status quo bias

If there were a better way of doing things, how quickly would you adopt a new approach? Would you be an early adopter… or a laggard?

For a long time, I resisted backing up my phone data to the cloud. Certainly not an early adopter. It wasn’t until I was travelling overseas with a phone that wouldn’t charge anymore, that the cloud backup became a godsend. I did the backup, got a new phone and everything was right there. Now I can’t see myself going through the complicated process of doing manual backups ever again.

There are countless examples of people finding better ways to do things, but at first, our natural impulse is to reject the new approach. It’s called the status quo bias. We prefer to stick to our reference point (the status quo) and perceive any change from this reference point as a loss. My favourite example is the Fosbury Flop, named after Dick Fosbury, who was the first Olympian to do the high jump over the bar backwards and headfirst. His competition responded with that may work for him, but it won’t work for us. Today, we can’t imagine an Olympian attempting the high jump any other way.

How would you have responded in a similar situation? How long until you would be willing to give up the scissor kick that you’ve been practising for years?

It’s a useful metaphor to help us understand our reluctance to change. We might be aware that teams and organisations around the world are figuring out ways of working that are more suited to the highly networked world that we live in today. Yet our natural impulse is to stick with what we know and what we are good at. A new approach might feel much like attempting the Fosbury Flop for the first time. Our old ways will probably still yield better results today. A new approach takes patience and practice.

When it is time to change, will you be open-minded, patient and willing to practice? Or will you cling to the perceived safety of the status quo?