The Paradox of Choice
This was sometime around the summer of 1962. My mother was about 5 years old when my grandfather took her and her siblings to the park. That evening he had promised a treat to all of them. The kids were very excited. At the park, grandfather asked everyone to pick one, “Either you will have an ice-cream or get a boat ride.” Instead of being ecstatic for having a choice, it actually dampened their spirits. Choosing one, meant loss of the other. Everyone picked one or the other, wondering if they actually made the right choice. The youngest of the lot, my very clever aunt had been quietly listening to everyone’s choices. She was the last to pick. She declared, “I will eat the ice-cream in a boat.” And she was granted her choice; much to the envy of everyone else.
I used to find this story very trivial and funny. But when I started studying Leadership Development and related concepts of choice and decision making, I thought of the story in a whole different light.
The concept of Choice is so interesting. We like to be given choices, but are perplexed when we are asked to choose! We would rather have it all!
Professor Iyengar at Columbia Business School was the first to introduce me to a systemic approach to thinking about choice and being choosy about choosing. She is accredited with her groundbreaking research on Choice (see her for her TedTalks video on the same topic or read her book ‘ The Art of Choosing’).
There were 3 key inferences from all her lab experiments on choice that she taught us:
The more choices we have, the more likely we are to stick with the status quo;
The more choices we are offered, the worse choice we make; and
The more choices we have, the less satisfied we are with the outcomes
That made me think – is choice good? Are we asking for too much and not making the most of what we have? But the answer is not about how many choices are given to us. The answer lies in how many choices are we creating for ourselves. Are we truly leading a life free to make any choice we want; to live a life that we want?
I chose to write about Choice as the very first topic on this blog as it is the bloodstream of my venture ‘Choosing Choices’ – a platform that I want to set-up to share insights, research, tools and strategies on Career Counseling and Leadership Development. Work fills a large part of our lives and my endeavor is to empower people by helping them find satisfaction and fulfillment through creating meaningful career and leadership choices. After all, as Albert Camus rightly said – “your life is the sum of your choices.”
To make the most of what I write, I would urge you to send me comments, feedback and questions - start a discussion, a debate and spur some thinking. If you have a unique situation that is not answered by a particular post or if you would like to have a deeper dive into a given topic you have the option to contact me on this blog using the ‘Contact’ feature. I would love to hear from you.
