Recently, a hiring Manager contacted me about a job I'd applied for that she said I was perfect for. However, the office was far from me.
I live in Central London. This job, as head of Demand Generation, was in Manchester, which is a 4-5 hour drive, and over 200 miles from my house.
I had read the job description earlier, when this manager first contacted me on LinkedIn. It said that the role was 'hybrid.' But given the distance, I had assumed this meant, at most, being in the office once a week, at least, perhaps once a month, or couple of months.
Funnily enough, I had worked in a similar role in Cambridge, about a 2-hour drive and 60 miles, in 2019, pre-covid; Where 'hybrid' meant precisely that.
Right at the start of the interview, I explained that my daughter was struggling with her 'A' levels (final school exams determining what university you can attend).
She is also going through some mental health issues; therefore, I wanted to be home for a considerable part of the week to support her (and drive her to school).
However, this hiring manager insisted I be in the office twice a week despite my explanations. Her reason was that the C suite had just leased an expensive office that 'they now needed to fill.'
This company's investment in an office appears to have been a failure. Now, management should move on, and if they want people in the office, they should come up with a more compelling reason than to fill an expensive office with bodies!
The incredible irony was that this was one of the plethoras of 'company culture' companies - many of which unfortunately don't seem to 'drink their own Kool-aid.'
Here's a company that advocates for making the workplace more empathetic, worker-centric, and reasonable. Yet they are attempting to force a highly irrational and emotionally tone-deaf decision on me.
That evening, I was talking with my good friend Professor Orri Stefansson.
He is a professor of Philosophy who specializes in decision theory and ethics. His current research focuses on decision-making under extreme uncertainty.
Orri was intrigued by my story. He said, 'This is a perfect example of 'The Sunk Cost Fallacy'!
You've bought a costly yet unbelievably uncomfortable pair of shoes you cannot return to the shop for a refund. So you must wear them every day until they are worn out!'*
We both laughed. The C suite often selects Middle management largely because of its emotional intelligence and ability to navigate politics.
To be fair, middle managers must consider the bigger picture and 'not rocking the boat.'
However, this mindset unfortunately ensures that, at times, such bad decisions persist.
This story also demonstrates that independent experts within or outside organizations can be invaluable in changing such crazy decisions.
It's one of the reasons why, in the past, I've delighted in hiring accomplished & sometimes maverick freelancers who tell it how it really is.
They're not afraid of being fired! They are not charming you with flattery just to get ahead. They are typically driven by a passion for the job alone.
And often, they are your most talented assets.
Just for fun, I'm going to highlight a few such whacky 'Sunk Cost Fallacy' situations of my own, drawing from my 20+ years of experience, alongside well-known ones:
- Continuing with a website refresh that had gone wrong and crashed all our SEO traffic. I've seen this happen at two different companies.
- A CMO spent a large proportion of her annual budget on an Account-Based marketing platform that was supposed to solve all our lead-targeting problems. The rollout was delayed for months, and eventually, the person in charge of the implementation left. Finally, the CEO fired the CMO. I worked at another company where no one acknowledged that the ABM purchase failed. This was a different system bought before I started there.
- About seven years ago, at a company I worked at, the founder told his investors they had a fully functioning product. Yet it transpired that even the head of product said this company did not have 'product fit.' However, the investors continued to support the company until it folded. Below: layers of marketing problems I've encountered in my career (thanks to my friend Jon Miller, CEO of Demandbase, for sharing).
- I worked at a company that sunk a massive amount into a failed CRM and Marketing automation implementation. At another, I was brought in to try and fix it. But they needed a complete, expensive overhaul, which they didn't have the heart for. But the story ended positively for me because a few years ago, I got to implement, onboard, and train the company on a (successful) purchase of a HubSpot CRM and marketing automation platform!
- A country invades a country and expends immense efforts to win the war, which it can't do. The government has trapped itself in a quagmire. However, it cannot accept defeat since this would mean many of its soldiers would have 'died in vain'.
- Sunk Cost fallacy is sometimes referred to as the Concord fallacy, because the French and British governments continued funding the doomed supersonic airliner long after it was likely it would not be commercially viable.