Complex Management training in LucerneA struggling project: how do you decide to stop when you have already invested heavily?
In the “Management complexe” programme, examining difficult decisions also means questioning those you have personally championed. How can a project be reassessed without making continuation a test of loyalty or termination an admission of incompetence?
1. What the literature establishes
Barry Staw (1976, Organizational Behavior and Human Performance) shows, in a resource-allocation experiment, that responsibility for an initial decision can increase reinvestment following negative outcomes. Participants therefore respond not only to a project's prospects: their involvement in the earlier choice also matters. This finding identifies a risk of escalation of commitment without establishing that continuing after a setback is always irrational.
2. The mechanism: defending the project or justifying oneself
Joel Brockner (1992, Academy of Management Review) examines theoretical explanations of escalation and highlights, among other factors, the role of self-justification. Acknowledging that a course of action is no longer viable can threaten the decision-maker's desired image of their own judgement. The review nevertheless shows that this mechanism alone cannot explain every instance of persistence.
3. The hasty conclusion: stop as soon as results disappoint
A setback is not automatically a reason to abandon a project: credible future benefits may still exist. The task is to distinguish expenditure that is already irrecoverable from costs and benefits that the next decision can still change. The consequences of stopping, such as contractual obligations or service continuity, therefore belong in the analysis rather than being excluded by a simplistic rule. (our executive and employee training programmes)
4. The limits of the evidence and of project reviews
The experiment cited uses a simplified allocation situation, and the theoretical article provides no universal threshold for abandonment. In organisations, information is incomplete, interdependencies are numerous and the effects of decisions can take time to emerge. A project review offers little basis for judgement when it merely describes expenditure to date without making explicit the assumptions that would still justify further investment.
5. A practical check in Lucerne
In Lucerne, where tourism, hospitality, regional financial services and industrial SMEs include many family-run businesses with short decision-making chains, close relationships can make questioning a project personally sensitive. Consider a hypothetical example: a family-run hotel continues implementing a booking system despite persistent difficulties. An exercise proposed for the “Management complexe” programme is to record an expected future benefit, an observable indicator, a review date and a condition for redirecting or stopping the project before the next resource commitment, then discuss this record with someone uninvolved in the initial choice. On the scheduled date, the check examines whether these elements were documented before the decision and whether continuation, modification or termination is justified in writing against the observations, without treating the exercise as a guarantee of success. To go further: explore the Complex Management training in Lucerne in the canton of Lucerne, or browse our executive and employee training programmes in Switzerland.
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