Making the Choice to Provide Fewer Choices

One of the best things about working with extremely talent people is that they have the ability to make you a better person and professional.  A couple of weeks ago I was talking with one of our staff, Laura Wiesner, and she introduced me to the concept of the paralysis of choice.  As smart and talented as Laura is, I had a hard time believing that providing people with too many choices could be a bad thing.

I usually see nothing but choices around every corner and that generally excites me.  Something as simple as my commute to work involves choices based on choices based on choices.  Every problem I see has a number of possible solutions and each possible path includes new choices that must be considered.  As someone who has tried to coach people through challenges, I have usually made providing choices the heart of how I help people.  The more choices available and the more I get excited for the opportunities the other person has to pick from.

The amazing Ted Talk below by Barry Schwartz and another one by Sheena Iyengar (both suggested to me by Laura) have turned my knowledge and understanding of choices upside down.  Having unlimited or extensive choices can actually provide people a great deal of stress and make it impossible for people to make a decision.  We often do not know where to start and are afraid to make the wrong decision.  Even after we make a choice we sometimes fail to enjoy the benefits of that choice because we wonder what would have happened if we made a different choice.

This not a call for dictatorship or the end of personal freedom, but the best choices are the ones that are bounded by some sort of limits.  If we are offered a small number of the best choices to consider, we are better able to make an actual decision.  There is a point, and it is different for everyone, where the number of choices we are provided goes from being helpful to paralyzing.

I saw this happen first hand this past week when I was in Washington DC for a work conference.  Someone new to the city was asking where they should get off the subway to see the sites.  I started listing the best stops for the White House, Washington Monument, Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, and the Capital Building.  With each option I provided I saw this person's expression drop lower and lower.  Thankfully, I caught myself, and told her exactly what I would do and that seemed to help her relax.  She was still free to make whatever choice she wanted, but knowing my choice took away the pressure of having to get it right and gave her a default position to start from.

I still believe in providing people the freedom to make decisions, but I now plan to reconsider how I provide people with choices.  If I provide people with options or suggestions, I plan to narrow the overall number or provide some structure to help make the decision.  The last thing I want to do is paralyze someone's thinking especially when my goal is to help empower them.