Why Do We Miss Key Opportunities?

Why do we miss key opportunities at times in our careers?  Sometimes, it may have to do with the type of opportunity we encounter.  Suppose we have to decide whether to pursue a course of action which could have a positive outcome, but it has a very low probability of a successful result.  Harvard's Emily Prinsloo and her co-authors have published an interesting new paper exploring what they call "opportunity neglect."   Through a series of studies, they show that individuals  systematically fail to take advantage of low-probability opportunities, even when the costs of an unsuccessful outcome are quite low.   In fact, they demonstrate that, "people are even willing to incur costs to opt out of low-probability opportunities."   

Why do people fail to take advantage of these opportunities?   Perhaps, we anticipate the emotions that we will experience if we fail, and we are trying to avoid those negative feelings.  We might not only worry about how we are going to feel, but about how others will perceive us if we don't achieve a successful outcome.  

The question is:  Are we over-estimating the negative repercussions of an unsuccessful outcome?  Do we anticipate the negative emotions lasting much longer than they actually will?  Are we exaggerating the reputational hit we might take if we don't succeed?  

In writing about this research for BPS Digest, Emma Young recalls the famous Wayne Gretzky quote: ”You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”   Perhaps we need to remind ourselves that pursuing stretch goals is worthwhile.  In fact, there may be a great deal of fulfillment associated with taking on big challenges.  Moreover, we should recall what Daniel Pink wrote about in his excellent book, The Power of Regret.  Pink notes that people tend to experience more regret in life about paths they did not pursue than actions they undertook.   

What Causes Us to Regret Key Decisions?

Source: Getty Images

Do you find yourself often regretting the path not taken? What's causing those feelings?  Is it affecting your job satisfaction, or your commitment to a key plan of action at work?  Scholars Daniel Feiler and Johannes Müller-Trede have published a fascinating study about regret in the context of decision making.  Prior research had shown that "decision-makers both anticipate and experience greater regret when they can observe the consequences of unchosen options."   However, these two scholars found something slightly different in their study.  They discovered that, "Participants in our studies were more likely to experience regret when they did not observe the outcome of the forgone alternative than when it was revealed."  How could that be?  

Feiler and Müller-Trede discovered that the explanation as to do with our beliefs.  What do we believe is the value of a foregone alternative vs. what is the actual value of that option we dismissed?  They found that, "When there are many alternatives to choose from under uncertainty, the perceived attractiveness of the almost-chosen alternative tends to exceed its reality."  In short, we exhibit over-inflated beliefs about options we rejected.  This misguided beliefs cause feelings of regret.  

Delegating Tough Choices to Avoid Responsibility and Regret

Mary Steffel and Elanor Williams have published a study on delegation in the Journal of Consumer Research.    They conducted a series of experimental studies to determine when and why consumers delegate difficult purchasing decisions.   They found that people tend to delegate tough choices to avoid responsibility/blame and to avoid the possible feelings of regret that emerge when one makes challenging decisions.  Steffel and Williams summarize their findings as follows:

This research shows that consumers cope with difficult decisions by recruiting others to choose for them. Across eight experiments, participants were more likely to ask others to choose on their behalf when choices felt difficult than when they felt easy. Delegation increased when choices felt difficult regardless of whether that feeling was because the choices themselves were more difficult (e.g., with a larger number of alternatives, with difficult tradeoffs, or with a smaller difference in relative attractiveness between the alternatives), or because the choices were processed less fluently for superficial reasons (e.g., the options were presented in jargon). Delegation increased when choices felt difficult regardless of whether the consequences were real or hypothetical and regardless of the importance of those consequences.

Does the same type of pressure and behavior emerge when managers make decisions at work?  It would be interesting to take a look at those situations, as opposed to consumer purchasing decisions.  

Is Regret a Bad Thing?

Do you have some decisions or actions that you regret? Perhaps it's an action taken yesterday that you wish could be taken back. Or, perhaps you regret something you wished that you had done in the past. Is regret clearly a bad thing? Research by Colleen Saffrey, Amy Summerville, and Neal Roese suggests that people may actually have a favorable view of regret, and that it might serve a useful purpose for us. They write,

"People value their regret experience. They value it in both an absolute sense (the favorable aspects outweigh the unfavorable aspects) and in a relative sense (as compared to other commonly experienced negative emotions). This is a surprising finding given the assumption of the aversiveness of regret..."

Why might regret be a positive thing? The scholars argue that regret can be a mechanism for self-improvement. Experiencing regret might be part of the self-reflection process that leads to learning. As a result, we may come to avoid past behaviors that were not good for us or for others. Similarly, we might come to realize why certain actions should be taken, though we may have failed to take those actions in the past.  

Consider for a moment the occasions during which you may have regretted an action or decision at work.  Are you using those moments of regret to reflect, learn, and change?