On the Sunk Cost Trap in Business

One of the quieter dangers in business is a goal that has outlived its usefulness.

A product that no longer fits the market. A process the team has outgrown. A strategy that made sense three years ago but doesn't reflect the world today.

Leaders know this, intellectually. But walking away is harder than it sounds. Because by the time a goal has become a problem, most organisations have invested years of time, effort, energy and identity in pursuing it.

Abandoning it feels like failure. So instead, it gets quietly kept alive. Revisited in planning sessions. Defended in board meetings. Long past the point where the honest answer is: we got this wrong, and we need to do something different.

The best leadership teams I've worked with are the ones who've built enough psychological safety to say that out loud. Not as a defeat. As a decision. Because the fastest path forward isn't always the one you started on.