Is the devil you know really better?
A colleague recently showed me a tool that they had created to prompt discussion and debate within Boards and senior teams. The tool was called a "Bias-O-Meter", and it was a visual representation of a series of common biases in the way individuals and teams operate that can impair decision making. It included a series of different biases that have the potential to unconsciously derail people’s thinking, each of which was represented on a graphical 'risk dial'. The tool is a great way of starting conversations and developing teams’ ability to mitigate common decision making pitfalls.
One of the biases, labelled “Status Quo Bias”, caught my eye and started me thinking about its impact on our openness to learning and to change. Status Quo bias is the tendency for teams to leave things as they are for fear of losing what has already been gained – a kind of risk aversion that leads to missed opportunities and change being resisted until it is too late to react.
Status Quo bias is linked specifically to a psychological phenomenon known as loss aversion, which is the tendency for individuals to worry about losing things much more than they are to get excited about gains of the same value. Once we have something then we will not give it up even if offered better or higher value alternatives.
This is one of the reasons why rational justifications of the need for change don’t work, and why we (and organisations) appear to act irrationally when we feel that we are having something taken away. It also leads us to turn down new opportunities or experiences that involve us giving up a luxury or reward (or maybe even a routine) we have become familiar with. We will therefore resist new ideas that could lead to us losing something we have, even if it might lead to something much better. A great organisational example of this is the way Amazon needed to separate out the development team responsible for developing the Kindle technology in order to stop the rest of the existing business from killing the initiative that threatened to undermine its core activity at the time - selling physical books.
While there is of course some value in having an inherent preference for avoiding loss, given the pace of change today this is something that organisations and leaders need to be aware of in order to thrive, or in many cases even survive. There are often things we need to let go of, and risk losing, if we are to move forwards. This prompts the question: What are we each holding on to now, that is stopping us from moving forwards (whether that is getting a promotion, improving our work/life balance, or just being happier)?
For more thoughts on leading and leadership please connect or follow me. Likewise if you'd like to know more about the Bias-O-Meter get in touch and I'll put you in touch with the developers. Please also share any of your own biases and how you deal with them. You can find further insight related to leadership from my colleagues on Wickland Westcott’s website or by following us on LinkedIn.
