Winning Decisions : Getting It Right the First Time

Rating:
Summary: Well, so what are you going to do?
Review: A relative glut of periodicals and books exist on decisionmaking, whether personally or professionally. Many have solid foundations, many are commercialized tripe. In MAKING DECISIONS, authors Russo and Shoemaker hit on a timely subject for professional managers or entrepreneurs. The economy has plummeted and the stock market has deflated propelling each individual responsble for their company's path to success into crucial, perhaps vital decisions on a daily basis. And the rapid rate of change is forcing all executives and managers to make decisions faster.

Given the current environment, it is well worth the time to revisit an executive/manager's most basic of tasks: making a decision...a subject devoid of attention except in academic journals or business books. In a straightforward, well-presented fashion, the authors break down the decisionmaking process into four steps:

1. Framing or deciding what you are going to decide-and not decide;
2. Gathering intelligence-real intelligence, and not just information that will support your internal biases;
3. Coming to conclusions-determining how your company acts on the intelligence it gathers, and;
4. Learning from experience.

The authors guide the reader through each of the steps providing insight into the process, highlighting key concepts, and providing case studies and worksheets so the reader can begin to track their own issues at hand. Russo and Shoemaker have presented this material in such a way as to demystify the "process" of decisionmaking. The "process" gets so much attention as being clandestine, complex and erudite. However, by providing a detailed framework reflecting a relatively mechanical and logical process to making a decision, the authors have uncorked the mystery. When confronted with the need to assess a situation, gather information and reach a decision, most managers depend on a hit-or-miss approach. This approach is different from executive-to-executive and is measured relative to the frequency and experience an executive may have "putting out the proverbial fire." While there's nothing inherently wrong or incorrect about this type of venerable process, this process typically results in a lower-end spectrum result when nothing but mid-high to high results will suffice as a necessary competitive edge.

The alternative approach presented by the authors allows executives/managers to reframe issues by asking such questions as "What is the crux of the issue that I am facing?" so that they don't end up solving the wrong problem (i.e. analogous to "looking from the outside in"). It also allows them to increase their options by doing such things as "not necessarily taking yes for an answer," when it comes to initial research findings. In fact, these alternatives may result in something quite creative and innovative, a veritable whack on the side of the head.

As they should, the authors stress to the reader that improving one's decisionmaking skills is not an ironclad guarantee to success. Execution of a solid operating (business) plan and being in the right place at the right time (luck) are factors tantanmount to any successful venture. However, it is rational and logical that if one makes better decisions, one's odds of success are bound to increase. And, as one gains experience in making decisions and acting upon the achieved results, desired or not, success rates grow exponentially.

A solid read.

Rating:
Summary: Decisions are tough
Review: I was considering to buy this book, but I had a hard time making up my mind...

Rating:
Summary: Buy Smart Choices instead
Review: This book is okay, but it's poorly structured and repetitive. It doesn't offer a clear, systematic process for making decisions. I think Smart Choices is a far, far better book. Simpler, better structured, easier to work with.

Rating:
Summary: This book deserves more than five stars
Review: This is an excellent book, one of the best I've ever read about decision making. It takes a structured approach to making decisions and discusses the "how" of decision making. It gives a bunch of ideas to use, mostly questions to help the decision maker focus his or her attention on the process of getting the decision right under uncertainty and time contraints.

The book, as great as it is, has one short coming to my way of thinking: it gives very little attention to intuitive decision making. I think that the authors have concentrated on deliberative decision making with the idea in mind that the process will ultimately become intuitive when practiced enough. Perhaps so. However, I would very highly recommend another book that talks about intuitive decision making, Educating Intuition by Hogarth. This excellent book may help a reader learn how to make the deliberative techniques part of the the intuitive decision making process.