The Art of Judgment: 10 Steps to Becoming a More Effective Decision-Maker, reviewed

By Simon Cocking, review of The Art of Judgment: 10 Steps to Becoming a More Effective Decision-Maker by John Adair. Available from Bloomsbury here.

The success of any organization or individual depends upon making good decisions, arrived at through the use of a sound judgment. Too often, this elusive characteristic has been misperceived as an unchangeable, entrenched element of our character, over which we have little control. In fact, judgment is an art – one that can be honed, developed and mastered.

In The Art of Judgment, John Adair draws upon his decades of experience and expertise to provide a practical and fascinating insight into how you can harness the full potential of your judgment. These in-depth methods are summarised in 10 key principles, which include:

– Thinking to Some Purpose
– Experience – the Seedbed
– Truth – the Leading Star
– How to Share Decisions
– The Role of Values

With the divisiveness of public discourse and the complexities of modern business, it is more difficult than ever to be sure that you’re making the right decision. Adair provides a clear pathway to improving your judgment, beginning with an exploration of the machinations behind decision-making, before demonstrating how you can develop a stronger understanding and control of your judgment.

This is an essential companion for any business leaders interested in making the best decisions for them and their organization. Good judgment is the secret behind any success, and also has the potential to accelerate one’s own career. This book provides insight, expertise and inspiration for anyone looking to cultivate and develop their art of judgment.

The Art of Judgment: 10 Steps to Becoming a More Effective Decision-Maker, reviewed

This is not the first book by John Adair we have reviewed, and there is a common theme between this new one, and previous books by him too. He has a clear love of drawing insights from previous epochs, including, but not only the ancient Greeks, and then also many pre and post world war two leaders. Churchill, currently undergoing a critical re-evaluation based on his slightly variable racial opinions – he wanted to beat the Nazis for sure, but had less than positive views on the Indians, the Irish and several other ethnic and national groups.

Despite this issue, Adair actually illustrates the value of looking to aggregate and extract the best of past wisdom, and use those elements that have relevance and value for us today. Adair is also reaching the 40 year point in his writing career, which is of course an impressive achievement and in this context it is only fair to allow him to dip into an older vein of insights than just the latest talking heads aiming to through their learnings at us.

Nowhere at all in this book is one D Trump mentioned, and yet in many ways his shadow hangs over this book. Time and time again Adair delivers interesting and thoughtful insights that are enjoyable to read and mull over. Repeatedly they highlight the standards and ethics that our leaders should be held to, and time and time again it is clear that #potus45 has clearly failed his people, and the world, on almost every criteria we may wish to hold our leaders to.

There are plenty are quietly wise takeaways from this book, and it is one that offers value to the reader. It is never easy to know the exact path we should chose, but these book does help to give us some sound principals with which to make the best possible judgements within the time and resources we have infront of us – and hopefully we can avoid being like the civil war general. Who ‘snatched defeat from the jaws of victory’ by failing to check if the river was shallow enough to be forded, rather than marching his troops to death across a single, narrow, heavily guarded bridge.

One week to go until we publish The Art of Judgment by John Adair – the essential companion for business leaders interested in making the best decisions for themselves and their organizations.

Pre-order here: https://t.co/CxR04A721F pic.twitter.com/Bl3h03mFZA

— Bloomsbury Business (@BloomsburyBiz) July 2, 2020

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