all you’re getting is the placebo. The way the story makes you feel. When there’s a substantial amount of cellular material, though, toxicity can result.
Small doses magnify powerful placebo effects.
Lowering your prices by 25% might make your customers happier. But spending 4% of your revenue on training, recruitment and giving your staff the freedom to act with humanity might make them far happier.
The brute force technique makes engineers happy. But giving humans a chance to tell themselves a positive story makes people happy.