The Power of Collaboration by Thea Singer Spitzer

Author:Thea Singer Spitzer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Career Press
Published: 2018-04-10T04:00:00+00:00

Engaging in Informed Revisioning helped these leaders see things from a new perspective. This activity helped them see that they didn’t have to just choose one of the three options. It allowed them to come to new conclusions and make strong recommendations to their executives that they wouldn’t otherwise have thought of.

WHEN TO FISH AND WHEN TO CUT BAIT

When we are dealing with constraints such as time, money, or staff resources, it sometimes makes the most sense to just select the best option at-hand and implement it. This is called “satisficing,” a term that was coined in the 1940s by Herbert Simon, a Nobel Prize winner and renowned management expert. Combining the words satisfy and suffice, it describes those situations when an optimal solution is not likely to be found so we go with the best one that we have.

At other times, however, satisficing isn’t the best thing to do. What if Tesla had satisficed when they were trying to build their first all-electric car? If they had stopped before they found the right formula, they might have ended up designing just another very good hybrid rather than the industry-changing car that they built. On the other hand, what if Tesla had spent five more years trying to get the formula right and still had not found the right design? In that case, they might have wished they had satisficed.

George Bernard Shaw once said, “Success comes from taking the path of maximum advantage instead of the path of least resistance.”5 Unfortunately, there is no easy formula for determining if we are on the cusp of that next amazing product. Often it is best to satisfice because it does the job and we suspect that many more months of work will not yield the result we want.

This concept is an important one for groups making critical decisions that influence directions of a project or an entire company. Although there is no easy way to determine when to “fish” and when to “cut bait,” these decisions are crucially important. If this situation arises, a group needs to discuss whether to keep going or to satisfice.

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