Decision Management: How to Assure Better Decisions in Your Company Paperback - 2003

Summary

First line

Situations like this are a manager's nightmare.

From the rear cover

Why do the people in some companies continually dazzle us with their brilliant decisions while those in others make one blunder after another? Do they understand their businesses better? Are they just plain smarter? Or is it all a matter of luck? The answer, says J. Frank Yates, is none of the above. The real key, rarely recognized, is how the leaders manage the company's decision processes-- the leaders' decision management practices.
Drawing on his thirty years of research and experience as well as scholarship from psychology, economics, statistics, strategy, medicine, and other fields to explain the fundamental nature of business decision problems, Yates highlights the ten cardinal decision issues crucial to managing the decision-making process-- and ultimately better company decisions. He covers problems ranging from recognizing whether a decision is actually called for to assuring that a preferred course of action will be implemented. He shows how solid decisions result when managers ensure that deciders resolve every cardinal issue effectively for every decision problem facing the company. He also reveals how, conversely, chronically poor decisions are traceable to managers allowing-- or even creating-- conditions that encourage deciders to fall short in how they address at least one of those critical issues.
Decision Management shows managers at all levels how to shape and guide activities in their units to best serve their firms' interests. In addition, it provides specific recommendations that any manager can follow easily to continually improve his or her decision management effectiveness over an entire career.