Are you equipped to make the shift? As the world becomes more complex, the decisions we make are becoming more challenging. From the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown to running massive refineries, the decisions made in these complex situations have a lasting impact on society. They must be driven by one thing: data. Crucial Decisions will help leaders shift to a crucial decision-making mindset that integrates data analysis with expertise. Whether you are a corporate executive or a baseball coach, employing decision-making methods from Crucial Decisions will help you achieve the most reliable results during challenging circumstances.

Irving Janis, one of the world’s leading authorities on decision making, presents a comprehensive analysis that shows corporate executives, government and organizational policymakers, and general managers how to avoid making critical errors and ensure quality in making vital decisions. Using cogent evidence and illustrations from studies of top-level policymakers in government, business, and public welfare organizations, Janis shows how the likelihood of failure is substantially reduced if sound procedures of information search, appraisal, and planning are used. He alerts executives to the preconditions, precipitating events, and catalysts that create situations where the most dangerous error of decision making—relying on simplistic decision rules—often occurs. By following the four essential steps outlined by Janis, policymakers can adopt “vigilant problem solving,” the high-quality procedural strategy for arriving at policy decisions When policymakers utilize the vigilant problem solving approach, they are likely to take full account of the various constraints involved in a situation and may even seek out additional information about them. Consequently, the risk of failure, especially in critical situations, is substantially lowered. Janis’ highly acclaimed decision making strategies give a powerful advantage to managers in all kinds of organizations, from the smallest family business to the largest corporation and government agency.

This isn't the time to Blink. It's time to THINK! -- before it's too late. Outraged by the downward spiral of American intellect and culture, Michael R. LeGault offers the flip side of Malcolm Gladwell's bestselling phenomenon, Blink, which theorized that our best decision-making is done on impulse, without factual knowledge or critical analysis. If bestselling books are advising us to not think, LeGault argues, it comes as no surprise that sharp, incisive reasoning has become a lost art in the daily life of Americans. Somewhere along the line, the Age of Reason morphed into the Age of Emotion; this systemic erosion is costing time, money, jobs, and lives in the twenty-first century, leading to less fulfillment and growing dysfunction. LeGault provides a bold, controversial, and objective analysis of the causes and solutions for: • the erosion of growth and market share at many established American companies, big and small, which appear to have less chance of achieving the dynamic expansion of the past • permissive parenting and low standards that have caused an academic crisis among our children -- body weights rise while grades plummet • America's growing political polarization, which is a result of our reluctance to think outside our comfort zone • faulty planning and failure to act on information at all levels that has led to preventable disasters, such as the Hurricane Katrina meltdown • a culture of image and instant gratification, fed by reality shows and computer games, that has rendered curiosity of the mind and spirit all but obsolete • stress, aversion to taking risks, and therapy that are replacing the traditional American "can do" mind-set. Far from perpetuating the stereotype of the complacent American, LeGault's no-holds-barred analysis asks more of us than any other societal overview: America can fulfill its greatest potential starting today, and we need smart teachers, smart health care workers, smart sales representatives, smart students, smart mechanics, and smart leaders to make it happen. Now is the time to THINK! -- because a mind truly is a terrible thing to waste.

In 1940 the world was on a knife-edge. The hurricane of events that marked the opening of the Second World War meant that anything could happen. For the aggressors there was no limit to their ambitions; for their victims a new Dark Age beckoned. Over the next few months their fates would be determined. In Fateful Choices Ian Kershaw re-creates the ten critical decisions taken between May 1940, when Britain chose not to surrender, and December 1941, when Hitler decided to destroy Europe’s Jews, showing how these choices would recast the entire course of history.

Decision-making is a process of choosing from possible courses of action in order to attain goals and objectives. Nobel laureate Herbert Simon wrote that the whole process of managerial decision-making is synonymous with the practice of management. Decision-making is at the core of all managerial functions. Planning, for example, involves the following decisions: What should be done? When? How? Where? By whom? Other managerial functions, such as organizing, implementing, and controlling, rely heavily on decision-making.Decision by Objectives is an invaluable book about the art and science of decision-making. It presents a very practical approach to decision-making that has a sound theoretical foundation, known as the analytic hierarchy process. Intended for both the student and the professional, the book includes approaches to prioritizing, evaluating alternative courses of action, forecasting, and allocating resources. By focusing on objectives rather than alternatives alone, it shows the reader how to synthesize information from multiple sources, analyses, and perspectives. The methods presented have been gaining popularity throughout the world.