The Wait And See Game

Here is a common frustration for innovation teams. It is possible to get leadership endorsement for our project, without getting any active participation from those same leaders.

This is the invisible “no”!

I have watched teams pitch their ideas to leaders during innovation sprints. Every leader gives an approving nod, maybe even a word of praise.

And yet, when I follow up weeks later, nothing has happened. No one is blocking the team. But no one is actively helping them move forward either.

Emails go unanswered. Budget decisions get delayed. Momentum starts to stall.

This isn’t rejection. Leaders are playing the wait and see mode.

They want to see if the project will gather momentum before they attach their name to it. Ironically, this delayed commitment causes the project to lose momentum.

Over time the idea fades away and the team moves to a different project. The idea didn’t get killed outright, it simply died from neglect.

Why Do Leaders Hesitate?

The experience of waiting for leaders to engage can be frustrating for teams. Teams can’t understand why leaders are not stepping up. But from the leaders’ perspective, the hesitation is a rational choice. Here is why:

1. Fear Of Losing: Leaders don’t want to be the first to back an idea that might fail. Loss aversion, a concept from behavioral economics, shows that people fear losing disproportionately more than they value winning. In corporate settings, failure can be career limiting. That is why leaders look for safety in numbers. If there are others willing to back the idea, it makes it safer for them to step in.
2. Protecting Political Capital: Beyond loss aversion, leaders have to decide where to spend their political capital. Backing an innovation means that leaders are putting their reputation on the line. If they are uncertain about the project’s potential, they will hesitate to invest their political capital in it. They will reserve using influence for more ‘worthwhile’ causes.
3. Diffusing Responsibility: If no single leader is responsible for the success of an innovation, everyone has an excuse not to act. This is a form of the Bystander Effect, a well documented social psychology phenomenon. The more people involved in a situation, the less likely any one person feels responsible. This is why a leader will hesitate to actively attach their name to a risky project, if they don’t have to.
4. Status Quo Bias: Leaders might hesitate because they prefer the certainty of the present over the risk of change. Behavioral economists Richard Zeckhauser and William Samuelson found that when given a choice, people overwhelmingly default to the status quo, even when the new alternative is better. For leaders, the cost of making the wrong decision can feel higher than the cost of doing nothing. So the easiest way to avoid risk is to wait and see.

The wait and see game can cause companies to miss on technology changes happening around them. Microsoft was slow to invest in cloud computing under Steve Ballmer. It wasn’t because they lacked the technology. The same was true for Kodak who hesitated to commercialize the digital camera they invented. A fear that leaders can have is the cannibalization of their existing business (i.e. status quo bias).

How To Break The Wait And See Cycle

The only way to break the wait and see cycle is to actively address leaders’ concerns with evidence of momentum. Here are a few things you can do:

1. Get Social Proof: Leaders will follow signals from peers they respect and trust. So if you can get visible support for key leaders within the business, it will make it safer for hesitant leaders to step in. Getting social proof is a key principle in Cialdini’s model of persuasion. Secure backing from a respected executive, a key customer or an external expert. This will give you credibility.
2. Get An Early Win: Getting an early win is the best kind of momentum you can create. It removes doubts about the potential of your project. Beyond the social backing of key executives, imagine if you also start getting revenue via a few large customers. Getting these small early wins shows evidence of progress. This momentum will make it easier for leaders to get onboard.
3. Make Small Asks: Teams often make the mistake of asking for too much funding and resources early in a project. When a leader invests a lot of resources in a project, they are also putting their reputation on the line. A better approach is to ask for a small investment at the beginning to get started. You can then come back for more resources when you have evidence of traction. This foot-in-the-door technique is effective because it allows leaders to act without putting their reputation on the line.
4. Highlight Cost of Inaction: The status-quo bias means that leaders will hesitate when doing nothing feels safer than taking action. But what if we can flip the equation. Perhaps, we can find ways to frame the decision around what is at stake if the company doesn’t act. You can use a disruption risk assessment to quantify potential losses that could happen such as declines in market share and revenue.

Final Thoughts

It is possible to get public endorsement for our project from leaders. This doesn’t mean they will actively support it. It is often the case that leaders will play the wait and see game. This should not be dismissed as hesitation. It can be a calculated strategy to avoid risking their political capital on an uncertain project.

The challenge is that, by delaying their commitment, leaders unintentionally doom initiatives to fail.

The key to securing leadership buy-in isn’t just having a great idea. We have to understand the psychology of why leaders hesitate and then design strategies to help leaders overcome their fears.

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