Making Great Decisions in Business and Life [Hardcover]

David R. Henderson (Author), Charles L. Hooper (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 5, 2005

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.

Editorial Reviews

Review

This brilliantly written book is a stimulating, fun read filled with great stories and examples. It has practical applications for business people, and yet is written for everyone. If my predecessors at the companies I turned around had read and understood this book, their companies wouldn t have needed me. I wish I had had this book when I taught decision analysis at Harvard. It would make a great supplementary text for virtually any course I teach. It is, simply, a great book. --John O. Whitney, Columbia Business School

Making Great Decisions flows like butter. It teaches you how to think like an economist. The results may surprise or even jolt you, as you discover all the mistakes you've been making and how to correct them. --Barry Nalebuff, Yale School of Management

This is a book that is the best of both worlds; it's full of practical advice and it's interesting. Honestly, I carried this book around with me and read it at every spare moment. --Jack Covert, 800-CEO-READ

About the Author

David R. Henderson is a professor of economics at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California and a research fellow with the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. He was a senior economist with President Reagan's Council of Economic Advisers. Henderson edited the first, and still the only, reader-friendly economics encyclopedia, The Fortune Encyclopedia of Economics. He is the author of The Joy of Freedom: An Economist's Odyssey. Charles L. Hooper is president and co-founder of Objective Insights, a consulting company that provides financial and marketing analysis for the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. He is a visiting fellow with the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 287 pages
• Publisher: Chicago Park Press; 1st edition (November 5, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0976854104
• ISBN-13: 978-0976854104
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #289,316 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

34 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars How the economic way of thinking can improve your life, December 7, 2005

By 

Dwight R. Lee (Dunwoody, GA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Making Great Decisions in Business and Life (Hardcover)

Far too many people see economics as difficult, boring, and totally irrelevant to their daily lives. Henderson and Hooper demonstrate in clear and compelling language that economics is really a straightforward and exciting way to make your life more productive and enjoyable. With a large number of short, interesting and largely diagram-free examples, the authors do exactly what the title of their book promises. They show the reader how to make great decisions in their businesses and their lives. Mentioning two of their many topics, the book emphasizes how easy it is to let your fantasies obscure the realities you face and lead you into harmful decisions with a number of useful examples. There is a wonderful discussion on the importance of considering cost and being careful to distinguish between real cost and what is easily thought of as cost, but isn't.
I will be teaching a one-half semester capstone MBA course on economics in the second half of the spring semester, and this book will be the central reading. I cannot think of a better book to bring home the message I think is crucial for MBA students to understand--that the insights of economics can improve their business skills and make them more effective in all walks of their lives. But you don't need to be an MBA student to benefit from this book. Just someone who enjoys a well-written and interesting book and wants to make better decisions.

25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Recommended Reading, January 5, 2006

By 

political idiot (california) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Making Great Decisions in Business and Life (Hardcover)

This is a good book, easy to read, and more importantly absent business jargon; but there won't be any epiphanies for anyone. The authors do offer some clarity, personal insight, and reinforce traditional methodology to help you make better, more effective, risk tolerant decisions. Essentially they successfully eliminate the fluff found in most textbooks and present the meat in an understandable and practical manner. Utilizing his background in economics, David Henderson provides a nice section on utilizing the margin for decision-making, which I have found is always a most useful skill to have. Other factors I think people tend to get emotional about with negative results are sunk costs and time valuation. There is useful information and lots of examples, anecdotes, and techniques included. At no time do the authors leave you hanging on an abstract concept. Examples and calculations are provided to drive home the idea. My only criticism is that since the book as co-written by two authors they feel some need to frequently tell the reader, with parenthetical initials, who is offering the example or anecdote. It gets a bit annoying, but that may be just my own personal problem. Nonetheless, this is a good, solid book with informative material that will provide a manager at any level, company owner, or master of their domicile good focus for improved decision-making skills.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Personal advice book based in sound economics, February 21, 2007

By 

Maxim - See all my reviews

This review is from: Making Great Decisions in Business and Life (Hardcover)

When was the last time you saw a personal advice book that, instead of using some type of trendy "pop-psychology" approach, applied economic theory? This is what makes David Henderson and Charles Hooper's book Making Great Decisions so unique. At the same time, the authors make the application of economics seem simple. Easily understandable language replaces economic jargon, and the point of a paragraph is never ambiguous.
The book is packed with interesting, real-life examples and conversations. It overflows with personal stories, each to make a point or to illustrate a particular concept.
Most of the economic principles that are applied come right out of Econ 101. For example, the authors advise readers to ignore "sunk costs" (expenses that have already been made, in time or money) when making decisions. In other words, your initial investment, whether in the form of yearlong training to climb Mt. Everest or the establishment of a coin shop, should not be considered when deciding whether to pursue the venture further.
The authors say that one common error made by companies and individuals is assigning the wrong priorities to projects. They point to a company that spent far more money and time deciding how to make company printers more alike than it did determining whether to license a product worth $100 million a year. They should have realized the massive difference in importance between the two problems and divided resources accordingly.
The authors give personal advice throughout the book. "Think on the margin," they say. Henderson gives as an example his procrastination in graduate school, when he needed to complete his dissertation. He estimated that he would have to put in six hours a day to finish his dissertation before the deadline, but instead found himself avoiding the work day after day. The solution, he found, was to aim to work just two hours every day. This modest goal made it easy for Henderson to get started on his work every day, and once he had started, he found it easier to keep going. Think on the margin, the authors advise; even if you can't get a full six hours of writing done, two are better than none.
While the advice is very much apolitical, with the goal of helping the reader make better decisions, the basis for it relies on free-market economic theory. Some parts of the book reflect this essentially libertarian political approach. The authors remind us, for example, that recycling is not free and that, depending on the value of one's time, it may not be worthwhile to sort recyclables and carry them to the curb every week.
They also debunk complaints about sweatshop labor, warning readers beforehand that they are "about to challenge a commonly accepted belief". Sure, the workers have low pay and poor conditions by American standards - but what is their alternative? The foreign workers voluntarily chose "sweatshop" employment over their other choices. Will they be better off if western activists eliminate that option? This issue is cited by the authors as an example of people making the mistake of choosing fantasy over reality. The western activists would like everyone to live well, but don't realize that eliminating jobs, even low-paying ones, is not a solution. Though not generally taking political stances, in the few issues that the authors do take on, their reasoning is well thought out and deserves mention.
David Henderson and Charles Hooper wrap the book up with a short discussion on ethics: Unethical practices are almost always bad business. They point out that your actions will determine what others will think of you, which in turn affects business opportunities. Sticking to form, Henderson gives an example from his business dealings with people. Adam Smith is lauded his idea of "the invisible hand" - the notion that one unintentionally helps society simply by working to make a profit.
In Making Great Decisions, the authors show that economic theory can be applied to everyday life and decision-making. The book flows smoothly with plentiful examples and has a lively writing style. But perhaps most importantly, it is hard to find fault with the advice.