The Decision Maker’s Playbook: 12 Mental Tactics for Thinking More Clearly, Navigating Uncertainty, and Making Smarter Choices 1st Edition, reviewed

By @SimonCocking review of The Decision Maker’s Playbook: 12 Mental Tactics for Thinking More Clearly, Navigating Uncertainty, and Making Smarter Choices 1st Edition. Available here.

Every day, we are faced with hundreds of choices: some small, some substantial. We live in a world of ever-increasing complexity, and the fear of making the ‘wrong choice’ can be debilitating. What we need is a game plan to help us make better decisions, faster.

‘All around the world, girls are identifying things that they want to change. The stories in Girls Do Good are just a snapshot of the creativity and problem-solving abilities of girls.’ – Leymah Gbowee, Noble Peace Prize Winner and Founder of Gbowee Peace

The Decision Maker’s Playbook: 12 Mental Tactics, reviewed

This book does what it says on the tin. It provides a logical, structured series of flow chart style ideas and principles to follow when looking to ensure that you make the best decisions possible, within the constraints of the data and information you have in front of you. The layout is clear and uncluttered which doesn’t hurt either. The yellow, white and black colour scheme is not too bad either, yes a bit bee like, but we have seen much worse, and the visual explanations and visualisations are effective and do the job.

Overall there is a place for a book like this, especially when you consider that some, ostensibly smart CEOs and business leaders still manage to make absolutely terrible decisions sometimes. Often with far reaching consequences – wouldn’t it have been great if David Cameron for example had applied some methodology to his appraisal of whether to have had that ill-fated referendum or not.

The book is structured well, and Chapter 9 for example ‘Run experiments to test your solutions in the real world’ is still a super valid, important and well worthwhile chapter to read. Yes, Steve Blanc has made a career out of telling people to ‘get out of the room’ to test their business ideas, but it’s still something that not everyone takes the trouble to do, often with disastrous consequences.

If you’re planning to launch your own business, having a book like this to hand could be money well spent, and more than pay for itself if you use / read it even only once.

About the Authors

 Simon Mueller is a Project Leader at Boston Consulting Group. Previously he served as the General Manager of the BCG Henderson Institute, the firm’s strategy and macroeconomics think-tank. Simon has advised industrial and technology clients in North & Latin America, Europe and Asia, where he worked extensively on strategic and transformative projects focusing on advanced technologies such as robotics and 3D-printing.

Simon is also co-founder of the global non-profit organization The Future Society, which develops governance solutions to ensure safety, fairness and shared prosperity in light of the rise of intelligent/autonomous systems.

Julia Dhar is a Partner at Boston Consulting Group. She co-founded and leads BeSmart, the firm’s behavioral economics initiative, where she uses her expertise to make organizations more productive, profitable and happier. She has works extensively across the United States, the Middle East and Asia in the public and private sectors. Julia has also held policy and advisory roles in government, including Private Secretary to New Zealand’s Minister of Finance.

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