In Zurich, is knowing when to stop a project a leadership skill?
In Zurich's financial services, insurance, tech and European headquarters of international groups, a disappointing project may continue to absorb resources because abandoning it becomes difficult to defend. For SHR — Swiss Human Resources' “Leadership d'excellence” programme, the useful question is specific: how can leaders reassess an investment without confusing its prospects with the defence of a past decision?
What the literature establishes
Barry M. Staw (1976, Organizational Behavior and Human Performance) showed experimentally that personal responsibility for an initial decision could encourage further investment following negative feedback. The issue is therefore not just the information available: it is also the position of the person who must acknowledge that their choice has not delivered the expected results. This experiment establishes a possible mechanism, not a rule that every leader will persist mistakenly.
A mechanism beyond individual stubbornness
Dustin E. Sleesman, Donald E. Conlon, Gerry McNamara and Jonathan E. Miles (2012, Academy of Management Journal) bring together research on the determinants of escalation of commitment in a meta-analysis. Their synthesis distinguishes psychological, social, organisational and project-related factors, rather than a simple character flaw. For management, this also means examining decision-making arrangements that make continuation easier to justify than stopping.
The premature conclusion
One might conclude that good leaders quickly abandon disappointing projects. That would confuse an adverse signal with proof that any further investment is unjustified: future benefits may still make continuation reasonable. The relevant distinction is between a decision based on the prospects that remain and one intended to justify resources already committed. (our executive and employee training programmes)
What the evidence cannot settle
A resource-allocation experiment does not reproduce every constraint of a real portfolio, and a meta-analysis does not provide a universal threshold for abandonment. In practice, regulatory obligations, technical dependencies and exit costs can alter what constitutes a reasonable choice. These constraints therefore need to be documented, without turning them into an automatic justification for every additional expenditure.
A practical check in Zurich
An exercise proposed for “Leadership d'excellence” is to record an observable reassessment trigger, a deadline and the evidence that would justify continuation before the next funding review of a Zurich project. At the review, someone who did not sponsor the original decision examines the case, and the team then records its decision and reasons. The verifiable measure is the proportion of projects that have reached this trigger and actually undergone a documented reassessment, checked against the project register and review records. This indicator measures decision-making discipline, not profitability or an obligation to stop. To go further: explore the Executive Leadership training in Zurich in the canton of Zurich, or browse our executive and employee training programmes in Switzerland.
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