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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
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
From Publishers Weekly
In 1966, the Lovin' Spoonful had a #2 hit with "Did You Ever Have to Make Up Your Mind?" Two years later, Raiffa answered that question for a generation of academics with his book Decision Analysis, whose argumentAthat decision-making skills can be learned and applied as a discipline of their ownAmade Raiffa deeply influential in management and social science. Raiffa (a former professor at Harvard Business School), his longtime associate Hammond (a professor of management and engineering at the University of Southern California) and Ralph Keeney (The Art and Science of Negotiation) here explain decision-analysis techniques and stratagems for the benefit of nonspecialists. They provide substantial, straightforward explanations of concepts (risk tolerance, sunk costs, desirability curves) that sound arcane but may help readers to buy the right car, choose a mutual fund, decide on a school, or plan a vacation. Unfortunately, the lingo of self-help often substitutes for the jargon of management consulting, as when Raiffa's famous five decision steps become the trendy acronym PrOACT. And the example problems can seem clich?d, two-dimensional or implausible, even when based on fact. Nevertheless, recommendations like "Remember that the value of an incremental change depends on what you start with" and "Make sure your subordinates reflect your organization's risk tolerance in their decisions" are, at the least, good reminders that the logic of decision making is often counterintuitive; at best, they are an important, useful set of insights.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
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Product Details
Paperback: 256 pages
Publisher: Broadway (March 5, 2002)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0767908864
ISBN-13: 978-0767908863
Product Dimensions:
7.9 x 5.1 x 0.6 inches
Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review:
4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (52 customer reviews)
Amazon.com Sales Rank: #5,612 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)Popular in these categories: (What's this?)
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Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Surprise Me!
Inside This Book
(learn more)
First Sentence:
OUR DECISIONS SHAPE OUR LIVES. Read the first page
Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs):
(learn more)
desirability curve,
overall desirability score,
desirability scores,
making smart choices,
linked decisions,
consequences table,
monetary payoff
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs):
(learn more)
New York,
School Street,
West Boulevard,
Buenos Aires,
Vincent Sahid,
United States,
West Coast,
Eaton Street
New!
Concordance
|
Text Stats
Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Surprise Me!
Citations (learn more)
This book cites 7
books:
See all 7 books this book cites
47
books
cite this book:
The Right Decision Every Time: How to Reach Perfect Clarity on Tough Decisions
by Luda Kopeikina
on
4 pages
The Set-Up-to-Fail Syndrome: How Good Managers Cause Great People to Fail
by Jean-Francois Manzoni
in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
The Power of Persuasion: How We're Bought and Sold
by Robert V. Levine
in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
The Power of Intuition: How to Use Your Gut Feelings to Make Better Decisions at Work
by Gary Klein
in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
Decision Making in Health and Medicine: Integrating Evidence and Values
by M. G. Myriam Hunink
on page 32, and page 379
See all 47 books citing this book
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