Maximizer or Satisficer:
How Do You Choose?

I first stumbled across the word “satisficer” (had to look it up) in The Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz. In his book, he compares the way satisficers and those presumably on the other end of the spectrum—maximizers—go about making choices.

First, though, he claims that the two groups are defined by having different goals. Maximizers “seek and accept only the best,” while satisficers “settle for something that is good enough” without worrying that something else might be better.

Seeking and accepting only the best is not a goal, however; nor is settling for something that is good enough. Rather than being goals, seeking only the best and settling for good enough could be considered ways of operating, behaviors, attitudes, tendencies, or even drives. They play a part in how you go about trying to achieve a goal or accomplish something—and how you measure your success. But to call them goals entirely misses the point of what a goal (or objective) is. And that’s not inconsequential.

Maximizers Are Green

I’ve been revisiting this notion of satisficers and maximizers in light of a theory of personal operating systems I’m working on, as well as in terms of barriers to transformational change.

In regard to personal operating systems, of which there are three, I’m faced with another in a series of binary concepts. And once again, I don’t fit neatly at either end. Although I would generally and readily rank myself among the satisficers, there are areas in which I operate based on the high standards of the maximizers. The tyranny of the binary (I made that up, but it’s kind of a real thing) is probably a result of cognitive bias and the desire to oversimplify.

If the word didn’t already have sort of a definition associated with it, I would call the third way of operating “objectivizers,” meaning: deciding how to choose (what method to use) based on the objective—or, really, the desired outcome. It’s an accurate, if made up, way to describe it. And I’m not against making up words.

If you have been following the development of the personal operating systems, in general, those who have the teal operating system are most likely to be satisficers; those who have the green operating system are most likely to be maximizers; and those who have the purple operating system are most likely to be objectivizers.

What Works?

Maximizers, by striving to make the best choice—whether or not they can really be assured of having done so—are not focusing their attention on their objective or desired outcome as much as they are focusing it on the process and the end result of that process—getting “the best.” “The best” is an external frame of reference. It stands in, unsuccessfully, for a juicy desired outcome.

Schwartz points out how being a maximizer can lead to a lower level of satisfaction, for example, and a greater tendency toward rumination and regret. Satisficers appear to be happier than maximizers, but maybe they’re just in denial. I’m only partially joking. If satisficers really are all about “settling for good enough,” it doesn’t sound like they are focused on juicy desired outcomes any more than the maximizers are.

As a now self-identified objectivizer, I think I adopt the method of choosing that’s most likely to get me my desired outcome. The more focused I am on the desired outcome—and the more intentional I am about pursuing it—the more likely I am to shift between the maximizer-satisficer poles in order to hone in on it. That’s what works for me.

We all have tendencies to think in certain ways and act in certain ways; we all operate on autopilot much more of the time than we like to admit. But creating transformational change requires identifying a juicy desired outcome and pulling out all the stops to go after it rather than being attached to the way we prefer to operate.

Being a full-time maximizer won’t get you there, but neither will being a full-time satisficer.