Quotes About Decisions

I sat back, allowing Wes's words to sink in. Then I responded, "I guess it's hard sometimes to distinguish between second chances and last chances.

When I was her age, thought Pauline, the options were confusing. They always are. Who'd be young? Everything wide open, which means that the not chosen is discarded. Junked.

Doing the right thing is more important than doing the thing right.

Structuring jobs to fit personality is almost certain to lead to favoritism and conformity. And no organization can afford either. It needs equity and impersonal fairness in its personnel decisions. Or else it will either lose its good people or destroy their incentive. And it needs diversity. Or else it will lack the ability to change and the ability for dissent which (as Chapter 7 will discuss) the right decision demands.

The job is, however, not to set priorities. That is easy. Everybody can do it. The reason why so few executives concentrate is the difficulty of setting "posteriorities"—that is, deciding what tasks not to tackle—and of sticking to the decision.

An excess of meetings indicates that jobs have not been defined clearly, have not been structured big enough, have not been made truly responsible. Also the need for meetings indicates that the decisions and relations analyses either have not been made at all or have not been applied. The rule should be to minimize the need for people to get together to accomplish anything.

in its people decisions, management must demonstrate that it realizes that integrity is one absolute requirement of a manager, the one quality that he has to bring with him and cannot be expected to acquire later on. And management must demonstrate that it requires the same integrity of itself.

Decisions are made by men. Men are fallible; at their best their works do not last long. Even the best decision has a high probability of being wrong. Even the most effective one eventually becomes obsolete.

Executives are not paid for doing things they like to do. They are paid for getting the right things done—most of all in their specific task, the making of effective decisions.

this book itself is not a book on what people at the top do or should do. It is addressed to everyone who, as a knowledge worker, is responsible for actions and decisions which are meant to contribute to the performance capacity of his organization.

a knowledge worker, is responsible for actions and decisions which are meant to contribute to the performance capacity of his organization. It is meant for every one of the men I call "executives.

I have called "executives" those knowledge workers, managers, or individual professionals who are expected by virtue of their position or their knowledge to make decisions in the normal course of their work that have significant impact on the performance and results of the whole.

Effective executives, finally, make effective decisions

These apparently low-level decisions are extremely important in a knowledge-based organization.

They asked, "What needs to be done?" • They asked, "What is right for the enterprise?" • They developed action plans. • They took responsibility for decisions. • They took responsibility for communicating. • They were focused on opportunities rather than problems. • They ran productive meetings. • They thought and said "we" rather than "I.

Time matters most when decisions are irreversible.

Time matters most when decisions are irreversible. And yet many irreversible decisions must be made on the basis of incomplete information.

This is the essence of risk aversion—that is, how far we are willing to go in making decisions that may provoke others to make decisions that will have adverse consequences for us.

Herein lies the core learning dilemma that confronts organizations: we learn best from experience but we never directly experience the consequences of many of our most important decisions. The most critical decisions made in organizations have systemwide consequences that stretch over years or decades.

Herein lies the core learning dilemma that confronts organizations: we learn best from experience but we never directly experience the consequences of many of our most important decisions.

If we all knew the consequences of every decision we made, we'd probably never make any.

We have examined a number of ethical issues. We have seen that many accepted practices are open to serious objections. What ought we to do about it? This, too, is an ethical issue.

Our behavior and decisions are based on a mixture of calculation, emotions, and internalized norms, with calculation often a minor component of the cocktail.

There is certainly no hope left of getting away. And it isn't even terrible; it's possibly funny, if even that. It's embarrassing. That's all. A little embarrassing to realize that I no longer control my life, that the major decisions have already been made, long before I was conscious that any change was occurring.