Why Suboptimizing Can Make Your Business Resilient

There’s More to Business Than Just the Visible Numbers

If you’re like me, you’ve probably been taught to focus on efficiency and visible gains in your business. Everywhere you look, there’s talk of cutting costs, optimizing every process, and squeezing out every ounce of value. It feels smart, especially when the numbers improve this quarter. But what I’ve learned—mostly the hard way—is that focusing only on what you can measure leaves out a huge part of the story.

There are always effects you can’t predict or even track, what Deming in his book "Out of the Crisis" calls the “unknown or unknowable” figures. These hidden impacts aren’t captured in your KPIs or dashboards, but they can quietly shape your business’s future. Whether it’s a supplier forced to cut corners after a big price concession, or a tired sales team missing an opportunity, the cost doesn’t show up on your balance sheet, but you absolutely feel it down the road.

How Optimizing Every Corner Backfires

Let’s take supplier relationships. When a procurement manager locks in a lower price by demanding a 10% cut, it looks like a smart play in the short term. But if that supplier then has to trim their own expenses, you’re often the one who gets the hard lesson in quality slippage. Over time, requiring discounts and switching for cost alone puts pressure on your suppliers to reduce quality, and that eventually shows up in your own products and services, even if it takes a while to surface.

Or think about travel budgets—a favorite for cost-cutters. I’ve seen companies save a little up front by sticking sales teams with red-eye flights, multiple layovers, and distant hotels. It’s efficient on paper, but when your team shows up exhausted and underslept, and they lose a $20 million opportunity, that loss is nowhere in your report. The real price of “efficiency” in these cases is invisible but significant. You don’t see it at first, but eventually you notice that something’s just not working the way it should.

What Does Suboptimization Look Like Day to Day?

Suboptimization means stepping back and allowing certain parts of your business to be a little less efficient for the good of the whole. Even though it might feel counter to what we’re told, it’s often smarter to support a single trusted supplier and pay a bit more. That builds loyalty and gives you a partner who understands what you really need—and helps you avoid those traps that come from chasing the lowest bid every time.

The same mindset applies to internal teams. For example, if you invest a little more in your sales team’s travel—better flights, closer hotels, time to prep—you’re actually giving your business the best shot at quality results, even if it looks “inefficient” on a spreadsheet. The goal isn’t sloppy spending, but rather thoughtful support that makes the overall system stronger.

There’s also a bigger picture here, around competition. Deming pushed the idea that your competitors, suppliers, customers, and even regulators are all part of your larger business system. Instead of focusing only on outdoing the competition, take time to understand where they are, maybe even work with them for mutual benefit. That might sound unconventional, but it’s part of building a business ecosystem that can weather change and complexity.

Practical Steps You Can Try

In my experience, the small, intentional moves are the most effective. If you catch yourself getting stuck in “efficiency” mode, pause and ask how suboptimization might actually help you serve your customers, your team, and your family in the long run. Find one place—like supporting a key vendor without grinding them down on price, or making travel more humane for your top salespeople—and experiment there. Over time, you’ll likely find that these deliberate “inefficiencies” pay off in ways you never expected, building a level of resilience and quality that the spreadsheet can’t even touch.