We say we want a better world, a better life. But sometimes it seems impossible, even when we know what we should be doing and genuinely want to improve. At an organisational level, change can sometimes feel like an insurmountable challenge.
Status quo bias is the tendency to prefer things remain as they are, even when better options are available to us.
Enjoying your current life, your habits, or your processes is not status quo bias. It's only when we stick to them in the face of better alternatives that it becomes a bias; that is, a systematic skewing of judgment and behaviour that produces non-optimum results.
This psychological effect intersects with other similar irrational biases, such as the endowment effect (not wanting to risk losing what you already have in order to gain something else), loss aversion (weighing potential losses more heavily than potential gains) and psychological inertia (a general inhibition of any action).
Status quo bias has a consistent and measurable effect observable through repeated experiments over a number of years. It is the kind of thing that psychology professors can send their students out to test, with predictable results.
It is also reflected in a suite of commonsense sayings, such as:
A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
When in Rome, do as the Romans do.
She'll be right.
Don't rock the boat.
Pull your head in, don't get above yourself, who do you think you are, etc.
Examples
In general, people tend to avoid losses more than they strive for gains. As Daniel Kahneman put it in Thinking, Fast and Slow:
If you are set to look for it, the asymmetric intensity of the motives to avoid losses and to achieve gains shows up almost everywhere.
Examples you may have observed include:
Scare tactics by special interests groups which can outweigh the interests of a quieter majority.
Staff members or industries which resist sensible and moderate change.
The fact that 40% of Australians stay with the same bank or retirement fund regardless of better fees or returns (which could add up to tens of thousands of dollars difference at retirement age).
The continued use of unwieldy measuring systems, such as imperial units in the US, or the Georgian calendar worldwide, whose months have a non-regular number of days.
The widespread fear of nuclear power, which is thousands of times safer than coal.
The role of habit
Habits allow us to lower the effort required to perform routine tasks.
You probably brush your teeth or tie your shoelaces in exactly the same way every day. There is good reason for this. If you had to deliberately and consciously perform the action every time, it would require all your mental resources. You would be exhausted by midday, and would not be able to think about anything else.
By establishing neural pathways through repetition, we free up our mental resources and avoid the cognitive load of decision-making and attention splitting for everyday tasks. That is what allows us to chat while driving, or listen to a podcast while doing the dishes. It's also what enables us to think about the bigger picture while working at the granular level. It's why an apprentice must first master their tools before they can also think about the how their actions fit into the whole project.
Once they are set, changing habits requires a switching cost in the form of effort, which draws from our finite pool of mental and physical resources.
Social Proof
However much we like to think of ourselves as self-determined individuals, social pressure exerts an enormous influence on nearly all our actions. People tend to adopt the behaviours of those around them by default, and only stray from them when compelled to.
People do not choose their accents. Businessmen do not wear suits because they are comfortable. And people generally only adopt new products when they have see others benefit from doing so. This is the tipping point after which mass adoption can occur.
If your business strategy involves going in an unfamiliar direction, people will be naturally hesitant. If you're the only one doing something, it's hard to know whether you're really smart or really dumb until afterwards.
Other Factors
There are many other factors which can stand in the way of needed change, such as vested interests, politics, and the "hobgoblin of little minds," a foolish need to appear intellectually consistent by refusing to change ones' opinion. Then there's ego, skewed judgments from the availability heuristic, and so on. The list goes on.
an outdated feature, not a bug
The key insight is that in order to have survived millions of years of evolutionary pressures, there must have been some survival value in status quo bias.
When you have a successful hunting tactic, trying a new one risks losing a day's meal, which is much worse than the benefit of gaining an extra days' food.
In a violent and uncivilised society, as much of early mankind's were, standing out from the crowd also attracted unwanted attention and risked ostracism. Like shoaling fish, there was safety in numbers. That impulse persists.
The main lessons are:
Status quo bias is real and widespread.
It is a natural and subconscious inclination.
It can be overcome.
oVercoming Organisational status quo Bias
No single strategy for overcoming status quo bias will work in every situation, but the following are some recommendations.
