Download or read book FORTUNE The Greatest Business Decisions of All Time written by Editors of Fortune Magazine and published by Liberty Street. This book was released on 2013-10-01 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Decisions equal success--nothing happens until one is made. Businesses make millions of decisions every day. But once in a great while a leader makes a truly game-changing decision that shifts not only the strategy of a single company but how everyone does business. These big decisions are counterintuitive-they go against the conventional wisdom. In hindsight, taking a different direction may seem easy, but these bet-the-company moves involve drama, doubt, and high tension. What made Apple's board bring back Steve Jobs to the company? How did Johnson & Johnson decide to recall every bottle of Tylenol after a poisoning scare that involved only a small batch of the drug? What made Henry Ford decide to double the wages of his autoworkers, and how did that change the American economy for the next century? Here management consultant Verne Harnish, the CEO of Gazelles, and Fortune's editors provide the background stories behind the greatest business decisions of all time. In this fully original book, you'll get a glimpse into the thought processes leading up to these groundbreaking moments and will learn how the decisions have shaped the thinking of today's top leaders. The book also contains an insightful foreword by management guru Jim Collins, the author of Built To Last and Good To Great, which explains the importance of decision making in creating a successful company.

Download or read book Making Great Decisions in Business and Life written by David R. Henderson and published by Chicago Park Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The phrase "work smarter, not harder" has been repeatedly ridiculed in the Dilbert comic strip and elsewhere, not because it is a bad idea, but because it is thrown like a brick lifesaver to drowning employees. To tell someone to work smarter is like telling someone to be happier, healthier, and richer. It's not much help to merely repeat the objective; what people need is a plan for achieving the objective.In Making Great Decisions, we show our readers how to achieve their objectives. We write to help those in business and those in the business of life--i.e., everyone--to work smarter. Our ideas are both simple and powerful. We offer a better way to look at problems so that the solutions are easier to find. We help supplement our readers' clear thinking by summarizing some of the most powerful techniques we have discovered.Have you ever driven through corn country? From a distance, all you see are corn stalks and more corn stalks in a jumbled mess. Then suddenly, when you get closer, your perspective changes, and you can see down the rows and realize that the corn was planted perfectly in straight lines. Your perception of the crop changes from a messy jumble to a clear picture simply because you're in the right spot. This book puts readers in that ideal spot. So many problems seem like hopeless jumbles but then, when you start using the techniques we discuss here, they start to look as straightforward as the straightest line in an Iowa cornfield.What motivated us to write this book is that, over the years, both of us have regularly come across people in organizations--often bright people with MBAs or other graduate degrees--who don't think they have time, energy, or skills to make good decisions. They have many clues but don't know how to put them together. They regularly face situations that they could analyze with some of the tools they learned in their courses, but they don't realize that. We don't hold ourselves apart from this group, and stories of our successes and failures are sprinkled throughout Making Great Decisions in Business and Life.

Download or read book Seventy five Greatest Management Decisions Ever Made written by Stuart Crainer and published by Amacom Books. This book was released on 1999 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Publisher Fact Sheet A pithy compendium celebrating pinnacles of decision-making that have shaped management through the ages.

Download or read book Good to Great written by Jim Collins and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2001-10-16 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Challenge Built to Last, the defining management study of the nineties, showed how great companies triumph over time and how long-term sustained performance can be engineered into the DNA of an enterprise from the verybeginning. But what about the company that is not born with great DNA? How can good companies, mediocre companies, even bad companies achieve enduring greatness? The Study For years, this question preyed on the mind of Jim Collins. Are there companies that defy gravity and convert long-term mediocrity or worse into long-term superiority? And if so, what are the universal distinguishing characteristics that cause a company to go from good to great? The Standards Using tough benchmarks, Collins and his research team identified a set of elite companies that made the leap to great results and sustained those results for at least fifteen years. How great? After the leap, the good-to-great companies generated cumulative stock returns that beat the general stock market by an average of seven times in fifteen years, better than twice the results delivered by a composite index of the world's greatest companies, including Coca-Cola, Intel, General Electric, and Merck. The Comparisons The research team contrasted the good-to-great companies with a carefully selected set of comparison companies that failed to make the leap from good to great. What was different? Why did one set of companies become truly great performers while the other set remained only good? Over five years, the team analyzed the histories of all twenty-eight companies in the study. After sifting through mountains of data and thousands of pages of interviews, Collins and his crew discovered the key determinants of greatness -- why some companies make the leap and others don't. The Findings The findings of the Good to Great study will surprise many readers and shed light on virtually every area of management strategy and practice. The findings include: Level 5 Leaders: The research team was shocked to discover the type of leadership required to achieve greatness. The Hedgehog Concept (Simplicity within the Three Circles): To go from good to great requires transcending the curse of competence. A Culture of Discipline: When you combine a culture of discipline with an ethic of entrepreneurship, you get the magical alchemy of great results. Technology Accelerators: Good-to-great companies think differently about the role of technology. The Flywheel and the Doom Loop: Those who launch radical change programs and wrenching restructurings will almost certainly fail to make the leap. “Some of the key concepts discerned in the study,” comments Jim Collins, "fly in the face of our modern business culture and will, quite frankly, upset some people.” Perhaps, but who can afford to ignore these findings?

