The upside
Some might say a positive side of action bias is forward momentum and an increased potential for discovery. In the startup world youāll always be hearing things like āmove fast and break thingsā and āfail fastā, which may be about discovery.
The downside
In my experience action bias has had more of a negative effect.
In soccer penalty kicks, goalkeepers choose their action before they can clearly observe the kick direction. An analysis of 286 penalty kicks in top leagues and championships worldwide shows that given the probability distribution of kick direction, the optimal strategy for goalkeepers is to stay in the goalās center. Goalkeepers, however, almost always jump right or left.
Why wonāt the goalkeeper stay still?
Norm theoryā¦implies that a goal scored yields worse feelings for the goalkeeper following inaction (staying in the center) than following action (jumping), leading to a bias for action.
In other words itās ānormalā to jump to one side, and just feels better to have done something!
In many businesses action bias is rife, maybe because moments of thoughtfulness and inaction are often frowned upon and seen as a lack of productivity. But particularly with
knowledge work, doing something rather than nothing can just be an illusion of progress. Itās also hard to see the positive consequences of the things people
donāt do.
If youāve ever been part of an organization that was restructuring regularly, this might ring true:
Continuous reorganization may be dangerous. The Roman satirist Petronius Arbiter said in the 1st Century: āWe trained hard, but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form into teams we would be reorganized. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing, and what a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency, and demoralization.āĀ
Iāll leave you with this one from Henry DavidĀ Thoreau:
It is not enough to be busy; so are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?ā Donāt confuse activity with results. There is no reason to do a good job with something you shouldnāt do in the first place.