BazermanMoore

112 Chapter 6: The Escalation of Commitment
irrationality is that many situations may look like opportunities but prove to be traps
until you have fully considered the likely actions of others.
INTEGRATION
This chapter has suggested four additive causes that contribute to our tendency to escalate
commitment to a previously selected course of action. Each one can cause escalation
independently, but they more often act together to increase a decision maker’s
nonrational tendency to continue a previous mistake. To reduce escalation, we must
attack each cause at the individual and organizational levels.
Overall, the findings on the tendency to escalate suggest that managers need to
take an experimental approach to management. That is, as a manager, you should make
a decision and implement it, but be open to dropping your commitment and shifting to
another course of action if the first plan does not work out. This means constantly reassessing
the rationality of future commitments and learning to identify failures early.
Finally, a caveat: While this chapter has dealt with situations in which commitment
is taken too far, it is also important to consider the other side of the spectrum. In certain
scenarios, you should maintain or even escalate your commitment to a chosen course of
action, primarily to keep your options open. In business and personal relationships, you
may feel as if you should give up when a situation becomes difficult. It is important to
realize, however, that by ending a commitment, you may lose out on all future benefits
from the relationship. Often, maintaining a relationship provides you with more options
as you move forward. This advice may seem to run contrary to the discussion of escalation
of commitment. One argument seems to urge caution while the other supports
taking chances. In fact, they can be reconciled. The key is to make decisions without
regard to sunk costs and instead with a focus on the future benefits and costs of your
choices.