Download or read book Amazing Decisions written by Dan Ariely and published by Hill and Wang. This book was released on 2019-07-23 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dan Ariely, the New York Times bestselling author of Predictably Irrational, and illustrator Matt R. Trower present a playful graphic novel guide to better decision-making, based on the author’s groundbreaking research in behavioral economics, neuroscience, and psychology. The internationally renowned author Dan Ariely is known for his incisive investigations into the messy business of decision-making. Now, in Amazing Decisions, his unique perspective—informed by behavioral economics, neuroscience, and psychology—comes alive in the graphic form. The illustrator Matt R. Trower’s playful and expressive artwork captures the lessons of Ariely’s groundbreaking research as they explore the essential question: How can we make better decisions? Amazing Decisions follows the narrator, Adam, as he faces the daily barrage of choices and deliberations. He juggles two overlapping—and often contradictory—sets of norms: social norms and market norms. These norms inform our thinking in ways we often don’t notice, just as Adam is shadowed by the “market fairy” and the “social fairy,” each compelling him to act in certain ways. Good decision-making, Ariely argues, requires us to identify and evaluate the forces at play under different circumstances, leading to an optimal outcome. Amazing Decisions is a fascinating and entertaining guide to developing skills that will prove invaluable in personal and professional life.

Download or read book Decision Making and Business Performance written by Eric J. Bolland and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2018 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This breakthrough study examines how business decisions explain successful and unsuccessful performance. Real world and academic research is evaluated, including interviews and cases studies, to create a model of how decisions and performance are connected for businesses of all sizes. Recommendations are made to optimize decision making and projections about the future of decision making and performance are provided.

Download or read book Decision Quality written by Carl Spetzler and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2016-02-24 with total page 211 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Add value with every decision using a simple yet powerful framework Few things are as valuable in business, and in life, as the ability to make good decisions. Can you imagine how much more rewarding your life and your business would be if every decision you made were the best it could be? Decision Quality empowers you to make the best possible choice and get more of what you truly want from every decision. Dr. Carl Spetzler is a leader in the field of decision science and has worked with organizations across industries to improve their decision-making capabilities. He and his co-authors, all experienced consultants and educators in this field, show you how to frame a problem or opportunity, create a set of attractive alternatives, identify relevant uncertain information, clarify the values that are important in the decision, apply tools of analysis, and develop buy-in among stakeholders. Their straightforward approach is elegantly simple, yet practical and powerful. It can be applied to all types of decisions. Our business and our personal lives are marked by a stream of decisions. Some are small. Some are large. Some are life-altering or strategic. How well we make those decisions truly matters. This book gives you a framework and thinking tools that will help you to improve the odds of getting more of what you value from every choice. You will learn: The six requirements for decision quality, and how to apply them The difference between a good decision and a good outcome Why a decision can only be as good as the best of the available alternatives Methods for making both "significant" and strategic decisions The mental traps that undermine decision quality and how to avoid them How to deal with uncertainty—a factor in every important choice How to judge the quality of a decision at the time you're making it How organizations have benefited from building quality into their decisions. Many people are satisfied with 'good enough' when making important decisions. This book provides a method that will take you and your co-workers beyond 'good enough' to true Decision Quality.

