A study by Kellogg Prof. Adam Galinsky challenges the notion that promoting from within is the best option, though he notes his findings may not apply to Kellogg’s search for a new dean.
Galinsky said his research shows a failed course of action by business leadership is often perpetuated by new leadership that shares a “psychological connection” to its predecessor.
As the Kellogg School of Management searches for a new dean, Galinsky said Kellogg does not face a failed leadership problem. Because of this, he said hiring someone from within is a better choice than a hiring someone on the outside for a fresh perspective.
“The idea of an insider versus an outsider depends on the current state of the organization,” he said. “Personally, I strongly support hiring a new Kellogg dean internally. They have more knowledge, and knowledge, in this case, is key.”
In an interview with The Daily in September, both Interim Kellogg Dean Sunil Chopra and Search Committee Chair Jan Eberly said they couldn’t comment as to whether the new dean would be hired from within, given the confidentiality of the process.
Galinsky’s study, “Vicarious entrapment: Your sunk costs, my escalation of commitment” will be published in an upcoming issue of the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. Galinsky said his research centered on the idea of “escalation of commitment,” a theory that was pioneered in the 1970s by former NU Psychology Prof. Barry Staw.
Escalation of commitment is “throwing good money after a bad initial decision,” said Brian Gunia, a fourth-year Kellogg doctoral candidate who assisted Galinsky in his research.
“We were looking at cases in which the initial decision-maker has done something wrong,” Gunia said, “And you, as second decision-maker, are stepping into the decision.”
Gunia said their research showed when the second decision-maker had some sort of “psychological connection” to the first decision-maker, he was “more likely to escalate on (the initial decision maker’s) behalf,” even if it meant following a failed course of action.
Galinsky said General Motors is an obvious example of continued failed leadership.
“The difference between GM and Ford,” Galinsky said, “is that GM replaced its former CEO, Rick Wagoner, with an insider, while Ford made the chairman of their board an outsider. And GM is in a slightly worse situation because it hasn’t disengaged from failed policies.”
Neal Sales-Griffin (SESP ’09) served as president of both the Associated Student Government and the Institute for Student Business Education while at NU. He said he frequently faced “entrenched leadership” and as a result formed “leadership initiative” committees for both ASG and ISBE to get younger students involved with executive decision making.
While Sales-Griffin said it was ultimately a successful initiative, he said he faced some backlash from students who had worked for a long time within both student organizations. “It is certainly a challenge bringing someone from the outside into a leadership role,” Sales-Griffin said. “People already in the organization think, ‘Here I am listening to someone less experienced presenting and making suggestions.'”
Gunia said Galinsky’s study showed something as simple as a shared birthday forged a psychological connection between study participants and a fictionalized initial decision-maker.
In some instances of the study, participants were given a description of the leader they were succeeding at an organization, and then asked to write a brief narrative of a day in his life, Gunia said.
The connection, in both cases, Gunia said, was powerful enough that the second individual would carry on with his predecessor’s course of action, even if it was a failed one.
“How can we as humans make rational decisions … and decrease the psychological need to justify behaviors based upon the decisions before us?” he said.
Still, for all that Galinsky said is positive about collaboration within an organization, he said it is important to recognize when shared ideas can work to a business’ detriment.
“It’s not enough just to physically separate these psychologically-connected decision-makers,” Galinsky said. “We think about humans as autonomous beings … but we are really regulated in the way we approach the world. We don’t just have our own ideas or thought processes … we take them on from others.”
