Sheena Lyengar goes over something
which I feel closely relates to my current life, Sheena goes over the obstacles
and disadvantages of having or making too many choices. At my job I am in
charge of moving America’s freight in the form of trains across the country,
one would think that this would be a simple task mixed in with a couple of intricacies.
Sheena said that the average American makes about 70 choices a day, I on the
other hand feel like I am making about three to four hundred choices in an
eight hour period. There are so many decisions and choices which need to be
make at work that by the end of eight stressful hours I am losing my focus and
I feel a mental strain. Incorporate this mental strain with the amount of
choices which need to be done outside of work and this can account for me
wanting to skip the world market food emporium with 100 different types of jams
and drive me straight to the Aldi store with only one type of strawberry jam.
This busy and choice filled way of
working is a typical day in the life of many professional Americans and this is
why Sheena’s presentation makes so much sense. In the study that Sheena
completed she realized that when we are offered or forced to make too many
choices and decisions our brain can only keep this up for so long. Our mental
capacity for the day can easily be reached if overwhelmed, once this point has
been reached I make it a point to head straight to my couch and stare at
mindless television until my mind has relaxed enough.
So as aspiring leaders and future
business professional we have to ask ourselves; how can we stop our consumers
from feeling this way? Sheena Lyengar gives us four methods for helping businesses
avoid causing their consumers to make a mad dash for the store exit and hang
around a bit longer to spend some extra money. Her four methods consist of cutting the amount of choices at the
store so people can hone in a lot easier on one product to purchase. Categorize items to help consumers make
easier choices, Sheena believes that this will help us tell items apart. Concretize items to make them real;
Sheena believes that if people can understand the ins and outs of a product and
they can grasp the concept of the item than it becomes something real and
perhaps something worth spending money on. Sheena’s fourth method is conditioning, if we can condition
people to hang around longer by slowly working them up to more choices than we
might not lose them in the process.
I think that these are all great
methods, I can truly see myself putting these methods into practice and saving
a business extreme amounts of profit. If I could use two of these methods for my
own decision making purposes and finding a way to utilize these methods of my
own organization; I would look for ways to cut the amount of choices and
condition people to want to make choices. I think that if I can cut the amount of products available so
that I can provide a lower price to the consumer; in the long run I will condition them to buy more because the
less things cost the less amount of decisions need to be made. When you are
spending less at a store you are not as worried about staying within your
budget, there are less choices to be made for the average American if they do
not have to think how a shopping experience will affect the rest of their week.
I feel that today Sheena has
provided me with four new tools to use in my everyday life. As she mentions in
her presentations these are all methods which we can use for ourselves not only
for business purposes. I see myself heading to the nearest Aldi from now on
after a stressful day at work; I think I have found my solution for those days
when I have reached my “making choices threshold”. I will no longer spend that
extra time at the store making choices for things that do not matter too much
for me. From now on I see myself going to the World Market Emporium only if I
am in the mood to take a stroll around the store and kill some spare time wine
tasting and perhaps buying some specially aged cheese from Italy. My days of
making too many choices will be cut down when necessary and enjoyed only when
wanted.
By: Alberto
Gil
MSLD 632
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