The Truth About Making Smart Decisions

Praise for The Truth About Making Smart Decisions “The Truth About Making Smart Decisions offers a truly valuable and entertaining journey through the complex terrain of decision making. Robert Gunther combines a writer's gift of the pen with a keen understanding of human nature, drawing upon his own experiences, business anecdotes, and vignettes from other walks of life. His selection of traps, insights, and truths are edifying as well as amusing, and many readers will recognize themselves as he exposes our weaknesses, and occasional brilliance, as we carve the trajectory of our life one decision after the next.” Paul J. H. Schoemaker, Ph.D., coauthor of Decision Traps and Winning Decisions “Robert Gunther crystallizes years of expertise and insight in business writing into a book on probably life’s most important matter: decision making. How do you do it and how do you do it much better? He offers many tools to organize the mind and maximize your ability to be a leader and money maker.” Rick Rickertsen, Managing Partner of Pine Creek Partners and author of The Buyout Book and Sell Your Business Your Way “We make decision errors predictably, and Robert Gunther offers fifty ways of taking decisions more intelligently. The Truth About Making Smart Decisions is a concise and actionable guide for what to consider when facing critical choice points.” Michael Useem, Ph.D., Wharton Professor of Management and author of The Go Point: When It’s Time to Decide “If you think decision making is cut and dried, this book will make you think again. In The Truth About Making Smart Decisions, Robert Gunther offers challenging insights on how factors from sleep to intuition to emotions to mental models affect the quality of our decisions. He urges readers to take a broader view and raises issues that anyone should consider in making smarter decisions.” Yoram (Jerry) Wind, Ph.D., The Lauder Professor and Wharton Professor of Marketing, and coauthor of The Power of Impossible Thinking Everything you need to know to make smarter, better decisions—in business and in life! • The truth about learning from your mistakes and those of others • The truth about how sleep can help you make better decisions • The truth about the power of acting decisively This book brings together 50 powerful “truths” about making better decisions: real solutions for the tough challenges faced by every decision-maker, in business and in life. You'll discover how to systematically prepare to make better decisions...how to get the right information, without getting buried in useless data...how to minimize your risks, and then act decisively...how to handle your emotions...make better group decisions...profit from mistakes...and a whole lot more. This isn't "someone's opinion": it's a definitive, evidence-based guide to effective decision-making...a set of bedrock principles you can rely on no matter what kind of decisions you make!

A brand new collection of state-of-the-art tools for making better business decisions… 4 authoritative books bring together hundreds of bite-size, easy-to-use techniques for optimizing every business decision, choice, interaction, and negotiation! Your decisions drive your business performance and determine your career success. Whether you’re collaborating, leading, negotiating, or persuading, those decisions must be consistently sharp – and this 4 book collection will help you sharpen every decision you make. Start with Robert Gunther’s The Truth About Making Smart Decisions: 50 powerful bite-size “truths” about making better real-world decisions when it matters most. Gunther shows how to systematically prepare to make better decisions... get the right information, without getting buried in useless data... minimize risks and then act decisively... handle emotions... make better group decisions... profit from mistakes... and much more. Next, William S. Kane focuses on the decision to change – and to lead change. In The Truth About Thriving in Change, Kane shares 49 powerful decision-making “truths” about change leadership: which skills you need most, and how to develop them... how to lead change without eroding commitment or productivity... why you must start fast, and “run before you walk”... when to persuade, when to educate, and when to “use force”... how to create the right cultural framework for successful change, and more. Next, Leigh Thompson’s The Truth About Negotiations helps you optimize every decision associated with successful negotiations. Thompson provides realistic game plans that work in any scenario, showing how to create win-win deals by leveraging carefully collected information. Learn how to prepare quickly and efficiently… handle imperfect negotiating situations… establish trust with someone you don’t yet trust… recognize when to walk away. Thompson guides through planning strategy, identifying your “best alternative to a negotiated agreement,” making the right first offer to control the process, resolving difficult disputes, and achieving the goals that matter most. Finally, in The Truth About Getting the Best From People, Second Edition, Martha Finney turns to day-to-day management decision-making, offering 60+ powerful techniques -- including new ways to persuade, manage virtual teams, overcome unconscious decision-making biases, and identify/cultivate high performers. These four books offer definitive, evidence-based principles for optimizing your decision-making throughout your entire management career! From world-renowned decision-making experts Robert E. Gunther, William S. Kane, Leigh Thompson, and Martha I. Finney

Where should I live? Is it time to get a new job? Which job candidate should I hire? What business strategy should I pursue? We spend the majority of our lives making decisions, both big and small. Yet, even though our success is largely determined by the choices that we make, very few of us are equipped with useful decision-making skills. Because of this, we often approach our choices tentatively, or even fearfully, and avoid giving them the time and thought required to put our best foot forward. In Smart Choices, John Hammond, Ralph Keeney, and Howard Raiffa--experts with over 100 years of experience resolving complex decision problems--offer a proven, straightforward, and flexible roadmap for making better and more impactful decisions, and offer the tools to achieve your goals in every aspect of your life. Their step-by-step, divide-and conquer approach will teach you how to: * Evaluate your plans * Break your potential decision into its key elements * Identify the key drivers that are most relevant to your goals * Apply systematic thinking * Use the right information to make the smartest choice Smart Choices doesn’t tell you what to decide; it tells you how. As you routinely use the process, you’ll become more confident in your ability to make decisions at work and at home. And, more importantly, by applying its time-tested methods, you’ll make better decisions going forward. Be proactive. Don’t wait until a decision is forced on you--or made for you. Seek out decisions that advance your long-term goals, values, and beliefs. Take charge of your life by making Smart Choices a lifetime habit.

