Quotes About Decision-making

carefully constructed, rigorously tested portfolio structure and decision-making process that are clearly defensive.

You have to give me something, Seafort. Politics is the art of the possible." Father gazed at the Station. "Sir, I can give you nothing. Morality is ... the art of the absolute.

While democracy has advanced, the part we ordinary citizens have played in the making and sustaining of the places and communities we live in has diminished. Never has so much been decided for so many by so few.

Experiments show that when you move your wrist at will, you consciously experience the decision to move it about 0.2 seconds before the actual movement (Libet, 1985, 2004).But your brain waves jump about 0.35 seconds before you consciously perceive your decision to move (FIGURE 3.4)! The startling conclusion: Consciousness sometimes arrives late to the decision-making party.

Americans pride themselves on being a democratic society, but if you ask the average American "When was the last time you were part of a group of more than five people who made a collective decision on a more or less equal basis?" most will just scratch their heads.

If the organization grows in size, higher-ups' importance will almost invariably be measured by the total number of employees working under them, which, in turn, creates an even more powerful incentive for those on top of the organizational ladder to either hire employees and only then decide what they are going to do with them or—even more often, perhaps—to resist any efforts to eliminate jobs that are found to be redundant.

The ultimate question of human history, as we'll see, is not our equal access to material resources (land, calories, means of production), much though these things are obviously important, but our equal capacity to contribute to decisions about how to live together.

We are usually told that democracy originated in ancient Athens—like science, or philosophy, it was a Greek invention. It's never entirely clear what this is supposed to mean. Are we supposed to believe that before the Athenians, it never really occurred to anyone, anywhere, to gather all the members of their community in order to make joint decisions in a way that gave everyone equal say?

He and Willoughby preferred that the Pentagon and the Truman administration be completely dependent upon them for any information about what was going on in their area of Asia—with no countervailing intelligence to limit his hand. Control intelligence, and you control decision-making.

the weakness of the Kennedy team, the difference between intelligence and wisdom, between the abstract quickness and verbal facility which the team exuded, and true wisdom, which is the product of hard-won, often bitter experience. Wisdom for a few of them came after Vietnam.

Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion

No existe cualidad de la naturaleza humana que cause errores más fatales en nuestra conducta que la que nos lleva a preferir lo que es presente a lo distante y lo remoto y nos hace desear los objetos más por su situación que por su valor intrínseco.

It is never too late to apply good sense as a corrective to stupidity.

As Hitler quipped to his staff, Beck was only ever able to make up his mind when his decision was against doing something!)

Democracy is the worst of all possible evils. Only one man can and should give the orders.

There should be no grand, centralized choice made in the ivory tower. The minor cost-efficient advantage of the whole staff being trained in one method is far outweighed by the problems created—and the real cost, in ROI terms—by using the wrong process for the job.

I can help, but in the end it is up to you

Novices start out with the physical skills of mastering the clutch, throttle, brakes, and balance. Veterans understand that motorcycling is really more of a mental process of scrutinizing the situation, evaluating the hazards, and deciding what to do with the motorcycle.

Who knows, perhaps the will to please leads people to crime as often as evil or greed does. People want to fit in and do well, and they do indescribably stupid things because of it. Is that what happened here?

Human beings can always be relied upon to exert, with vigor, their God-given right to be stupid.

When praying for the Lord's will about something questionable, don't give up if you don't receive clear leading after one prayer; just keep on praying until God makes it clear.

The ability to choose is at the essential core of our grandeur. Even evil exists because God respects our ability to choose.

The secret of following God's will, I discovered, usually is wrapped up in rejecting the good for God's best.

Don't feel like you have to take every suggestion people give you. Not every good idea is a God idea.