We’re wired to hang on tightly, and that’s a big issue in our business, not to mention our life.
We’ve all seen a business settle into a steady downhill slide and wondered why the people running the business didn’t do something to fix it.
Or maybe it was a small company with a big opportunity. They have the chance to go big, yet they never seem to break away from the pack. Why?
The problem usually isn’t incompetent management or people. Even if we do blame them, or the product, or the sales and marketing team.
The problem is that we are humans in business. We are literally programmed to hang on to the way things are. Even when the way we’ve always done it is the reason for the mess we’re in, we’ll just keep doing things that way. Even when change is the obvious answer to our problems, we’ll just keep hanging on.
It’s in our Wiring
A preference for the status quo is literally hardwired into the way we think.
Our old brain (reptilian or lizard brain as some call it) controls over 95% of our behaviors. Read that again. Almost all of our behaviors and thoughts are controlled by our unconscious, emotional and instinctual brain.
One of the biggest patterns we have is called survival. Humans have the instinct embedded from caveman times. As part of that instinct we’re wired to prefer a safe and comfortable known to a potentially unsafe new opportunity.
We have an irrational preference for our current state, no matter what. It’s called the status quo bias and it really gets in the way of our business and our selves. Researchers have proven in a number of studies that humans will choose their current state – even if that state is more expensive, offers less comfort, offers less value and even if that state puts us in a pickle. We’ll hang on no matter what, simply because of our status quo bias.
We also have an aversion to loss, which is seen as a survival threat. We give more weight to the threat of a potential loss than we do to the value of a potential opportunity. That explains why we prefer to stick to what we know and love instead of innovating – in life and business. Yet that’s not the path to growth.
Status Quo and Business
Our status quo bias impacts our businesses – both internally and externally.
Internally, the status quo bias prevents us from reaching out for new ideas, new ways and new opportunities. That’s why will spend fortunes trying to salvage a product we know and love (even as it’s again), rather than innovating to find a new and as yet unknown solution. It’s also why we catch ourselves using the same old process, with minor updates – instead of rethinking our approach based on the reality of today’s world and markets.
Externally, the status quo bias impacts our audiences – and our revenues. Researchers estimate that over 60% of qualified leads fall prey to the status quo bias – extending sales cycles, slowing decisions and basically wreaking havoc on our pipeline planning. Our buyers would rather stick with what they have today than make a change. In fact – the biggest barrier to a sale isn’t the competition – it’s the status quo bias.