Download or read book Decide Deliver written by Marcia W. Blenko and published by Harvard Business Press. This book was released on 2010 with total page 182 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: -Identify your critical decisions. Focus on those that matter most to your company's performance. --

Download or read book Decisive Intuition written by Rick Snyder and published by Red Wheel/Weiser. This book was released on 2019-03-01 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At last a practical guide on intuitive decision-making for anyone in the business world to get to the answer they need faster. Intuition is the great differentiator in business. Listening to, trusting, and acting on your intuitive intelligence separates you from the pack as most people are not listening to theirs. Intuition is the one intangible skill that enables teams to function at a higher level and add more dimension and power to their ability to solve problems and grow. Yet the question that each business leader and manager struggles to answer is how do you train and develop intuitive thinking in a team to achieve the greatest result? Decisive Intuition is for business leaders, managers, and employees who want answers to this question and are ready to accelerate their company culture. Practice this 6-step process for harnessing your intuitive intelligence with practical business applications. Hear how successful business leaders are integrating intuitive skills into their companies for cutting-edge results. Explore directional, social, and informational intuition and how you can apply them to different areas of your business for greater results. Learn about the 5 roadblocks to accessing your intuitive intelligence and how to overcome them. Discover the latest findings in neuroscience and techniques to access your intuitive, subconscious mind for arriving at better decisions, faster.

Download or read book Data Driven Business Decisions written by Chris J. Lloyd and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2011-10-25 with total page 512 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A hands-on guide to the use of quantitative methods and software for making successful business decisions The appropriate use of quantitative methods lies at the core of successful decisions made by managers, researchers, and students in the field of business. Providing a framework for the development of sound judgment and the ability to utilize quantitative and qualitative approaches, Data Driven Business Decisions introduces readers to the important role that data plays in understanding business outcomes, addressing four general areas that managers need to know about: data handling and Microsoft Excel®, uncertainty, the relationship between inputs and outputs, and complex decisions with trade-offs and uncertainty. Grounded in the author's own classroom approach to business statistics, the book reveals how to use data to understand the drivers of business outcomes, which in turn allows for data-driven business decisions. A basic, non-mathematical foundation in statistics is provided, outlining for readers the tools needed to link data with business decisions; account for uncertainty in the actions of others and in patterns revealed by data; handle data in Excel®; translate their analysis into simple business terms; and present results in simple tables and charts. The author discusses key data analytic frameworks, such as decision trees and multiple regression, and also explores additional topics, including: Use of the Excel® functions Solver and Goal Seek Partial correlation and auto-correlation Interactions and proportional variation in regression models Seasonal adjustment and what it reveals Basic portfolio theory as an introduction to correlations Chapters are introduced with case studies that integrate simple ideas into the larger business context, and are followed by further details, raw data, and motivating insights. Algebraic notation is used only when necessary, and throughout the book, the author utilizes real-world examples from diverse areas such as market surveys, finance, economics, and business ethics. Excel® add-ins StatproGo and TreePlan are showcased to demonstrate execution of the techniques, and a related website features extensive programming instructions as well as insights, data sets, and solutions to problems included in the material. Data Driven Business Decisions is an excellent book for MBA quantitative analysis courses or undergraduate general statistics courses. It also serves as a valuable reference for practicing MBAs and practitioners in the fields of statistics, business, and finance.

Download or read book Think Again written by Sydney Finkelstein and published by Harvard Business Press. This book was released on 2009-02-03 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why do smart and experienced leaders make flawed, even catastrophic, decisions? Why do people keep believing they have made the right choice, even with the disastrous result staring them in the face? And how can you be sure you're making the right decision--without the benefit of hindsight? Sydney Finkelstein, Jo Whitehead, and Andrew Campbell show how the usually beneficial processes of the human mind can become traps when we face big decisions. The authors show how the shortcuts our brains have learned to take over millennia of evolution can derail our decision making. Think Again offers a powerful model for making better decisions, describing the key red flags to watch for and detailing the decision-making safeguards we need. Using examples from business, politics, and history, Think Again deconstructs bad decisions, as they unfolded in real time, to show how you can avoid the same fate.

Download or read book History s Worst Decisions written by Stephen Weir and published by Allen & Unwin. This book was released on 2005 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: History is strewn with mistakes. Many made by well intentioned people who were bright, intelligent, capable, but just made the wrong decision.

