Following are the 10 best books on decision making.
YOU CANNOT MAKE PROGRESS WITHOUT MAKING DECISIONS. – Jim John
1. The Decision Book: Fifty Models for Strategic Thinking –By Mikael Krogerus and Roman Tschappeler
A short, sharp guide to tackling life’s biggest challenges: understanding ourselves and making the right choices.
Every day offers moments of decision, from what to eat for lunch to how to settle a dispute with a colleague. Still larger questions loom: How can I motivate my team? How can I work more efficiently? What is the long tail anyway?
Whether you’re a newly minted MBA, a chronic second-guesser, or just someone eager for a new vantage point, The Decision Book presents fifty models for better structuring, and subsequently understanding, life’s steady challenges.
2. How We Decide –By Jonah Lehrer
The first book to use the unexpected discoveries of neuroscience to help us make the best decisions.
Since Plato, philosophers have described the decision-making process as either rational or emotional: we carefully deliberate, or we blink and go with our gut. But as scientists break open the minds black box with the latest tools of neuroscience, they are discovering that this is not how the mind works. Our best decisions are a finely tuned blend of both feeling and reason and the precise mix depends on the situation.
Lehrer goal is to answer two questions that are of interest to just about anyone, from CEOs to firefighters: How does the human mind make decisions? And how can we make those decisions better?
3. Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don’t Have All the Facts –By Annie Duke
Annie Duke shows you a smarter approach to decision-making, where you analyze the odds of your decision failing and prepare for failure as well. Not only will this guarantee success in the long run, it will also boost your confidence and help you remain calm even when circumstances change completely.
4. Smart Choices: A Practical Guide to Making Better Decisions –By Howard Raiffa, John S. Hammond, and Ralph L Keeney
Decisions shape our experiences, from choosing which job offer to accept, to buying the right car, to selecting a good accountant. How do we know which choice is the smart one? How can we be consistent and confident in our decisions?
Combining solid research with common sense and practical experience, this user-friendly guide shows readers how to assess deep-seated objectives, create a comprehensive set of alternatives, determine likely consequences, make trade-offs, and grapple with uncertainty. Not only will readers learn how to make decisions, they will learn how to make the smartest decisions. For anyone caught at a confusing crossroad–whether you’re choosing between mutual funds or deciding where to retire–the Smart Choices program will improve your decision-making abilities immediately, and make your life more rewarding and fulfilling.
5. Nudge –By Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler
Every day we make choices from what to eat to how to spend our money, almost every situation in life requires making a choice. Unfortunately, we often choose poorly. In Nudge, the authors use years of research into human behaviour to illustrate how these choices are made and how they can be improved. It shows that no choice is ever presented to us in a neutral way and that we are all susceptible to biases that can lead us to make bad decisions. But by knowing how people think, we can use sensible “choice architecture” to nudge people toward the best decisions for ourselves, our families, and our society, without restricting our freedom of choice.
6. The Best Yes: Making Wise Decisions in the Midst of Endless Demands –By Lysa Terkeurst
Lysa TerKeurst shows that there is a big difference between saying yes to everyone and saying yes to God. In The Best Yes she will help you:
- Cure the disease to please with a biblical understanding of the command to love.
- Escape the guilt of disappointing others by learning the secret of the small no.
- Overcome the agony of hard choices by embracing a wisdom based decision-making process.
- Rise above the rush of endless demands and discover your best yes today.
7. Decisive –By Chip Heath and Dan Heath
Decisive: How To Make Better Choices In Life And Work is a book that seeks to make you an expert in the art of decision-making through its four-step process. The book questions your authenticity when making a decision. Decisive brings forth the various issues that make you take wrong decisions numerous times, such as biases, short-term emotions, and over-confidence. In Decisive, the four-step process is planned in such a manner that offsets these biases.
Key Features: 1) The book is a collection of simple strategies to make you a better decision-maker. 2) There are also a number of real-life examples in the book.
8. The Paradox of Choice –By Barry Schwartz
In The Paradox of Choice, Barry Schwartz explains at what point choice—the hallmark of individual freedom and self-determination that we so cherish—becomes detrimental to our psychological and emotional well-being. In accessible, engaging, and anecdotal prose, Schwartz shows how the dramatic explosion in choice—from the mundane to the profound challenges of balancing career, family, and individual needs—has paradoxically become a problem instead of a solution. Schwartz also shows how our obsession with choice encourages us to seek that which makes us feel worse.
By synthesizing current research in the social sciences, Schwartz makes the counter-intuitive case that eliminating choices can greatly reduce the stress, anxiety, and busyness of our lives. He offers eleven practical steps on how to limit choices to a manageable number, have the discipline to focus on those that are important and ignore the rest, and ultimately derive greater satisfaction from the choices you have to make.
9. Unglued: Making Wise Choices in the Midst of Raw Emotions –By Lysa TerKeurst
If you are looking for a way to control your emotions rather than having your emotions control you, your quest is complete. Unglued shows you how you can fix the problems that occur in your close relationships, communicate your thoughts and feelings better and develop a habit of being calm even when you are made to face the worst.
Filled with gut-honest personal examples and Biblical teaching, Unglued will equip you to know with confidence how to
– Resolve conflict in your important relationships
– Find peace in your most difficult relationships as you learn to be honest but kind when offended
– Identify what type of reactor you are and how to significantly improve your communication
– Respond with no regrets by managing your tendencies to stuff, explode or react somewhere in between
– And how to gain a deep sense of calm by responding to situations out of your control without acting out of control
10. Sources of Power –By Gary A. Klein
Conventional decision-making strategies ignore skill and experience. So for years, Gary Klein studied firefighters, pilots, and chess masters to conclude how they make decisions, especially when it is hardest to do so. In Sources of Power, Klein teaches us to make better decisions and to identify the strengths we possess that can facilitate even the most difficult tasks.
Thanks for reading! This was my list on the 10 best books on decision making. Go ahead and read.
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