Smart Choices: A Practical Guide to Making Better Decisions - Hardcover

Hammond, John S.; Keeney, Ralph L.; Raiffa, Howard

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1633691047 ISBN 13: 9781633691049

Publisher: Harvard Business Review Press, 2015

Synopsis

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.

About this title

Review:

Have you ever hired someone only to regret your decision two months later? Or looked at your financial portfolio and wondered why you bought the stocks you did? In Smart Choices, authors John S. Hammond, Ralph L. Keeney, and Howard Raiffa take the guesswork out of the decision-making process and offer a systematic approach to making the right choice. Most of us have problems making decisions, because we've never learned how. The authors write:

Despite the importance of decision making to our lives, few of us ever receive any training in it. So we are left to learn from experience. But experience is a costly, inefficient teacher that teaches us bad habits along with good ones. Because decision situations vary so markedly, the experience of making one important decision often seems of little use when facing the next.

Smart Choices outlines eight elements involved in making the right decision, from identifying exactly what the decision is and specifying your objectives to considering risk tolerance and looking at how what you decide on today influences what you may decide in the future. The book is full of real-life situations and scenarios that effectively illustrate each element of a good decision. If you think the topic of making the right choice is mundane or a simple matter of common sense, then think again. Smart Choices will relieve you of the regret that so many of us carry because we didn't know how to "think it through." --Harry C. Edwards

From the Inside Flap:

Where should I live? Which house should I buy?
* Is it time to change careers-or go back to graduate school?
* What mutual fund should I select to meet my financial goals?
* Which job candidate should I hire?
Making smart choices is a fundamental life skill, relevant to everyone: businesspeople, doctors, lawyers, teachers, students, parents, young, old. Your decisions shape the course of your professional career and the quality of your personal life. Yet few people learn real decision-making skills. Consequently we approach our choices tentatively, or even fearfully, and avoid giving decisions the time and thought required to turn them to our best advantage. Smart Choices offers the first straightforward, easy-to-follow process designed to improve the way you make business decisions, family decisions, personal decisions-any decision that can help you reach your goals.

Authors Hammond, Keeney, and Raiffa, among the world's best-known experts on resolving complex decision problems, have created a user-friendly set of techniques for assessing your options more clearly and effectively, ultimately empowering you to make smarter choices. Their step-by-step procedures combine solid research with practical experience and common sense to help you specify your objectives, identify creative alternatives, make reasoned tradeoffs, clarify uncertainties, and evaluate the risks. Smart Choices doesn't tell you what to decide; it tells you how. As you routinely use the Smart Choices process, you'll become more confident in your ability to make good decisions and to explain them to others. More important, you'll make better decisions. Be proactive. Don't wait until a decision is forced on you-or made for you. Seek out decision opportunities that advance your long-range goals, values, and core beliefs. Take charge of your life by making Smart Choices a lifetime habit.

About this edition

• Publisher: Harvard Business Review Press
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1633691047
• ISBN 13: 9781633691049
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256