The Break School

Transcript of the Snippet

Why do we continue in jobs we don’t find meaningful? 

Why do we continue to use old tools and software’s although there are better alternatives?

Or why we are we so afraid of trying something new?.  

Today, we will try to unpack a major problem in our decision making that forces us to continue with our existing choices and prevents us from choosing better alternatives. We will understand its reasons and two possible ways in which we can avoid this issue. 

Hello and Welcome to another episode of the Break School Podcast, a podcast where we discuss ideas and people who can help us do what we love, everyday and make a living out of it.

Let’s go back a few years from now to understand the issue I mentioned.. 

It was November 2014. I was in my final year of engineering and preparing for jobs. I really wanted to get into a data analytics firm. But I was already rejected by 2 companies and a third company had not even shortlisted me.

During the same time, I got to know about an interesting program called the Young India Fellowship. It’s a liberal arts program where 200 students from different backgrounds are selected to study courses around social science, arts and humanities. YIF seemed exciting, especially because the professors at YIF were from some of best universities in the world, but most importantly, you could get a good job after the fellowship. 

I really wanted to get into this program but I did not fill the application form for a really long time. 

Instead, I only focused on applying to jobs and in January, I was rejected by one more analytics firm. 

That day, I very clearly remember, I went to a park. Sitting on a bench I wondered, why was I being rejected? I had decent scores, I had done good work at toastmasters and I was active in many not for profit communities. But none of that seemed to matter to the interviewers. They never asked any question around that. 

Sitting there I thought of YIF again. I wondered if those guys would value what I did other than getting a degree. It took me a few weeks to complete the application form but I finally applied. I made it to the final round and to my utter shock, I was selected with full scholarship.

Now the question here is, why did I delay applying to YIF for so long although I really wanted to get into this program?

It’s the same reason why we stay in careers we don’t like? Or why we continue to use old tools. 

It’s a problem called the Status Quo Bias, a tendency to stick to your existing choices. In my case, It was a tendency to continue applying to jobs although there was a better alternative in YIF.

But why do we exhibit the status quo bias? 

A study by William Samuelson from Boston University and Richard Zeckhauser from Harvard University on status quo bias show various reason why we exhibit this bias. 

I’ll explain 4 reason mentioned by them to help us understand, specifically, why we continue in jobs and career we don’t find meaningful. Please note, each of the reason I mention is a long topic in itself. If you are curious and want to dig deeper, I have shared a link to the study at the end. I also encourage you to read Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman. A great book to understand why we behave the way we behave. 

Let’s dive in and understand the reason for status quo bias  

Reason 1 – Sunk Cost Fallacy

Let’s go back to my story to understand this. I got to know about YIF 3 months after I started applying to jobs. While I was definitely excited about the fellowship, getting into fellowship was tough. It’s application form was long and tedious. I wasn’t sure if it was worth spending time. I thought it was much safer to spend my time on job applications, since I had already spent 3 months on it. 

This is a case of sunk cost fallacy, a situation where you continue to invest time, money and resources in a project or a job just because you have already invested so many years in it. But why don’t we just abandon our projects when we know it’s not working? – Because abandoning projects means accepting failure, experiencing humiliation, or being seen as a loser and who likes to be called a loser?  

Reason 2 – Regret Avoidance

Regret avoidance basically means we avoid decisions that we would regret later. Now, that’s obvious. It’s common sense. The insight here is we humans regret a consequence more when it is due to our action than inaction. 

Let say you have been working in an IT company for 6 years. You aren’t learning anything now, you don’t like the work anymore and you are very keen on pursing food blogging.

Now there are two possibilities – Situation 1, You continue in your job and a year later you are still unhappy. 

Situation 2, You pursue food blogging fulltime but a year later you realize you don’t enjoy food blogging either. You are again unhappy. 

In both the cases, the final outcome is the same – You are unhappy. But in which case do you think you would “regret” more? In, situation 1 you just continued with your default choice. You could blame the company for your unhappiness but in situation 2 the consequence is a result of your active action. You are responsible for the consequence. 

The regret is going to be high in second scenario. This fear of regret from our actions along with sunk cost fallacy compels us to Do nothing and stick to our existing choices even if they don’t serve us better. 

Reason 3 – Anchoring Effect

Anchoring Effect in decision making causes us to measure value of an alternative options relative to an existing option. 

When I had to apply to YIF, my existing option was applying to Jobs. YIF application was long and tedious, it required far more effort than applying to jobs. For YIF, I had to compete with students from some of the best institutes in the country. For jobs, I had to compete with people from my college. Although I was rejected by companies, my chances of getting a job appeared much better than getting into YIF. So, I continued with my existing option – applying to Jobs.

