Why Evaluating The Cost of Inaction Can Be As Important As Taking Action

Thoughtless risks are destructive, of course, but perhaps even more wasteful is thoughtless caution which prompts inaction and promotes failure to seize opportunity. 

--Gary Ryan Blair

A few weeks ago, a close friend came to me with a plan to leave San Francisco and move back to New York. She previously spent a brief stint on the East coast, so we talked about her options and considerations. She treasured New York’s energy and diversity and felt a stronger bond and network with her old community and friends. In addition, she was unhappy with San Francisco for a host of reasons but found herself quite hesitant to move.

When I asked why, I was answered with a string of risks involved with making such a change - starting fresh, getting a new job, over-romanticizing the possibilities, another high cost city. She then said, “You know, maybe I should just stay.”

So I asked, “What risks do you see in staying near San Francisco?”

Not surprisingly, it was much more difficult for her to come up with a neat, outlined list of shortfalls. In fact, our conversation boiled down to the fact that the risk involved in staying was being unhappy, an acceptable state since her life was “okay and fine” and it wouldn’t be a problem to trudge on and “suck it up.”

There is a fundamental problem in the exchange above. It not only creeps into our personal lives, but also into our professional lives if left alone. We overestimate the risk of taking a net new action (moving to NYC) and underestimate the risk of inaction (remaining in SF). In fact, I find a core challenge is that we do not even evaluate the risk of inaction. Inaction carries no clear cause and effect relationship, therefore leading to an incomplete evaluation of the upside and downside of the dilemma.

As leaders, this often happens at the expense of our teams. Performance suffers and inaction takes its toll. For example, I often observe leaders spending time with their team “when they have bandwidth.” The demands of operational activities and meetings take up a vast amount of time, and little is left for the people on the team. The demands can be even more complex at senior leadership levels, leaving no easy answer. The risk of action then becomes taking more time to spend with the team and potentially cancelling meetings or losing grasp of certain operational tasks.

However, the risk of inaction often goes unchecked and can be alarmingly high. Almost every leader and professional I know would appreciate more time from his or her manager - more coaching, more brainstorming, more time for learning. And these same professionals may not speak up for long periods of time leading to burnout, lack of motivation, and increased resistance to change.

As it pertains to career development, I often connect with my peers of the desire to learn something new. Often team members are hitting a plateau in their current role and want to push limits, grow, and find new interests. However, in this case learning a new skill or taking further responsibility as a working professional can take an enormous amount of discipline. The cost of action can be missing happy hour with friends, less time at lunch, late nights away from family, etc. While none of the effects are ideal, the cost of inaction can be much more erosive. One ceases to uplevel skills, learn a new perspective, or adapt to a fast changing world. By not methodically chipping away at future goals or striving to find passions and interests, the human experience and desire for progress suffers and so does our happiness. Upon reflection of a month, quarter, or even year of work, most would be willing to sacrifice a handful of nights out or mornings spent sleeping in to continue progressing.  

This is not an easy task. As mentioned in a previous post on dealing with change, we are wired to mitigate uncertainty, therefore leaving our status quo more bearable and the murky uncertainty of the future more uneasy. It is demanding work to separate from the emotional comfort of certainty. This resting state can be debilitating both personally and professionally and the way towards improvement is manageable, continuous steps towards the new, the exciting, and the challenging.

It is essential that leaders and professionals learn to evaluate the costs not only of taking action, but of doing nothing, or settling for the norm. It can be burdensome to see the costs of inaction, and collaborating with a peer removed from the immediate situation can help greatly in working through each scenario and outcome. I believe by doing so, whichever choice we ultimately make will be grounded in a higher level of clarity and an eye towards clear, focused progress.

* As always, a big thanks to Max Hogan for his generous time and help!