Download or read book The Three Pillar Model for Business Decisions Strategy Law and Ethics written by George J. Siedel and published by Van Rye Publishing, LLC. This book was released on 2016-03-21 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book will show you how to use an expanded version of the decision-making model taught in the leadership course for Harvard MBA students. Based on a Strategy Pillar, a Law Pillar, and an Ethics Pillar—the three key pillars of decision making in business and in life—the model enables you to achieve the twin goals that lead to business success: managing risk and creating value.

Download or read book The Greatest Business Decisions of All Time written by Verne Harnish and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Businesses make millions of small decisions every day. Sometimes they add up to success; other times failure. But once in a great while a leader makes a truly game-changing decision that shifts not only the strategy of a single company but how everyone does business. These big decisions are often counter-intuitive, and involve drama, doubt, and high tension. Harnish provides the background stories of some great business decisions, and gives you a glimpse into the thought processes leading up to these moments. -- from Publisher description.

Download or read book Great People Decisions why They Matter So Much why They are So Hard and how You Can Master Them written by Claudio Fernandex Araoz and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2008-09-15 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Great People Decisions is an essential strategy guide for managers, executives and HR professional. This is the first book that looks at hiring and promoting great people from a business perspective. Great People Decisions is about how finding the right person is critical to the long term success of any business. The right people make the right decisions and these are the kind of people who create success. Great People Decisions will convey Fernandez-Araoz's insights about finding and hiring great people such as:· The importance of shedding all emotional biases when conducting an interview.· The information requirements that drive the search are far more important than the specific assessment techniques that are used.· The specific people involved in the appointment are also more important than the assessment techniques.· In most cases, people who have the power to make power-related decisions don t have the knowledge - and people who have the knowledge don t have the power.· The broader the search, on average, the better the candidate.

Download or read book The Great Game of Business written by Jack Stack and published by Broadway Business. This book was released on 1994 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Great Game of Business started a business revolution by introducing the world to open-book management, a new way of running a business that created unprecedented profit and employee engagement. The revised and updated edition of The Great Game of Business lays out an entirely different way of running a company. It wasn't dreamed up in an executive think tank or an Ivy League business school or around the conference table by big-time consultants. It was forged on the factory floors of the heartland by ordinary folks hoping to figure out how to save their jobs when their parent company, International Harvester, went down the tubes. What these workers created was a revolutionary approach to management that has proven itself in every industry around the world for the past thirty years--an approach that is perhaps the last, best hope for reviving the American Dream.

Download or read book Business Case Analysis with R written by Robert D. Brown III and published by Apress. This book was released on 2018-03-01 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This tutorial teaches you how to use the statistical programming language R to develop a business case simulation and analysis. It presents a methodology for conducting business case analysis that minimizes decision delay by focusing stakeholders on what matters most and suggests pathways for minimizing the risk in strategic and capital allocation decisions. Business case analysis, often conducted in spreadsheets, exposes decision makers to additional risks that arise just from the use of the spreadsheet environment. R has become one of the most widely used tools for reproducible quantitative analysis, and analysts fluent in this language are in high demand. The R language, traditionally used for statistical analysis, provides a more explicit, flexible, and extensible environment than spreadsheets for conducting business case analysis. The main tutorial follows the case in which a chemical manufacturing company considers constructing a chemical reactor and production facility to bring a new compound to market. There are numerous uncertainties and risks involved, including the possibility that a competitor brings a similar product online. The company must determine the value of making the decision to move forward and where they might prioritize their attention to make a more informed and robust decision. While the example used is a chemical company, the analysis structure it presents can be applied to just about any business decision, from IT projects to new product development to commercial real estate. The supporting tutorials include the perspective of the founder of a professional service firm who wants to grow his business and a member of a strategic planning group in a biomedical device company who wants to know how much to budget in order to refine the quality of information about critical uncertainties that might affect the value of a chosen product development pathway. What You’ll Learn Set up a business case abstraction in an influence diagram to communicate the essence of the problem to other stakeholders Model the inherent uncertainties in the problem with Monte Carlo simulation using the R language Communicate the results graphically Draw appropriate insights from the results Develop creative decision strategies for thorough opportunity cost analysis Calculate the value of information on critical uncertainties between competing decision strategies to set the budget for deeper data analysis Construct appropriate information to satisfy the parameters for the Monte Carlo simulation when little or no empirical data are available Who This Book Is For Financial analysts, data practitioners, and risk/business professionals; also appropriate for graduate level finance, business, or data science students