Quotes About Decision-making

Before you are horrified by how much time I spend in meetings, answer a question: which of the activities—information-gathering, information-giving, decision-making, nudging, and being a role model—could I have performed outside a meeting? The answer is practically none. Meetings provide an occasion for managerial activities. Getting together with others is not, of course, an activity—it is a medium.

To use your calendar as a production-planning tool, you must accept responsibility for two things: 1.  You should move toward the active use of your calendar, taking the initiative to fill the holes between the time-critical events with non-time-critical though necessary activities. 2.  You should say "no" at the outset to work beyond your capacity to handle.

People who plan have to have the guts, honesty, and discipline to drop projects as well as to initiate them, to shake their heads "no" as well as to smile "yes.

High managerial productivity, I argue, depends largely on choosing to perform tasks that possess high leverage.

In other words, one of the manager's key tasks is to settle six important questions in advance: •  What decision needs to be made? •  When does it have to be made? • Who will decide? •  Who will need to be consulted prior to making the decision? •  Who will ratify or veto the decision? •  Who will need to be informed of the decision?

The two basic managerial roles produce two basic kinds of meetings. In the first kind of meeting, called a process-oriented meeting, knowledge is shared and information is exchanged. Such meetings take place on a regularly scheduled basis. The purpose of the second kind of meeting is to solve a specific problem. Meetings of this sort, called mission-oriented, frequently produce a decision. They are ad hoc affairs, not scheduled long in advance, because they usually can't be.

one person usually has more at stake in the outcome of the meeting than others. In fact, it is usually the chairman or the de facto chairman who calls the meeting, and most of what he contributes should occur before it begins. All too often he shows up as if he were just another attendee and hopes that things will develop as he wants. When a mission-oriented meeting fails to accomplish the purpose for which it was called, the blame belongs to the chairman

an organization does not live by its members agreeing with one another at all times about everything. It lives instead by people committing to support the decisions and the moves of the business.

What is the role of the supervisor in the staff meeting—a leader, observer, expediter, questioner, decision-maker? The answer, of course, is all of them. Please

Much confusion exists between what is strategy and what is tactics. Although the distinction is rarely of practical significance, here's one that might be useful. As you formulate in words what you plan to do, the most abstract and general summary of those actions meaningful to you is your strategy. What you'll do to implement the strategy is your tactics. Frequently, a strategy at one managerial level is the tactical concern of the next higher level.

Finally, remember that by saying "yes"—to projects, a course of action, or whatever—you are implicitly saying "no" to something else. Each time you make a commitment, you forfeit your chance to commit to something else.

In other words, the output of the planning process is the decisions made and the actions taken as a result of the process.

This is why promotion from within tends to be the approach favored by corporations with strong corporate cultures. Bring young people in at relatively low-level, well-defined jobs with low CUA factors, and over time they will share experiences with their peers, supervisors, and subordinates and will learn the values, objectives, and methods of the organization. They will gradually accept, even flourish in, the complex world of multiple bosses and peer decision-making.

if you're wrong, you will die. But most companies don't die because they are wrong; most die because they don't commit themselves. They fritter away their valuable resources while attempting to make a decision. The greatest danger is in Standing still

But in the end self-confidence mostly comes from a gut-level realization that nobody has ever died from making a wrong business decision, or taking inappropriate action, or being overruled. And everyone in your operation should be made to understand this.

Selectivity - the determination to choose what we will attempt to get done and what we won't - is the only way out of the panic that excessive demands on our time can create.

The ability to recognize that the winds have shifted and to take appropriate action before you wreck your boat in crucial to the future of an enterprise

the wisdom of crowds is sometimes overwhelmed by the madness of mobs.

The law, however, was clear – a captain on his own quarterdeck might make mistakes, but being wrong was not one of them.

Nothing is illegal if a hundred businessmen decide to do it.

Nothing is illegal if one hundred businessmen decide to do it. -Andrew Young, author, civil rights activist, US congressman, mayor, and UN ambassador (b. 1932)

In politics there is nothing simpler than simply talking, and nothing more complicated than simply acting.

I'm generally in favour of sex on the first date. In the future, I recommend it to you in every respect. It eliminates the necessity of any further rendezvous with the same person, which can be wearisome and time-consuming.

Ignorance is no justification for ill-conceived actions. When one doesn't know or has doubts it's best to seek advice.