The Truth About Better Decision-Making (Collection), 2/e

Truth 45. Satisficing versus optimizing

Reaching true win–win agreements is not easy. More often than not, from an objective perspective, you can spot a deal that both parties would like more—often dramatically more—than the one they agreed to. This means that both parties settled for less than they should have.

Consider once again the fateful story of the sisters negotiating a single orange. One of the sisters wanted to drink all the juice from the orange, while the other wanted the whole peel to make scones. Instead of being clear about what they wanted, they both made the same demand: “I want the orange.” They finally split the orange in half. One sister drank the juice from her half and threw out the peel; the other sister used the peel from ...