A well-crafted and well-researched book that provides key insights and practical tips on how to approach decisions in a more systematic and controlled manner. The authors have this incredible talent for developing convincing theoretical frameworks based on empirical evidence and existing scholarship. Decisive makes such scholarship accessible to non-experts without falling into the trap of "dumbing down" complex concepts. The book’s structure also helps a lot with this, particularly through the one-pagers that authors provide at the end of each chapter, which outline important takeaways and briefly recall how specific case-studies and stories illustrated the addressed concepts. This is a very smart way to structure a book that aims to provide readers with actionnable tips. Indeed those chapter « key messages » help the reader develop a mental map of how concepts relate to one another, what empirical evidence illustrate them and how they all connect back to the book’s larger story, namely, those biases that we are all faced with when making decisions.
The book made for a great first read to discuss, unpack and analyze in our recently-launched book club. Members easily related to the book’s insights, providing instances from their own decision-making struggles and reflecting on how they could have approached certain decisions differently with the book’s WRAP framework.
Among other aspects, book club members found the following notions particularly useful to take into account when making decisions: our tendency for narrow-framing which leads us to approach most decisions in a binary fashion; the importance of identifying personal/organization core priorities to resolve decision-making dilemmas (with the fascinating example of a medical organisation that was faced with the dilemma of having to balance out the needs of its volunteer doctors and its long-term priority of saving lives abroad). In addition, another aspect that was found particularly helpful was the idea of « tripwires » in establishing cues to decide on something, thus countering our tendency not only for wishful thinking and emotionally-informed decision-making, but also for procrastination.
One member raised the question of how the WRAP framework could be used in an organizational setting. In fact, we all agreed that the book provides for great insights at the individual level of decision-making (even when that takes place within organisations). Yet it does not say much about how groups or organizations make decisions. In other words, when an individual finds himself/herself in a situation where he/she can for instance observe narrow-framing/over confidence on the part of his/her organization, what can be done realistically if that person does not have the last word on decisions?
Ultimately, « Decisive » provided for a fascinating and mind-expanding read for our book club, and the free additional resources that the authors provide on their website (for all of their books) are a very nice touch and a rare thing. Those were very helpful for preparing and moderating our book club session.
Bình luận