Praise for The Truth About Making Smart Decisions " The Truth About Making Smart Decisions offers a truly valuable and entertaining journey through the complex terrain of decision making. Robert Gunther combines a writer's gift of the pen with a keen understanding of human nature, drawing upon his own experiences, business anecdotes, and vignettes from other walks of life. His selection of traps, insights, and truths are edifying as well as amusing, and many readers will recognize themselves as he exposes our weaknesses, and occasional brilliance, as we carve the trajectory of our life one decision after the next." Paul J.H. Schoemaker, Ph. D., coauthor of Decision Traps and Winning Decisions "Robert Gunther crystallizes years of expertise and insight in business writing into a book on probably life's most important matter: decision making. How do you do it and how do you do it much better? He offers many tools to organize the mind and maximize your ability to be a leader and money maker." Rick Rickertsen, Managing Partner of Pine Creek Partners and author of The Buyout Book and Sell Your Business Your Way "We make decision errors predictably, and Robert Gunther offers fifty ways of taking decisions more intelligently. The Truth About Making Smart Decisions is a concise and actionable guide for what to consider when facing critical choice points." Michael Useem, Ph. D., Wharton Professor of Management and author of The Go Point: When It's Time to Decide "If you think decision making is cut and dried, this book will make you think again. In The Truth About Making Smart Decisions, Robert Gunther offers challenging insights on how factors from sleep to intuition to emotions to mental models affect the quality of our decisions. He urges readers to take a broader view and raises issues that anyone should consider in making smarter decisions." Yoram (Jerry) Wind, Ph. D., The Lauder Professor and Wharton Professor of Marketing, and coauthor of The Power of Impossible Thinking Everything you need to know to make smarter, better decisions-in business and in life! - The truth about learning from your mistakes and those of others - The truth about how sleep can help you make better decisions - The truth about the power of acting decisively This book brings together 50 powerful "truths" about making better decisions: real solutions for the tough challenges faced by every decision-maker, in business and in life. You'll discover how to systematically ...

This is the eBook version of the printed book. If the print book includes a CD-ROM, this content is not included within the eBook version. We tend to be somewhat risk averse as a species. We are systematic and logical, which sometimes makes us overcautious. Sure, look a decision squarely in the face. Consider it from every angle, but also focus on the intangibles that might be harder to place into a systematic equation of risks and returns. After you've done a careful analysis, step back. Maybe the crazy decision is the right one. Don't underestimate the power of deciding boldly. These essential truths help you to learn the brave way to make complex and critical decisions.

Today's world is complex and getting more so each day. Huge multinational corporations, international crisis and fast breaking events require most people to make decisions on a daily basis without the tools to understand the long term impact that today's decision might create. Because most people have never really been trained in how to make important complex decisions most people rely on experience, and 'gut reaction' which is okay for many decisions, but not okay for decision that will have meaningful impact on organizations and individual. Decision makers need to develop the art and science of strategic decision making. Here, Professor Thomas Martin explains the need for decision makers to modify their thinking about how they deal with acquiring and analyzing information in each of the decision-making process steps. This approach requiring thinking modification will lengthen the process, make it more complex, and to some more arduous, but the comprehensiveness of the new thinking approach should lead to improved and more effective decision making. In this book, Dr. Martin presents a thinking modification framework that asserts that in the decision-making process, there are three situational states — a current state, future state, and a transitional state that one must deliberate in finding a solution. For each of these situational states, Martin develops an identical five-step process to determine the best decision to make. The steps of this process include: • Change-Needing Situational Analysis • Challenge Framing & Causal Analysis • Generating Solution Ideas • Choosing a Solution Set • Implementation and Aftermath Planning This book will appeal to decision makers, leaders, and students of management who want a specific framework that details the process behind making strategic, well-informed decisions.

Learn why bad decisions happen to good managers—and how to make better ones. If you read nothing else on decision making, read these 10 articles. We’ve combed through hundreds of articles in the Harvard Business Review archive and selected the most important ones to help you and your organization make better choices and avoid common traps. Leading experts such as Ram Charan, Michael Mankins, and Thomas Davenport provide the insights and advice you need to: Make bold decisions that challenge the status quo Support your decisions with diverse data Evaluate risks and benefits with equal rigor Check for faulty cause-and-effect reasoning Test your decisions with experiments Foster and address constructive criticism Defeat indecisiveness with clear accountability