Ep 288 | Sometimes Good Enough is Enough

Thank you for joining me today. It's Brian Gubernick, and welcome to the No Days Off podcast, where we believe that every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. If you're listening to the No Days Off podcast, it's because, of course, you desire to get better every single day. And one thing that we aim to get better at is our decision-making. It's a favorite topic of mine. I oftentimes reference Charlie Munger. We talk around different thinking or mental models. The idea being that we make better decisions. Now there's lots of ways to make decisions, right? We can look at elimination by aspects, or we can look at, uh, doing, you know, running a decision tree or using game theory. These are all things that we have talked about in the past, or we'll be talking about in the future. Today, however, I want to talk about something called satisficing. Satisficing. Yep, sounds like a strange word. That's because it kind of is. What is satisficing? Satisficing is a term that was coined by an economist named Herbert Simon. He also was a Nobel laureate. And satisficing combines the words satisfy and suffice. So satisficing is a decision-making strategy where we as decision-makers aim to find a satisfactory solution or outcome rather than optimizing for the best possible outcome. Stick with me. I know that sounds a little weird. You're like, why would you not optimize for the best possible outcome? Satisficing involves accepting a solution that meets a certain threshold, certain threshold of acceptability, rather than striving for the absolute best outcome. Now, it goes without saying that this concept, it contrasts with maximizing. When we try to maximize, we are seeking to find the absolute best option or outcome. Sometimes we're extensively evaluating all alternatives in order to make the optimal choice. And in the perfect world, we, we would love to do that all the time if we had the right time, if we had the right resources. However, the world is not perfect. And in real-world situations, sometimes satisfying makes sense because it's more practical, it's more possible. Than evaluating every possible option or all of the costs or doing all the analysis. What does satisficing do for us? It allows for us to make decisions more efficiently. And again, it allows for us to do that by setting a minimum standard or a minimum threshold of acceptability and choosing maybe the first option that meets or exceeds that bar, that standard. Even if it's not the absolute best option available. We see satisficing in all sorts of different contexts. Maybe it's consumer making decision— consumer decision-making. Said that a little backwards. Consumer decision-making, where, yeah, a consumer could shop and shop and shop, but they have this minimum standard, and if they find something that meets that minimum standard, They can buy it. Or maybe it's in organizational decision-making where, again, an organization could spend a tremendous amount of time and resources on a decision, but if something just meets the standard, we can move forward. We see this all the time throughout everyday life. Now, by adopting this satisficing approach, we make decisions more quickly and we do it with less effort, and we still achieve outcomes that are acceptable. Now it goes without saying there's all sorts of risks, and we'll talk about those here in a moment, around using this satisficing approach. But in my experience, when I set a standard— dare I say a minimum standard— but set a standard, set an attainable threshold, and say, if I can get just past this, it's acceptable, it I move more efficiently. I move more effectively. Now I may not be getting the maximum, but it's good enough. And in a lot of cases, in a lot of decisions that we make on a daily basis, that'll work. Why? Because you're trading some things. In other words, I'm not putting in more time and more resources with respect to this decision that I could reallocate and use maybe in an area where it's more important. So stop agonizing over certain decisions is what I'm really trying to say. Agonizing sometimes over decisions may actually be the wrong thing to do, especially when the sufficient outcome exists. So what should we be asking ourselves as it pertains to satisficing? Like, how do I know when satisficing, you know, accepting the minimum, As a decision or as an option makes sense. I think what you have to do is ask questions that help assess trade-offs, trade-offs between the benefits of satisficing and the potential drawbacks. Here's some questions I would be asking. Number 1, what are the decision criteria? In other words, what are the key factors that are important for evaluating this decision? I've got to understand this criteria. You've got to understand this criteria to determine if satisficing is actually appropriate, right? If it's balancing— proper to balance these competing priorities. So number 1, what are the decision criteria? Number 2, what options are available to me? What are the available options? Like, what's the range of available options or alternatives? Let's get them all out on the table and let's consider the feasibility of thoroughly evaluating all options versus selecting a satisfactory option that meets the basic requirements. Again, what are the trade-offs here? Number 3, what are the time and resource constraints? Assess how much time and how much effort and how many resources are actually available to make the decision, and then consider whether satisficing allows for better use of that time and effort and resources. Of course, I'll, I'll say number 4, what are the risks? What are the benefits? Like, have you done the analysis here? Evaluate these potential risks and benefits. Associated with satisficing versus maximizing. Sometimes you'll find like, I have no choice but to find the optimal solution no matter the time, effort, resources. But a lot of times satisficing does the trick. So consider factors such as the likelihood of finding an optimal solution, the cost of delaying the decision, the consequences of making a suboptimal choice. Consider these options. Next, what is the level of uncertainty? Consider the level of uncertainty around the decision. If the decision environment is highly uncertain or it's rather dynamic, satisficing may be a more adaptive approach than trying to optimize, right? Under conditions that you just don't fully understand. Lastly, What's the overall goal and objective? Remember, we've got to clarify this overarching goal, you know, kind of at the start and at the end. What's the overarching goal? What's the objective of the decision? Does satisfying get us there? Does it get us to where we need to be? Will we achieve the desired outcome? Or do we have to actually maximize in order to get to, you know, a specific level or goal or whatever it may be? So we've got to ask, what's the overall objective? We got to ask that frequently and come back to it. So why am I talking around satisfying today? Because we all have trade-offs all day long. And usually when we talk around decision-making, we have a tendency to lean more so into all of the things that will result in the best possible outcome, the optimal solution. And what I'm here to say is not everything requires that amount of time, energy, effort, resources. Sometimes I would actually say that good enough is enough. Good enough is enough. And I want you all to consider that today. That's all I have for you today. The No Days Off Podcast. Thank you so much for listening. And remember, every single day brings a new opportunity to to get better. So let's get after it.