The Little Black Book of Decision Making
Making Complex Decisions with Confidence in a Fast-Moving World
Michael Nicholas
- English
- ePUB (disponibile sull'app)
- Disponibile su iOS e Android
The Little Black Book of Decision Making
Making Complex Decisions with Confidence in a Fast-Moving World
Michael Nicholas
Informazioni sul libro
The secret to making the right call in an increasingly complex world
The decisions we make every day – frequently automatic and incredibly fast – impact every area of our lives. The Little Black Book of Decision Making delves into the cognition behind decision making, guiding you through the different ways your mind approaches various scenarios. You'll learn to notice that decision making is a matter of balance between your rational side and your intuition – the trick is in honing your intuition to steer you down the right path.
Pure reasoning cannot provide all of the answers, and relying solely on intuition could prove catastrophic in business. There must be a balance between the two, and the proportions may change with each situation. This book helps you quickly pinpoint the right mix of logic and 'gut feeling, ' and use it to find the best possible solution.
- Balance logic and intuition in your decision making approach
- Avoid traps set by the mind's inherent bias
- Understand the cognitive process of decision making
- Sharpen your professional judgement in any situation
Decision making is the primary difference between organisations that lead and those that struggle. The Little Black Book of Decision Making helps you uncover errors in thinking before they become errors in judgement.
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Informazioni
Part One
No Place for Old Dogs: New Tricks Required
1
Let's Get Real: We All Make Mistakes
First Appearances are Often Deceptive
- The O-rings had not been designed for use at the unusually cold conditions of the morning of the launch, which was approximately -2°C. They had never been tested below 10°C, and there was no test data to indicate that they would be safe at those temperatures (which were around 14°C lower than the coldest previous launch).
- NASA managers had known for almost a decade, since 1977, that the design of the shuttle's SRB's joints contained a potentially catastrophic flaw. Engineers at the Marshall Space Flight Centre had written to the manufacturer on several occasions suggesting that the design was unacceptable, but the letters were not forwarded to Morton Thiokol, the contractor responsible for construction and maintenance of the SRBs.
- Engineers raised specific warnings about the dangers posed by the low temperatures right up to the morning of the launch, recommending a launch postponement; but their concerns did not reach senior decision makers. The night before the launch, Bob Ebeling, one of four engineers at Morton Thiokol who had tried to stop the launch, told his wife that Challenger would blow up.2
- In 1985, the problem with the joints was finally acknowledged to be so potentially catastrophic that work began on a redesign, yet even then there was no call for a suspension of shuttle flights. Launch constraints were issued and waived for six consecutive flights and Morton Thiokol persuaded NASA to declare the O-ring problem “closed”.
- While the O-rings naturally attracted much attention, many other critical components on the aircraft had also never been tested at the low temperatures that existed on the morning of the flight. Quite simply, the space shuttle was not certified to operate in temperatures that low.
- It seems that one of the most important reasons why NASA staff opposed the delay may have been that the launch had already been delayed six times. Two of its managers have been quoted as saying, “I am appalled. I am appalled by your recommendation”, and “My God, Thiokol, when do you want me to launch?”3
Failures in communication … resulted in a decision to launch 51-L based on incomplete and sometimes misleading information, a conflict between engineering data and management judgments, and a NASA management structure that permitted the internal flight safety problems to bypass key Shuttle managers.4
The Committee feels that the underlying problem which led to the Challenger accident was not poor communication or underlying procedures as implied by the Rogers Commission conclusion. Rather, the fundamental problem was poor technical decision-making over a period of several years by top NASA and contractor personnel, who failed to act decisively to solve the increasingly serious anomalies in the Solid Rocket Booster joints.5
The Problem with Hindsight
“Our comforting conviction that the world makes sense rests on a secure foundation: our almost unlimited ability to ignore our ignorance.”—Daniel Kahneman, Nobel Prize-winning Professor of Psychology and international best-selling author on judgment and decision making