Insights to valuable decision-making based on authority, business, culture, change, and diversity in an organization.

This public inquiry report into serious failings in healthcare that took place at the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust builds on the first independent report published in February 2010 (ISBN 9780102964394). It further examines the suffering of patients caused by failures by the Trust: there was a failure to listen to its patients and staff or ensure correction of deficiencies. There was also a failure to tackle the insidious negative culture involving poor standards and a disengagement from managerial and leadership responsibilities. These failures are in part a consequence of allowing a focus on reaching national access targets, achieving financial balance and seeking foundation trust status at the cost of delivering acceptable care standards. Further, the checks and balances that operate within the NHS system should have prevented the serious systemic failure that developed at Mid Staffs. The system failed in its primary duty to protect patients and maintain confidence in the healthcare system. This report identifies numerous warning signs that could and should have alerted the system to problems developing at the Trust. It also sets out 290 recommendations grouped around: (i) putting the patient first; (ii) developing a set of fundamental standards, easily understood and accepted by patients; (iii) providing professionally endorsed and evidence-based means of compliance of standards that are understood and adopted by staff; (iv) ensuring openness, transparency and candour throughout system; (v) policing of these standards by the healthcare regulator; (vi) making all those who provide care for patients , properly accountable; (vii) enhancing recruitment, education, training and support of all key contributors to the provision of healthcare; (viii) developing and sharing ever improving means of measuring and understanding the performance of individual professionals, teams, units and provider organisations for the patients, the public, and other stakeholders.

"The best book on collaboration ever written!" —Diane Flannery, founding CEO, Juma Ventures And now this classic book is even better—much better. Completely revised and updated, the second edition is loaded with new tools and techniques. Two powerful new chapters on agenda design A full section devoted to reaching closure More than twice as many tools for handling difficult dynamics 70 brand-new pages and over 100 pages significantly improved

A comprehensive, up-to-date examination of the most important theory, concepts, methodological approaches, and applications in the burgeoning field of judgment and decision making (JDM) Emphasizes the growth of JDM applications with chapters devoted to medical decision making, decision making and the law, consumer behavior, and more Addresses controversial topics from multiple perspectives – such as choice from description versus choice from experience – and contrasts between empirical methodologies employed in behavioral economics and psychology Brings together a multi-disciplinary group of contributors from across the social sciences, including psychology, economics, marketing, finance, public policy, sociology, and philosophy 2 Volumes

A framework for making decisions about risks, with recommendations for research, public policy, and practice.

How to Resolve the Really Hard Problems Every manager makes tough calls—it comes with the job. And the hardest decisions are the “gray areas”—situations where you and your team have worked hard to find an answer, you’ve done the best analysis you can, and you still don’t know what to do. But you have to make a decision. You have to choose, commit, act, and live with the consequences and persuade others to follow your lead. Gray areas test your skills as a manager, your judgment, and even your humanity. How do you get these decisions right? In Managing in the Gray, Joseph Badaracco offers a powerful, practical, and even radical way to resolve these problems. Picking up where conventional tools of analysis leave off, this book provides tools for judgment in the form of five revealing questions. Asking yourself these five questions provides a simple yet profound way to broaden your thinking, sharpen your judgment, and develop a fresh perspective. What makes these questions so valuable is that they have truly stood the test of time—they’ve guided countless men and women, across many centuries and cultures, to resolve the hardest questions of work, responsibility, and life. You can use the five-question framework on your own or with others on your team to help you cut through complexities, understand critical trade-offs, and develop workable solutions for even the grayest issues.

This book describes the new perspective of naturalistic decision making. The point of departure is how people make decisions in complex, time-pressured, ambiguous, and changing environments. The purpose of this book is to present and elaborate on past models developed to explain this type of decision making. The central philosophy of the book is that classical decision theory has been unproductive since it is so heavily grounded in economics and mathematics. The contributors believe there is little to be learned from laboratory studies about how people actually handle difficult and interesting tasks; therefore, the book presents a critique of classical decision theory. The models of naturalistic decision making described by the contributors were derived to explain the behavior of firefighters, business people, jurors, nuclear power plant operators, and command-and-control officers. The models are unique in that they address the way people use experience to frame situations and adopt courses of action. The models explain the strengths of skilled decision makers. Naturalistic decision research requires the examination of field settings, and a section of the book covers methods for conducting meaningful research outside the laboratory. In addition, since his approach has applied value, the book covers issues of training and decision support systems.