Similarly, going back to our previous example, When you are comparing food blogging to your existing job, You would think “I have already spent 6 years in the system, I’m a manager now and I get a salary every month. My parents are happy, my wife is happy.” 

And what about food blogging? “Well I really love travelling and writing about local food. But I’m not sure If I’ll earn enough every month, and if I fail, I’ll look stupid.  At least now, people respect me for being a manager in my company.”

What would you choose? Naturally, your job. And I say naturally due to our final and mother of all reasons. 

Reason 4 – Loss Aversion

Noble Price laureate Daniel Kahneman and his partner Amos Tversky have shown through Prospect Theory that we humans weigh losses twice as much as gains in decision making. i.e, the pain you experience on loosing 1000 rupees is twice as much as the joy you would experience on earning the same 1000 rupees. 

This implies that for you to move from your job to food blogging, the gains from food blogging must be at least 2 times of what you would lose by giving up your job. The factor 2 times can vary between 1.5 times and 3 times depending on how risk seeking or risk averse you are. But the point is our tendency to avoid losses is more than our desire to make gains. 

This behavior has an evolutionary reason. As Danial Kahneman writes in his book Thinking fast and slow –

The asymmetry between the power of positive and negative expectations or experiences has an evolutionary history. Organisms that treat threat as more urgent than opportunities have a better chance to survive and reproduce.

I did not apply to YIF for a long time because I thought instead of spending time on YIF application, I could use the same time to apply to multiple jobs. My fear of not getting a job was much bigger than my desire to get into YIF. 

So those were 4 major reasons why we exhibit status quo bias and stick to our existing options, instead of choosing new and better alternatives

Now, you may ask, can I do something about it?

The answer is both No and Yes. 

No, because it is not possible to get rid of your biases. You cannot eliminate them. They have been wired into our brains over 1000s of years. They helped us survive in jungles, they helped us make quick decisions in dangerous scenarios, they helped us deal with uncertain situations. Although our surroundings have changed from jungles to villages to modern cities, the way our brains operates has not changed with the same speed.

But what we can do, is firstly have an awareness of these biases and then build systems that could help us avoid them in decision making.

One way I’m trying to do this is by maintaining a Decision Making Journal. I came across the idea of decision-making journal on Farnam street blog by Shane Parrish. Shane has a very good article on it and I recommend you to read it. I have shared a link in the show notes section of the episode. 

Broadly it means that every time you making a decision, write down the following things in a piece of paper – What decisions are you taking? What outcome do you expect? Why are you choosing this over other alternatives and how do you feel right now i.e what is your emotional state? Do you feel confident, afraid, skeptical, sick etc.

Review this journal either at regular intervals or whenever the outcome of your decision is clear. If your outcome is as expected, it implies that you have good decision-making process. If the outcomes are not favorable, it will reflect what you could have done better. May be researched more, may be avoid taking decision in negative emotional state, may be you should avoid talking to a few people etc.

This exercise will not eliminate status quo bias but it will create a solid feedback loop to make you aware of situations where you are prone to sticking to your existing choices, even though there are better alternatives. 

Apart from decision making journal, another action that could help is taking a break or sabbatical from your current job or career. From my conversations with people who have taken sabbaticals, Unplugging from your current day to day setting will help you work on a few things that you never had the time for. It will allow you to reevaluate your priorities and your values.

So to summarize this snippet, We stay in careers we don’t like or continue to use old tools that are no more effective because of status quo bias. It’s a tendency to stick to our existing option even if there are better alternatives available. 

4 major causes for status quo bias are one, Sunk cost fallacy, that makes you believe that you need to continue in your existing career because you have already spent so many years in it. Two, Regret avoidance which prevents you from doing anything where you will have to take ownership of your failure. You would rather fail by doing nothing than by taking action. Three, Anchoring effect makes you compare a new career with your regular job which is much safe and predictable, and finally the mother of all reason loss Aversion. Our deep desire for certainty and strong tendency to avoid loses compels us to stick to our existing careers rather than take a step out and do what we love. 

If you found this snippet valuable then please do share this forward. If you enjoyed this snippet then you will love our next episode where I have Anurag Vaish, Co-founder of India’s leading behavioral science firm final-mile consulting speak about why we actions so far away from our intentions. Make sure you subscribe to The Break School Podcast and don’t miss our future episode.

See you again next week. Until then do what you love everyday.

References and Further Readings

1. Study by William Samuelson and Richard Zeckhauser on Status Quo Bias 

2. Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman

3. Decision Making Journal Blog Post by Farnam Street