Staying the course
We have all been in a situation – a project, a relationship – where we feel we have invested so much we need to keep going. In a related set of errors, once we form a habit we find it hard to change course. Sometimes we get so used to doing something we no longer question how things got started, or why we are acting the way we are. Who would have thought so many people would get accustomed to paying $4 for a cup of coffee?
In the late 90s, Cellpro, a Bothell WA biotech startup got into a patent fight against Baxter Healthcare and Johns Hopkins University. How things started is a different error: our propensity to think others will view things the way we do. Cellpro was convinced a judge would. Initially the company had the opportunity to license the technology from Baxter. Two other biotech companies did. Cellpro refused, and the litigation process started. Such a fight against much larger competitors consumes not only cash, but also the attention of senior management. The company fought to the end – its end. Cellpro went out of business.
Examples of such errors abound:
- This company makes X. For Intel it was memory chips. They were getting beat by cheaper Japanese chips. Yet, memory chips were what Intel did. It took strong leaders to move away from memory chips, and focus on the emerging market for microprocessors. The rest is history.
- You start feeling like your significant other is a “fixer upper”. Yet, you have invested so much of yourself you make yourself believe things will get better.
- Vietnam
In the case of relationships, the cause for our inability to let go may be the collocation of two types of receptors in our reward centers: dopamine (known for mediating pleasure responses), and oxytocin (a molecule involved in bonding). Bonding can be crucial for survival. After hatching, goslings will follow the first moving thing they see, and keep following it. Typically it will be their mother. A human experimenter once found a lifelong follower. Sometimes we act like goslings: once set in one direction, we have a hard time deviating.
How can we do better? Become a Buddhist monk. Learn to let go. Seriously, there are some things you can do to figure out if you are getting pulled in a no-win battle. Just ask yourself: if I were being brought in now, would I take that project? If the answer is no, run!
Periodically we need to look at our habits. Maybe something made sense in the past, but no longer does. What is the cost of “staying the course”? What else could we do?
Remember the goslings. Do you want to act like one?