Near and far
Does construal-level theory offer the practitioner some solutions to the planning fallacy?
Summary
Construal-level theory posits that we think differently about things in the abstract or far than we do in the more concrete near.
As we plan in the far but take many decisions in the near, this simple idea has many far-reaching implications for educational leadership practice.
This may explain elements of the planning fallacy, which is as rife in educational leadership as it is in other professions.
It may also provide some potential solutions to minimize the impact of the planning fallacy as well.
Far is idealistic, near is practical
The ability to think about the far future, the abstract and the idealistic, may, in part, explain humanity’s rise from hunter-gatherer to space-farer, so it is no surprise that social psychology remains so interested in construal-level theory. Put simply, this is the idea that we think differently about things in the abstract far than we do about things in the more concrete near. This is similar to the concept of psychological distance but not exactly the same.
Psychological distance refers to the perception of when an event occurs, where it occurs, to whom it occurs, and whether it occurs. Construal levels refer to the perception of what will occur: the processes that give rise to the representation of the event itself.
Moving to the abstract, we tend to gloss over specific features and details. For example, a whiteboard marker may end up abstracted to a more general category of “classroom equipment”, but equally, a teacher’s computer may also come under that same category. So immediately, there’s a potential problem for the school leader as we both lose detail and add new meanings the more far we go. Making matters potentially worse, most school planning is done in far mode, yet most decision-making is done in the more concrete near. In short, long-term planning comes with potentially significant trade-offs for the school leader, we’ll look at perhaps the biggest of these now, the planning fallacy, which is our tendency to be far more optimistic than we should be about the potential success of our plans.
Using high-level, abstract construals to represent psychologically distal objects is thus indispensable for effective functioning in many domains: for developing object constancy, orienting in space, planning the future, learning from the past, relating to and understanding other people, and for considering alternative outcomes and courses of action.
from Trope and Liberman
The Planning fallacy
Longbaugh: What do you think?
Parker: I think a plan is just a list of things that don't happen.
from “The Way of the Gun”
Most school leaders have been in a scenario where everything always seems so reasonable and achievable at the planning stage, and yet when it comes down to it, the plan doesn’t work, things take too long, costs mount, and in the all too bitter, end, what happens is very different from what was intended to happen. Perhaps most perniciously, the typical postmortem into why plans went awry can often lead to a quick round of the blame game (a full contact sport), and both professional relationships are frayed and the deeper structural issues that lead to the problem ignored. This all too familiar story is an example of the planning fallacy in action, which simply means that when planning for the future, we tend to imagine the most optimistic scenario possible despite our own prior experiences. This can lead to a worst-case scenario of increased costs, time overruns, and fractured working relationships. Interestingly, construal-level theory partly explains why this happens and, more importantly for the practitioner, provides some concrete guidance on how to avoid it.
Why the planning fallacy happens
Beginning with why it happens, construal level theory suggests that this is because we plan in the far, which, you hopefully now know, is a more idealistic abstract and more impractical mode of thought; completion timelines and potential difficulties are minimized, and we tend to emphasize pros over cons for the prospective plan. Thus if we begin a project focusing only on the far, we’re more likely to be overly optimistic about both risks and our ability to manage them, which in turn means we probably won’t plan well for the inevitable problems. Making matters worse, we will tend to disproportionately focus on the potential benefits and give less attention to how to mitigate and manage risks. All of these added together, spell trouble for the school leader, trouble that is best avoided before it happens!
Avoiding the planning fallacy
Moving onto how we might avoid some planning errors, it appears likely that, as construal level theory implies, forcing ourselves to consider the plan and its limitations in more concrete terms means that we are likely to minimize some of the more pernicious effects of the planning fallacy. Somewhat speculatively, in practice, this will probably involve organizing planning pre-mortems as a matter of course, especially for strategic plans. The pre-mortems should go into specific concrete terms regarding what could go wrong and why and how long each part of a plan will take, and what assumptions would have to go right for the plan to be successful.
Related to this, another way of re-grounding ourselves in the messy reality of actual project management and quickly eliminating some of that optimism bias is to simply ask the planning group to think about their own past experiences with a similar project and consider what happened then. These two techniques probably work best when combined.
The caveats
Finishing off with the usual caveats, for researchers, it may very well be the case that construal-level theory suffers from publication bias, and many of the above findings may turn out to be weaker than currently reported. This is less of an issue for the practitioner, who looks more at the research to generate useful heuristics to inform decision-making, and hopefully, the above is of some value in that. Further to that, the theory has many other implications, including the rather disturbing one that the ability to think in far makes us more hypocritical, as does power. These will be explored in subsequent posts.
Lastly, it may well be that you may be a bit unique and are one of those rare school leaders who genuinely knows that none of the above applies to you, if so, you may find an upcoming post on self-deception more relevant.