1. Clarify Roles
If you are an executive trying to get buy-in from your staff, take Roger Martin's advice, and don't bother. The typical buy-in process is usually just trying to get agreement from someone to do something, even though they had nothing to do with the decision in the first place. It's a sort of invitation to the decision-making progress that doesn't actually allow them to contribute in any meaningful way. It tends to just muddy the waters and can often make people feel jaded or patronised.
Instead, realise that your role includes making decisions in your own sphere of influence. While you should consult stakeholders in your decision making process, you don't need to ask permission from your subordinates to do your job.
But you also need to make sure you empower your staff to make their own decisions in their roles, so that they can retain their sense of ownership and control. They are best placed to make those decisions, as they are the most familiar with that aspect of their business in the day-to-day.
Inform your staff of your decision, explain your reasoning to them so they can understand how you arrived at it, and then clarify areas where you require their judgment and decision making.
2. show them the promised land (but keep it real)
Yes, you can make a direct sales pitch, but people see through this forced narrative so often there's even a cynical name for it: the company line. Instead, genuine enthusiasm, however expressed, is generally more persuasive.
When your new marketing strategy drives in new business, feel free to punch the air.
When the new record-keeping practises make beautiful and insightful reports, admire them publicly and describe what you now know that you didn't know before.
When the equipment you invested in so heavily saves you time and money while delivering a superior result, wonder aloud what you would have done without it.
And if all of those things are still in the future, paint an accurate-as-possible, fact-based picture of what it will be like when you get there. The aim is simply to make it so irresistibly enticing and vivid, the benefits clearly outweigh the costs.
Even better, if you can find a real-life success story from another adopter, you will help overcome the barriers to change. Get them to speak to someone who has made the change, used the service, bought the product. Show them that it's safe.
3. Don't Argue, don't make it personal
When people are attacked, they tend to defend. the phenomenon known to salespeople as reactance, or persuasion resistance. You may win the outward battle, but their inner resistance will only be strengthened, as you have now given them another reason not to agree with you.
Instead, acknowledge the person's objections. Let them speak and listen without judgement. Try to avoid saying things like "Yes, but..." If you are building your case for change on a reality-based foundation, this includes being honest about the benefits of the status quo and the costs of switching. Letting them know their objections have been heard can reduce their defensiveness and open them up to the possibility of change.
4. reframe
Sometimes it is not more information that is required, but a new way of viewing the existing information.
In order to avoid reactance effects, I recommend avoiding combative sentence structures such as, "No, it's not A, it's B", and instead using something more empathetic like, "Yeah, I thought it was A too; it makes sense at first. But then I thought about it and I realised that B is actually the way to go because [reason]."
The underlying feeling should be not that we are fighting each other, but there is a larger goal that we are trying to achieve.
Reframing difficult as unfamiliar:
It seems difficult now, but it's just unfamiliar. We'll get better at it.
Reframing disruption as progress:
True, it is disruptive in the short term. But that's true of all progress - nothing improves without change.
Reframing fear:
Yes, it's scary. It's also exciting!
Reframing a large expenditure:
You say it's expensive, and it would be - if it were an expense. But I see it as an investment.
A really good reframing has a wonderfully dissolving effect on fixed ideas. When done well, you feel a sudden smooth shift and the mental load lighten.
5. align the change with your Values
Ultimately, the change you are adopting or considering should be in accordance with your values. If your values are clear and firm, this should help to solidify your choice.
Why are we doing this? Because this is what this company is about. It is what we believe in.
Patagonia makes expensive clothes. This is a deliberate strategic choice which deters many customers who would never pay $80 for a T-shirt or $800 for a wetsuit. But their first commitment is to ethical and sustainable means of production, and making goods that will be durable, recyclable and low-impact.
On the other hand, Kmart's strategy is based on a different philosophy:
At Kmart, you’ll always find low prices for life. In every aisle, on every product, every time you shop.
Every day, millions of everyday people clothe their families, fill their kitchen, and get affordable access to the conveniences and comforts of modern life with products from Kmart. Kmart see that value as more important than minimising their ecological impact.
If Kmart were to adopt Patagonia's strategy, or vice versa, it would first require a rethink of their core values.
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