Quotes About Decision-making

don't see why you touched it in the first place," Mr. Link Deas was saying. "You've got everything to lose from this, Atticus. I mean everything.

cómo puedes vivir con tu conciencia? —Es relativamente fácil. Simplemente, a veces no voto según mis convicciones, eso es todo. —Hank

I would lead him through the house, but I would never lead him home

Don't you feel yourself about anything - why, if we followed our feeling all the time we'll be like cats chasing their tails.

Indeed, in many situations wisdom lies in being strategic rather than spontaneous. This is especially true when we're dealing with a difficult person, a hot issue, or a tense situation. The enormous challenge is to make wise decisions about how and when to say what to whom, and even before that, to know what we really want to say and what we hope to accomplish by saying it.

Most people don't really care about the process of a meeting; they care about the issues and the results.

I avoid doing things on impulse, because I've learned that my feelings are too unreliable to trust.

Minder of my body you may be. But minder of my soul you are not. What do you say I call the shots and you go along to shoot the monsters? O.K.?

I'm in no position to hand down any advice, he said, but there's a rule I follow when I don't know what to do. A rule? If you have to choose between something that has form and something that doesn't, go for the one without form. That's my rule. Whenever I run into a wall I follow that rule, and it always works out. Even if it's hard going at the time.

I'm not very good at giving anyone a clear no.

I go by the gut. I might not appear to have any talent but I've got plenty of gut instinct.

He comes out of the mine about the same as when he went in. He has no sense that it was something he decided to do himself, or that he had a choice. He's like totally passive. But I think in real life people are like that. It's not so easy to make choices on your own.

I have never encountered an executive who remains effective while tackling more than two tasks at a time. Hence, after asking what needs to be done, the effective executive sets priorities and sticks

Executives are doers; they execute. Knowledge is useless to executives until it has been translated into deeds. But before springing into action, the executive needs to plan his course. He needs to think about desired results, probable restraints, future revisions, check-in points, and implications for how he'll spend his time.

More than anything else, this disconnect—between the way planning works and the way decision making happens—explains the frustration, if not outright antipathy, most executives feel toward strategic planning.

Chevron, for example, has a decision-analysis group whose members facilitate decision-framing workshops; coordinate data gathering for analysis; build and refine economic and analytical models; help project managers and decision makers interpret analyses; point out when additional information and analysis would improve a decision; conduct an assessment of decision quality; and coach decision makers.

But Welch also thought through another issue before deciding where to concentrate his efforts for the next five years. He asked himself which of the two or three tasks at the top of the list he himself was best suited to undertake. Then he concentrated on that task; the others he delegated. Effective executives try to focus on jobs they'll do especially well. They know that enterprises perform if top management performs—and don't if it doesn't.

The real challenge for executives who want to implement decision quality control is not time or cost. It is the need to build awareness that even highly experienced, superbly competent, and well-intentioned managers are fallible. Organizations need to realize that a disciplined decision-making process, not individual genius, is the key to a sound strategy. And they will have to create a culture of open debate in which such processes can flourish. Originally

But for a meeting to be useful, you have to have the right people—and only the right people—in the room.

The art of management is the art of making meaningful generalizations out of inadequate facts.

Business-unit managers should remain involved in corporate-level strategy planning that affects their units. But a focus on issues rather than business units better aligns strategy development with decision making and investment. Consider

The point is you are supposed to vote for the principle of the thing, not the itsy-bitsy detail about this percent and that percent.

Perhaps it is better to be irresponsible and right, than to be responsible and wrong.

And it comes from saying no to 1,000 things to make sure we don't get on the wrong track or try to do too much. We're always thinking about new markets we could enter, but it's only by saying no that you can concentrate on the things that are really important.