What is Satisficing?
Speed your decisions and make life easier by utilizing the concepts of maximizing and satisficing.
My pal Bernice wants only the best for her wedding. She wants the best music, the best cake, the best location, the best weather. It needs to be the most romantic wedding ever, and have the best food, wine, and cheese at the reception. And did I mention the guest list? Every important person in her life just has to be there. She’s going over every detail with a fine-tooth comb, finding and evaluating every possible option. Bernice, in other words, is a maximizer.
When faced with a choice, a maximizer will try to make the best choice possible. They want to make every possible aspect of the end result perfect. They’re often disappointed. Sometimes getting the lowest cost, for example, won’t also get the highest quality. Life has tradeoffs, and maximizers hate that. What’s worse, after a decision is made, maximizers obsess about whether they missed a better option than the one they chose. And if anything goes wrong later—say, it turns out that Bernice’s cake has 40 more calories per slice than anticipated—they always remember the one option they didn’t choose that wouldn’t have had that problem. Never mind that even though it would have been perfect in its calorie count, a cucumber and hummus wedding cake would have been … unfortunate.
Maxmizing gets better outcomes, but decisions can take longer, and they’re often accompanied by regret.
What are Satisficers?
Melvin, Bernice’s boyfriend, is a satisficer. He yearned for years for a white Toyota Corolla, and he wanted to pay under $7,000 for it. When it was time to buy a car, the first showroom he walked into had a used, white Toyota Corolla in the lot with a sticker price of $6,500. He bought it on the spot. Bernice was horrified that Melvin didn’t shop around. “It met my criteria,” he explained, “so why look any further?”
Satisficers combine the ideas of “satisfaction” and “suffice.” They are satisfied with whatever is sufficient to meet their goals. A satisficer may or may not get the best deal, but their decision-making process is much faster. They quickly find “good enough,” and don’t spend too much time afterwards worrying about whether it was the best choice. Their needs were met, and that was that.
Satisficers don’t get outcomes as good as maximizers, but they have less stress and make quicker decisions. And by definition, those decisions meet the needs of the moment. If you want to work less and do more, learn to satisfice. Here are 5 tips:
Tip #1: When Facing a Decision, Decide to Maximize or Satisfice
If a decision involves juggling many factors, you likely won’t find an option that gets you the best in every possible area. Looking for a vendor—like a wedding cake baker—who has the best quality, the lowest price, the most flexible payment terms, the quickest delivery, the most customization, and tasty high-protein, low-calorie buttercream frosting is likely a fruitless search. It’s a perfect candidate for satisficing.
If you’re choosing a plastic surgeon, or making any make-or-break decision, it may be worth the time to maximize. If you go for the cheapest surgeon whose attitude is, “a nose here, a nose there, as long as it has two nostrils,” the consequences are life-long. Instead, maximize! Generate lots of options and hope that there’s one that is clearly better than the rest.
If you decide to satisfice, decide what your standards are for each factor in advance.
Tip #2: Satisfice Quantity
Do I really need two dozen fabulous micro-perforated 3-hole punched blank paper spiral notebooks from my favorite stationery store, Bob Slate Stationers? Of course not. Rather than maximizing by trying to buy a decade’s worth of the perfect notebook, I can satisfice by recognizing that no one needs 24 notebooks. I can buy 23, instead.
Tip #3: Satisfice Quality
You can satisfice quality by identifying the minimum quality standard. Do your robot parts really need to withstand a nuclear explosion? Of course not! Most robot armies only need to be able to withstand a 5 mega-watt disintegrator ray. Choose the minimum quality needed for your application.
Tip #4: Satisfice on Delivery Time
Delivery terms often play on our need for instant gratification. I wanted to buy the Archie Comics Kevin Keller series. And gosh darn it, I wanted it now. But paying $15 for overnight delivery on a $4 comic book. Really? That’s absurd. Second-day delivery would be just fine, with only a small chance of me being in a fatal car crash on that day, and dying without having had a chance to read the issues.
Before paying for overnight delivery or expedited manufacturing, be honest about when you need the item. Satisfice your delivery time requirements.
Tip #5: Don’t Kill Your Maximizer/Satisficer
If you’re making decisions with another person, one of you may satisfice while the other maximizes. You’ll be tempted to kill each other, but don’t. Share this episode with them and decide together whether you’ll maximize or satisfice. If you decide to maximize, let the maximizer do the bulk of the legwork to gather the data, while the satisficer sips fruit-flavored beverages on a tropical island. If you decide to satisfice, let the satisficer create the list of minimum requirements while the maximizer takes a turn in the hammock.
Maximizing tries to get the best possible outcome from a decision, but takes more up-front work, and risks eternal regret if no ideal option exists. Satisficing is easier and quicker, but risks making a worse decision than maximizing. Choose your strategy in advance, and you’ll work less and do more!
Work Less, Do More, and have a Great Life!
About the Author
Stever Robbins was the host of the podcast Get-it-Done Guy from 2007 to 2019. He is a graduate of W. Edward Deming’s Total Quality Management training program and a Certified Master Trainer Elite of NLP. He holds an MBA from the Harvard Business School and a BS in Computer Sciences from MIT.
