You stayed late at work perfecting the pitch, rewrote the deck a dozen times and fought for this idea in every meeting. Unfortunately, the results didn’t turn out as expected, but you still can’t let it go.
That’s the “IKEA Effect” in action. Coined by psychologists Michael Norton, Daniel Mochon and Dan Ariely, the term refers to our tendency to overvalue things we’ve created ourselves, much like the slightly uneven IKEA bookshelf that you’re strangely proud of.
At work, this bias can cloud your judgment, wasting time, energy and even impacting your credibility. Here are two ways the IKEA Effect can trap you in tunnel vision.
1. The Ownership Blindspot
Imagine this: you’re the creative lead or a brand strategist of a company. You’ve been driving a campaign from day one, working on everything from developing the concept to pitching it to clients, pouring months of work into it. But now, the results are underwhelming. Still, you can’t help but believe it just needs one more tweak. Letting go feels impossible because you devoted so much of your time and energy to it and now you’re finding it tough to let go.
This is the IKEA Effect at work — you overvalue something because you built it. It happens across roles and industries, but leaders are especially vulnerable.
The more time and energy we invest, the harder it is to detach. Writing a proposal, designing a product or leading a campaign makes us feel ownership, even when the results don’t justify it. This could be because we face what is called “identity fusion.” Without realizing it, we can internalize our creations as reflections of who we are, making any critique feel like criticism of our identity.
A 2018 study in the Academy of Management Journal found that startup founders who felt personally attached to their products were more likely to double down, even when data suggested pivoting. In some cases, they made changes that hurt the idea, just to preserve the original vision.
This happens because creators often view their work as an extension of themselves. When people create something, like a new business idea or a piece of art, they often feel personally connected to it, almost as though it’s a part of who they are. It’s an emotional defense mechanism to avoid admitting they might have been wrong.
As a result, they resist making changes even when they need feedback to improve their project or work. This resistance can hurt their ideas, instead of helping them improve. If you’ve faced this, here’s what you can do instead of trying to find potential in failed projects:
- Switch from identity to evaluation. Instead of saying that you failed, remind yourself that there is always room for progress. Shift from the “I failed” mindset to “This needs improvement.”
- Use data as your compass. Let performance guide your decisions, not your pride.
- Take time away. Take intentional breaks that would help you see your work more clearly.
- Involve neutral voices. Ask others for their feedback. A colleague who is not involved in the project has a chance of giving you a third-person unbiased perspective and help you spot red flags or “bugs” that may require fixing.
2. The Completion Fallacy
Your brain tricks you into believing that finished work equals good work, irrespective of its quality, so you keep pushing to reach the end line. This is a result of the sunk cost fallacy, which refers to the irrational urge to continue investing in a failing project simply because we’ve already put time, money or effort into it.
According to 2015 research published in Economic Inquiry, the sunk cost fallacy is an evolutionary trait. It’s not something we should always try to eliminate, as it demonstrates commitment to our decisions and our ability to persevere.
This behavior evolved because protecting investments, even bad ones, often increased survival odds more than abandoning them halfway and losing everything. This “stick-with-it” instinct also fosters teamwork, ensuring people don’t abandon joint projects when challenges arise.
One 2020 study published in Creativity and Innovation Management found that groups perform better when individuals don’t immediately copy others and instead rely on their own ideas, even if it seems less efficient. This individual hesitation, often due to personal attachment to their work, actually helps the group find better solutions overall.
However, in certain situations, the sunk cost mindset when combined with the IKEA Effect can be harmful. Our emotional attachment magnifies our inability to let go, which turns our persistence into self-sabotage.
This happens because we fear admitting failure more than we value future gains. As a result, we convince ourselves that more effort will eventually pay off, even as we waste additional resources trying to reach an unattainable goal. It can also stem from our fear of accepting that our effort was in vain. We see quitting as a threat to our self-image as capable, competent creators.
Consider Sheldon Cooper from The Big Bang Theory, played by Jim Parsons, the prodigal and egoistic astrophysicist whose sense of self shattered temporarily and hilariously after being forced to abandon string theory, a field he had dedicated two decades to without significant progress, due the scientific community’s vote of no confidence. Yet, he eventually pivoted, collaborated with his partner and developed the concept of super-asymmetry, which won him a Nobel Prize.
Of course, we don’t always need Nobel-worthy projects to justify a pivot, especially when the cost of clinging to a failing endeavor is high. Continuing down an unproductive path can lead to financial losses for companies, wasted time (opportunity cost) and missed chances to pursue better ideas. Moreover, the stress of forcing a failing project to work can cause burnout and decision fatigue. To break free from this mindset, you can try some of these steps:
- Predefine exit signals. Before starting, define your outcomes, not leaving out the possibility of failure. For example, a target goal could sound something like “If we don’t hit X metric by Y date, we pivot.”
- Separate ego from outcome. Ask yourself if you would still invest in it if someone else had built this.
- Run “pre-mortems.” Imagine hypothetical scenarios where the project fails and ask yourself why or what could lead to this outcome to help you expose blind spots early.
Sometimes, it’s better to walk away than to keep pouring effort into something that may never succeed. While it’s natural to take pride in our work, we must balance that pride with clarity, feedback and real-world results, before this bias locks us into rigid, outdated approaches.
Left unchecked, it stifles flexibility, discourages fresh thinking and can even lower team morale as people cling to “their way” despite better alternatives. That’s why we must pause and ask: “Is this the best path forward or just the one I’m most emotionally attached to?”
Do you find it hard to get past your mistakes and embrace new perspectives? Take this science-backed test to find out: Mistake Rumination Scale
