Indicators of Lock-In: II

Lock-in occurs in group decision making, when groups engage in, for instance, negotiations, politics, diplomacy, war, management, and problem solving. It happens when groups fail to adapt to changing situations, rejecting or failing to see alternatives to their choices even when those alternatives are clearly superior. Instead, they escalate their commitment to the chosen course.

Knowing the indicators of lock-in can be helpful to anyone who wants to move a group toward alternatives. Here are four indicators relating to the history of the group's decisions.

Path dependence

Although the group's decisions depend on both its composition and its current perceptions of the problem, they also depend on the path the group traveled in arriving at its current position.

The path traveled determines the state of knowledge within the organization, the hires made, the consultants known and trusted, the sites and locations that were developed, the equipment and software acquired, and many more personnel and physical factors. This history can cause decision makers to persist with a solution beyond the point where they would have if they had a different history.

The need for justification

Closely related to path dependence is the need for justification. The need for internal justification can arise when the decision makers have personally supported choices that led to the current situation. By escalating commitment, they hope that the eventual outcome will justify to themselves both the choice they are now making and all their past choices as well.

External justification is similar, except that the audience of the justifying action is the group's perception of others' assessment of the group's performance.

Inflexibility

To those Detecting lock-in in your organization
can be difficult if you're one of
the decision makersoutside the group, inflexibility is both an obvious indicator of lock-in and difficult to understand. For seemingly unfathomable reasons, decision makers reject alternatives that seem promising.

Because seeming inflexible or irrational can be damaging to one's career, groups that adopt inflexible positions do so most often in desperation. They feel beset. They feel that adaptive behavior will make them seem weak, and thereby cause more damage than inflexibility will.

Closure of alternatives

Closure, or exclusion, of alternatives does not present inherent difficulties in achieving high-quality decisions. However, premature closure of alternatives, or continuing exclusion of alternatives in the face of repeated failure, does threaten decision quality.

When a group enforces or accepts closure of alternatives in the face of failure of its chosen course, lock-in is likely in place. One exception: a person or people who have power over the group's decisions can impose closure. In this case, the lock-in has occurred not in the decision-making group, but in the mind of the person executing the closure.

Detecting lock-in in your organization can be difficult if you're one of the decision makers. To practice, use a different organization — your national or local government probably provides some truly rich examples.   First issue in this series   Top    Next Issue

Are you fed up with tense, explosive meetings? Are you or a colleague the target of a bully? Destructive conflict can ruin organizations. But if we believe that all conflict is destructive, and that we can somehow eliminate conflict, or that conflict is an enemy of productivity, then we're in conflict with Conflict itself. Read 101 Tips for Managing Conflict to learn how to make peace with conflict and make it an organizational asset. Order Now!

Your comments are welcome

About Point Lookout

Thank you for reading this article. I hope you enjoyed it and found it useful, and that you'll consider recommending it to a friend.

This article in its entirety was written by a human being. No machine intelligence was involved in any way.

Point Lookout is a free weekly email newsletter. Browse the archive of past issues. Subscribe for free.

Support Point Lookout by joining the Friends of Point Lookout, as an individual or as an organization.

Do you face a complex interpersonal situation? Send it in, anonymously if you like, and I'll give you my two cents.

Related articles

More articles on Personal, Team, and Organizational Effectiveness:

Diagonal Collaborations: Dazzling or Dangerous?

Collaborations can be very productive. There are some traps though, especially when the collaborators are of different rank, with the partner of lower rank reporting to a peer of the other. Here are some tips for preventing conflict in diagonal collaborations.

Food for Thought

Most companies have employee cafeterias, with the usual not-much-better-than-high-school food service. By upgrading — and subsidizing — food service, these companies can reduce turnover and improve productivity dramatically.

Take Charge of Your Learning

Many of us let others set our learning agendas — peers, employers, or the mass media. But you can gain much both personally and professionally by setting your own learning agenda.

Intentionally Unintentional Learning

Intentional learning is learning we undertake by choice, usually with specific goals. When we're open to learning not only from those goals, but also from whatever we happen upon, what we learn can have far greater impact.

Irrational Deadlines

Some deadlines are so unrealistic that from the outset we know we'll never meet them. Yet we keep setting (and accepting) irrational deadlines. Why does this happen?

See also Personal, Team, and Organizational Effectiveness for more related articles.

Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout

Coming July 16: Responding to Unwelcome Events

Unwelcome events have two kinds of effects on decision-makers. One set of effects appears as we respond to events that have actually occurred. Another set manifests itself as we prepare for unwelcome events that haven't yet occurred, but which might occur. Making a wrong decision in either case can be costly. Available here and by RSS on July 16.

And on July 23: Microdelegation

Microdelegation is a style of delegation in which the delegator unintentionally communicates the task to the subordinate in such detail and so repetitively that the subordinate is offended. As a result of this delegation style, many subordinates feel distrusted or suspected of fraud or goldbricking. Available here and by RSS on July 23.

Coaching services

I offer email and telephone coaching at both corporate and individual rates. Contact Rick for details at rbrenaXXxGCwVgbgLZDuRner@ChacDjdMAATPdDNJnrSwoCanyon.com or (650) 787-6475, or toll-free in the continental US at (866) 378-5470.

Get the ebook!

Past issues of Point Lookout are available in six ebooks:

• Get 2001-2 in Geese Don't Land on Twigs (PDF, )
• Get 2003-4 in Why Dogs Wag (PDF, )
• Get 2005-6 in Loopy Things We Do (PDF, )
• Get 2007-8 in Things We Believe That Maybe Aren't So True (PDF, )
• Get 2009-10 in The Questions Not Asked (PDF, )
• Get all of the first twelve years (2001-2012) in The Collected Issues of Point Lookout (PDF, )

Are you a writer, editor or publisher on deadline? Are you looking for an article that will get people talking and get compliments flying your way? You can have 500-1000 words in your inbox in one hour. License any article from this Web site. More info