36. People Are Inherently Lazy

It might be exaggerating a bit to say that people are inherently lazy. But research does show us that people will do the least amount of work possible to get a task done.

When you give a presentation, you are often hoping that people will change their view on a topic and/or change their behavior based on the presentation. Although this is possible, you might not want to expect too much. It’s difficult for people to change—and they may not want to work that hard.

Is Lazy Another Word for Efficient?

Over eons of evolution, humans have learned that they will survive longer and better if they conserve their energy. You want to spend enough energy to have enough resources (food, water, sex, shelter), but beyond that you are wasting your energy if you spend too much time running around getting or doing more stuff. Of course, questions about how much is enough, whether we have enough stuff yet, and how long the stuff should last (and on and on) still vex us, but putting the philosophical questions aside, for most activities, most of the time, humans work on a principle called satisficing.

Satisfy Plus Suffice Equals Satisfice

Herbert Simon is credited with coining the term satisfice. He used it to describe a decision-making strategy in which a person chooses the option that is adequate rather than optimal. The idea of satisficing is that the cost of making a complete analysis of all the options is not only not worth it but may be impossible. According to Simon, we often don’t have the cognitive faculties to weigh all the options. So it makes more sense to make a decision based on “what will do” or what is “good enough” rather than trying to find the optimal or perfect solution.

Don’t Expect too Much

You are probably excited about your topic and think that the whole world should be too. But everybody has their own worldview. It is possible that your audience might be willing to put a little bit of effort into whatever change you are asking them to make, but it is unlikely that everyone will be willing to make drastic change at once or to work very hard to make change happen.

Don’t expect too much change. Evaluate where people are now, and where you would like them to be. Don’t ask people to make too much of a leap just from listening to your one presentation.