Better, Not Perfect: A Realist's Guide to Maximum Sustainable GoodnessMax H. Bazerman Harper Business, 2020. 256 pages (Hardcover). ISBN‐10: 0063002701. ISBN‐13: 978‐0063002708

• Author: Ann E. Tenbrunsel
• Date: 01 December 2020
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/basr.12213
• Published date: 01 December 2020

Bus Soc Rev. 2020;125:425–428.

|

425

wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/basr

Received: 28 May 2020

|

Accepted: 24 June 2020

DOI: 10.1111/basr.12213

BOOK REVIEW

Better, Not Perfect: A Realist's Guide to Maximum

Sustainable Goodness

Max H. Bazerman

Harper Business, 2020. 256 pages (Hardcover). ISBN-10: 0063002701. ISBN-13: 978-0063002708

Better Not Perfect makes a powerful and inspirational argument: we can and need to make choices

that are better for ourselves, and, at the same time, better for society. Based on the underlying premise

that optimality may be a daunting goal, Bazerman argues that the inability to make perfect decisions

should not serve as obstacle to improving our decisions. Drawing on his decades of scholarly and

practical expertise in negotiations, decision-making, and ethical behavior, Bazerman offers compel-

ling and sometimes disturbing examples to provide an informed diagnosis of where we go wrong and

deliver a roadmap that will lead to improved albeit imperfect decisions.

In doing so, Better Not Perfect helps address a void in our current understanding of important deci-

sions. As is aptly pointed out, traditional thinking in this line of inquiry can take one of two directions.

Philosophers take a normative standard, attempting to articulate what people “should” do, though they

may differ among themselves about what the correct moral action actually is. Psychologists tackling

this problem take a more descriptive approach, identifying how it is that people actually behave.

Bazerman fills the space in-between these two approaches by moving beyond simply describing how

people behave to providing solutions, solutions that are an improvement from our current status but

that most likely do not meet the high standards required of philosophers. The end result is a practical

understanding and prescriptive approach for improving our everyday choices.

Several underlying principles guide the discussions and recommendations in the book. Utilitarianism

is advanced as the normative principle to which we should ascribe, a “North Star” guidepost that will

enable us to make better and more ethical decisions that in turn will create increased long-term value.

A utilitarian perspective is also asserted to be useful in assessing individuals such as Carnegie and

Sackler, leaders who created value through their extensive philanthropy but also destroyed enormous

value through unethical actions, including mistreatment of employees and the production and promo-

tion of a product, opiates, which has killed hundreds of thousands at the time of this writing. Important

in this assessment, Bazerman argues, is to assess cumulative value, taking into account both value

creation and value destruction. The importance of System 2 thinking, the deliberate, logical, and

reasoned mode of thinking, also underlies the discussion and recommendations provided; in contrast,

System 1 thinking, or that which is characterized as fast, instinctive and emotional, is argued to be one

of the reasons our choices not as good as they could be. Though I will later articulate a long-standing

“discussion” between Max and myself on the limits of utilitarianism and System 2 thinking, these

underlying principles provide for a compelling articulation of how we can make better choices and

© 2020 W. Michael Hoffman Center for Business Ethics at Bentley University.