A632.2.3.RB_Sheena Iyengar: How to Make Choosing Easier_Kristina Kemp

Sheena Iyengar: How to Make Choosing Easier

          In her Ted talk, “how to make choosing easier,” Sheena Iyengar discusses techniques for mitigating the problem of choice overload.  She gives us four ways we can make our choices easier.

-Cut the number of choices (less is more). Get rid of the extraneous redundant options.  People can get overwhelmed when there are too many choices, and this could result in a negative experience (Iyengar, 2012).  For me personally, I get anxiety and get confused.  A personal example is when choosing new colors to paint the interior of our home.  Sherwin Williams has numerous color family options and numerous options within each color family and shade.  I ended up making a quick decision on a color that looked pleasant even though it wasn’t the best choice for my space since color looks different in different homes and in different rooms.  I could’ve improved my ability to decide by narrowing down the color choices to 2-3 colors and bringing samples home to see how each looked inside each room.  By doing this, I could’ve saved a significant amount of time and stress and could’ve been more satisfied with the overall experience and the color chosen.  Research shows that if you’re surrounded by an abundance of options, you typically end up less satisfied with your final decision than if you’d been given fewer options in the first place (Krochow, E., 2018).

-Concretization or, make it real.  In order for people to understand the differences between choices, they have to be able to understand the consequences associated with each choice and that the consequences need to be felt in a vivid, more concrete way.  In other words, to make the abstract concrete so one can feel the consequences of their decision (Iyengar, 2012).   When making decisions in an organization, it is highly important for leaders to follow and endorse a company vision and to facilitate the vision, leaders should follow a roadmap in the form of a mission statement.  A mission informs the vision and provides the tactics to achieve the mission.  Essentially, mission statements concretize the vision.  Vision in business requires that you clearly see where you choose to be in the future and formulate the necessary steps to get your organization there (Lavinsky, D., 2013).  Not all people are visionaries, so the mission spells out what it is that needs to be achieved and gives a clearer picture of what the overall goal is. For Example, the vision of Feeding America is: "A hunger-free America".  It could be vague as to what that statement of vision actually means or how it could even be possible, but once you read the mission statement, it concretizes its meaning. It informs the vision by stating, “Our mission is to feed America’s hungry through a nationwide network of member food banks and engage our country in the fight to end hunger” (Baylor, 2019). Feeding America has developed interactive data visualizations to better see and understand the issue of hunger and food insecurity (Feeding America, 2019).  These tools and visual aids further concretize their mission and informs their decision on what areas to focus on to achieve their mission and hence, their overall vision.

-Categorization.  We can handle more categories than we can handle choices (Iyengar, 2012).  A recent experience I had with making a choice among what seemed like a sea of photos was when I was putting together a digital photo album for my daughter.  The photos folder on my computer had decades worth of photos that resulted from countless memory cards getting saved on to the photos file.  Since these files were saved by the date, it was easy for me to create new folders.  I created a folder for each of my children and subfolders for each year of their life.  I then went through a process of dropping photos into their respective folder.  After this process, choosing what photos I wanted to include in my project became much easier. Categories help us separate things. It is, therefore, important that they are made to say something to the person who makes the choice (Linde, 2016).

-Condition for complexity. This technique helps the chooser make complicated, multistep choices by starting off with small, easy decisions and then increasing the complexity of choices as they go (Iyengar, 2012).  Companies like Prezi use this by giving users easier choices first, and gradually increasing the complexity of the choices as they build and add branches to their presentations. In my experience, the first step was choosing a template, next was the layout, and with each new choice, the decision becomes more complex as I added branches of categories. For customers, building up from the simple choices to more complex ones is necessary to prevent dropoff during the buying process (Ye, 2018).

          Personally, I'm a huge fan of keeping things simplified.  While this topical area of discussion hasn't received much attention in recent years, it should, and not only for business owners targeting customers but in organizations of every kind.  If applied, it would make life much easier for choosers.

References:

Baylor, C. (2019). 18 captivating mission statement examples you need to read. Retrieved Jun 5, 2019, from https://www.bluleadz.com/blog/15-of-the-very-best-mission-statement-examples

Feeding America. (2019). Study shows children more likely to face hunger than overall population across america. Retrieved Jun 5, 2019, from https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/study-shows-children-more-likely-to-face-hunger-than-overall-population-across-america-300841430.html

Iyendar, S. (November 2011). How to Make Choosing Easier. Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/sheena_iyengar_choosing_what_to_choose.

Hoch, S. J., Kunreuther, H., & Gunther, R. E. (2001;2002;). Wharton on making decisions (1st ed.). New York: Wiley.

Krochow, E. (2018). Too much choice. Retrieved Jun 5, 2019, from https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/stretching-theory/201810/too-much-choice

Lavinsky, D. (2013). Are you a visionary business leader? Retrieved Jun 5, 2019, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/davelavinsky/2013/04/26/are-you-a-visionary-business-leader/

Linde, E. (2016). Choice overload – 4 ways to make it easier for customers to choose (and be happy with their choice). Retrieved Jun 5, 2019, from https://conversionista.com/en/blogg/choice-overload-2/

Ye, L. (2018). The psychology of choice: How to make easier decisions. Retrieved Jun 5, 2019, from https://blog.hubspot.com/sales/the-psychology-of-choice