In his hit song “The Gambler”, Kenny Rogers refers to a fundamental concept in playing poker: “You got to know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em.” I am not much of a gambler, but perhaps there is a little wisdom there. As we pursue scientific discovery to improve health for all, how do we balance our perseverance and passion with pragmatism and knowing when to change directions?
People tend to revere fortitude and stick-to-it-ness. We’ve all heard sports coaches say things like “A winner never quits, and a quitter never wins” or “The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack of will.” In history, we can recall the names of doomed battles involving heroic last stands; yet no one can name examples of generals who saved themselves and their armies to fight and win another day.
Over the last decade, the public’s fascination with grit as an alluring quality has skyrocketed. Angela Duckworth’s 2013 Ted Talk has over 28 million views, and her 2016 book Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance is an international best seller. We've also seen it take hold in educational policy throughout the United States, from elementary school to professional and graduate school, by influencing curriculum design to boost students’ future success by making them grittier. This seems to be occurring for good reason since studies have found that grit relates to several intermediaries of success, including increased deliberate practice1, sustained retention in difficult jobs2, and task persistence3.
With all the enthusiasm around grit, it’s hard to imagine making a case to quit rather than doubling down efforts. Sticking with something you know isn’t working doesn’t make any sense, yet people are often too invested and committed to a specific path to see the writing on the wall. The story of the Concorde, the French-British supersonic airliner, is an example of this. The development of the jet was plagued by delays and cost overruns, but instead of scrapping the project, the French and British governments determined they had invested too much not to continue investing billions more. Sticking with something that isn’t working is known as the sunk cost fallacy.
In business, sunk cost is money that has already been spent and cannot be recovered. Us humans have a natural tendency to want to continue with endeavors in which we've already invested time, money, or other resources, but when we trudge on despite the costs outweighing the benefits, we fall victim to the sunk cost fallacy. The phenomenon clouds decision making, compelling people to stay the course even when pivoting is the more logical choice. The business concept of opportunity cost, defined as the value or benefit forgone by missing out on an opportunity, is closely linked to the sunk cost fallacy. In other words, you pay twice when sticking with a losing endeavor: the resources you sink in as well as the potential gain lost from endeavors you didn’t pursue because you were busy sticking with the losing endeavor.
So, what do you do if you spent years grinding out the work on a project and the results aren’t what you expected and hypothesized? Should you give up or stay the course? How will you know if you’re bailing out too quickly? These are tough decisions that are often influenced by emotion and irrational thinking. Complicating things even further is the fact that quitting carries such a negative connotation and is used to describe someone who lacks the willpower to succeed in something that demands a certain degree of vigor.
Thinking about sunk cost and opportunity cost are two ways to insert some objectivity into the process. Along with this is the idea of failing fast, an approach that has been around for years now. It's easy to understand its appeal. The expenses (in time, effort and dollars) just get worse and worse as a failed project goes forward, and if one can avoid going down at least some of the roads that add to the losses, it is beneficial.
In health sciences research, we need both grit as well as the ability to make rational, business-like decisions. When results are unexpected, most great scientific and clinical minds will use both. They will look at the results and say, “Huh that’s interesting,” and consider whether it leads to a new direction. They will rethink and adjust their project with the same passion and drive, using the knowledge they acquired to move forward. They don’t quit; they redirect their grit.
So maybe the line we need to pay more attention to in “The Gambler” is “Every gambler knows that the secret to survivin', is knowin' what to throw away and knowing what to keep.” We keep what’s working, abandon what’s not, and use that knowledge to play the hand in a new direction to see what we discover.
Michael S. Reddy, DMD, DMSc
Dean, UCSF School of Dentistry
Associate Vice Chancellor, Oral Health Affairs
