Career inaction and the psychology of doing nothing

I've come across a new theory that I'm quite excited about. The Theory of Career Inaction (Verbruggen and de Vos, 2020) seems to offer a good explanation of a phenomenon that I have come across many times in my coaching, but haven't ever quite understood. The theory unpicks what's going on with clients who know where they want to go and know what they need to do, but who still do nothing. There is, apparently, a whole wealth of research into 'the psychology of doing nothing' (who knew?) and Verbruggen and De Vos have taken some of their understandings and findings and applied them to career development in the form of their new Career Inaction Theory.

I'll try and give an overview here, but the details of the paper are at the bottom if you want to find out more. 

There are, it seems, two typical human tendencies which are to blame: the tendency to delay decisions, and the tendency to avoid taking action. I'm sure we can all recognise these in ourselves, or others.

The doing-nothing psychologists talk about three inertia-enhancing mechanisms.

1) Fear and anxiety. This stops people from taking action, and these feelings are often exacerbated by uncertain outcomes.

2) Short term-ism. People are more focused on what happens in the short term than the long term, leading them to prioritise short term comforts over long term gains.

3) Cognitive overload. When decisions are too complex, or involve too much information or too many variables, people may become paralysed and avoid the issue altogether. 

These three things which prevent us from acting are all quite powerful, but are implicit, meaning that we don't realise the impact they are having on us. This makes it hard for people to identify or articulate them.

Thinking about career decisions in the light of these three 'inertia mechanisms', it becomes quite clear why career inaction is so common: 

1) career decisions almost always have an uncertain outcome - you don't ever really know what the new job is going to be like until you actually do it - so that contributes to fear and anxiety

2) career choices very often involve short term losses - giving up a stable, familiar, known-quantity, and sometimes an income and a secure future, for the possibility of a better future, some way down the line.

3) Career decisions are complex and uncertain and there are too many variables and too many options. This all places huge demands on our brains, leading to cognitive overload.

There some situations that make career inaction either more or less likely, and it can be useful to spend some time exploring these factors with your clients.
1) A clearly crystalised desired future. If clients can find out more about the options they are considering, and put some time into visualising a clear positive future, this can lead to less fear and anxiety, and less cognitive overload.
2) Making a small change is easier than making a significant change, so if individuals can either identify a small first step, or reframe their plans to make them feel less major, they may feel that it is a less risky thing to do.
3) A deadline helps. If there is no clear window within which the individual has to make the decision, they are much more likely to believe that something better will come up, and will be less motivated to take advantage of any opportunity. Encouraging a client to set their own deadline for action can be useful.
4) Social norms. People's views about the acceptability of changing direction will be shaped by the norms of behaviour in their social circles. If their friends, family and colleagues are comfortable making changes, the individual will feel that their choice is less risky. A coach could help by encouraging the client to identify people they know who have made changes, and reflect on whether their own views have been unduly influenced by others.

Career coaches can thus have a useful part to play in encouraging action, but they can also have a positive impact when working with clients who have already failed to act. 

People who have let opportunities pass them by through inaction will often spend time thinking back to what might have been. The authors describe this as counterfactual thinking and suggest it can focus on what they could have done (the process) or what they could now be doing (the outcome). 

For some, these counterfactual thoughts can be linked to regret, in which case they can lead to self-blame, low satisfaction, low self-esteem and even poorer physical health. For others, who have managed to find a good story they can tell themselves to explain their behaviour, it can lead to a sense of relief. To help clients deal with a sense of regret, coaches can encourage them to understand why they made the choices they did, and help them to forgive themselves. 

The authors also noted that career inaction can easily lead to what they call inaction inertia: having refused to strive for one career opportunity, people seem less inclined to strive for another. The reason for this is that it's more difficult to convince ourselves that ignoring the first possible opportunity was a good idea, if we subsequently make the decision that we want to pursue to second opportunity. Career coaching can help clients unpick these complicated subconscious reactions and can free people up to make better choices in future. 

That's my brief summary of the theory. I think it's really interesting and gives us some useful ideas to help us identify what's going on with our clients, and some practical ways in which we can help. 

Verbruggen, M., & De Vos, A. (2020). When people don’t realize their career desires: toward a theory of career inaction. Academy of Management Review, 45(2), 376-394.