There are two kinds of people in this world, and it explains every argument you've ever had about where to eat dinner.
TL/DR:
You're either a satisficer (you act when your criteria are met) or a maximizer (you keep researching for "the best"). Neither is wrong.
Satisficers tend to be happier with their choices but risk missing better options on big decisions.
Maximizers do better research but often spend too much time on low-stakes decisions.
The sweet spot? Pair the two approaches together, whether on a team or in your personal life.
There's no single right way to make decisions. What works for someone else doesn't have to work for you.
The Whole Shebang:
Are you a maximizer, or a satisficer? Not sure? No worries, I’ll spell it out for you below.
At a high level:
Satisficers act on a decision when their minimum criteria are met. (Don’t get me wrong, satisficers don’t necessarily settle; their criteria can be very high. It’s just that when they reach it, they act.)
Maximizers, well, no matter what their criteria is, they are going to blow past it in their search for “the best”.
Neither is better, but knowing your tendency and help you identify where to lean into it, and where it might not be serving you.
Studies show that, overall, satisficers tend to be happier with their choices than maximizers because maximizers are always looking for something better, even if they’ve found something great.
Generally, satisficers excel in the little decisions of life (aka, most of them) because they don’t waste a lot of time on things that are ultimately not that important.
But, they may want to call in a maximizer for the big decision to make sure they’re considering things fully and don’t get trigger happy.
Maximizers, on the other hand, tend to feel compelled to spend more time than they would like to on all decisions, even those that aren’t that important, like which headphones to buy, what restaurant to go to, etc. But, with the big decisions of life, they are spending energy and time commensurate with that decision.
In any case, I’m a satisficer. And I’ve got a couple of maximizers in my family. (And the majority of my coaching clients are maximizers, too.)
Satisficing generally serves me pretty well. I make decisions and move on.
But today, I’m going to tell you a story about how having a maximizer in my life made life better.
A story of how satisficing let me down in a way I didn’t even realize.
Today’s story is about running shoes.
I’m a runner. (A slow one. Perhaps I should call myself a jogger.)
My 15 year old son has recently taken up cross-country and track and lets just say he’s much, much faster than me.
And he’s also a maximizer.
Once he gets into something, you can be assured that he’s going to have all the stats, all the info, about all the great related to that thing.
Last year, mechanical keyboards. This year, running shoes.
And me, I needed new running shoes. Honestly, I was probably overdue by about 6 months. (That’s how much I hate shopping.)
I’m also pretty frugal. And remember. I’m a satisficer.
So, my plan was to go search my Amazon orders for the exact same pair I bought last time (which were fine, and affordable), and just add them to my cart again.
But, I happened to be at Sports Basement with my son because he was looking for a very specific shoe for himself.
I thought, well, since I’m here, I might look around for myself.
But I, almost immediately, became very overwhelmed.
Too many choices. I didn’t want to try things on. I didn’t know enough about shoes to know why some cost more than others, other than brand, etc.
But my son, the maximizer, saw me floundering and giving up, and put his maximizer shoe knowledge to work for me.
He asked my size and started bringing me shoes to try on.
He forced me to try them on. I didn’t want to.
They were all most expensive than I was planning to spend.
But then I tried on a pair, and they felt much, much better than my previous running shoes. And they weren’t exorbitant in cost.
He brought me 3 pairs he suspected, from his research, would be a good fit for me.
He said they would make running “more fun”.
I didn’t quite believe him on the fun part (I exercise for health, but sadly, have never experienced exercise related endorphins), but I bought them anyway.
And then I went running in them.
And lo and behold, while I still don’t think running is “fun”; it’s definitely more pleasant in these shoes.
Moral of the story:
There are downsides to being a highly efficient satisficer. Just as there are downsides to being an overly researched maximizer.
BUT, put the two together and magic can happen.
I guess that’s why one of my clients, a CEO, after she learned about the satisficer/maximizer dichotomy, told me she’ll aim to ensure there was at least one satisficer and one maximizer on every one of the teams in her company.
Bonus moral!:
There’s not “one right way” to do things.
Remember that the next time you’re frustrated that what worked for someone else isn’t working for you.
And if you need a little support to help you find what works for you, here are 3 ways we can work together:
Enroll in the Time Well Spent course
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