Satisficing

Everyone would love to have a perfect plan — to know exactly what's going to happen, and to have the steps in place to deal with it.

Many people would be quite happy to put off decisive action until all the uncertainty can be removed.

In the context of a hobby, this kind of delay might be acceptable. Want to restore your grandpa's 1946 Cadillac? Take all the time you need to make a plan.

But when it's time to take action for your organization, you don't have that luxury.

In a 1985 study of how firefighter commanders manage high-stakes decisions under pressure, author Gary Klein expected that the commander would think of two or more possibilities, weigh the pros and cons of each, and then pick the best option.

What he found instead was that they instinctively, and invariably, relied on experience to go with the first reasonable plan that came to mind.

This is “satisficing:” The plan must satisfy minimum set of requirements, and it must suffice. It need not be perfect or even the best. But it must be executed soon.

Here's the thing:

Your decisions are probably somewhere in between. They’re rarely as high-stakes and urgent as a house fire, and almost never as relaxed as a hobby.

Time is always a limited resource. Endlessly debating the perfect plan is not really an option.

But satisficing is. Knowing that no plan can ever be perfect, you can devise a strategy that has a reasonable expectation of success.

Yes, you should expect to learn something and make adjustments along the way. But at some point, even before all the uncertainty is removed, it will be time to act.

All the best,
A.