Amazon.com: Customer reviews: Decisive: How to Make Better Choices in Life and Work

Top positive review

Great book with great examples

Reviewed in the United States on October 31, 2023

I'm a big fan of this book. It's not just theory and fluff as many other books. It get's straight to the point and then provides real-world examples of people implementing these strategies. This book gives you a process to making a decision. If you're trying to make up your mind between this book and another, do yourself a favor and get both, but read this one first.

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Steve Brooks

Probably their weakest book

Reviewed in the United States on March 29, 2013

You know what you are going to get from the Heath Bro's. They take a business school subject, shape the fundamental texts - in this case Kahneman's Thinking, Fast and Slow - into a framework, and then flesh out with case studies. This book isn't as good as the first two.

Their subject this time is decision making. As you read, you can almost feel them scratching to live up to their reputation. The framework isn't as good as Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard. The Driver-Elephant-Path from Switch is a helpful analogy. WRAP, their framework for Decisive, is just an acronym. Decisive isn't as easy to implement as Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die. You can easily go back and edit your writing. Changing how you make decisions is more difficult.

The Heath Bro's make their best point at the end. Making better decisions requires a process. You can't beat your biases; you need a process that neutralizes them. The Heath Bro's process for making decisions is WRAP. Widen your options, Reality test, Achieve emotional distance, and Prepare for failure.

Widen your options - If you are familiar with design thinking, you are familiar with this processes. Generating more options leads to better decisions. The worst type of decisions are "to do or not to do" decisions.

Reality Test - Don't believe in your own exceptionalism, instead rely on base case rates. Look for ways to disprove your assumptions rather than trying to prove your assumptions.

Achieve Emotional Distance - All emotions are bad of decisions; only the intense short-term emotions are. Try changing time horizons to uncover your true deeper emotions.

Prepare to Fail - Before you make a decision you can limit your exposure if the decision turns out to be wrong. Once you have made a decision, decide on the criteria for re-examining the decision.

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From the United States

Great book with great examples

Reviewed in the United States on October 31, 2023

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Mike Mertens

A Helpful Guide to Making Better Decisions

Reviewed in the United States on March 26, 2013

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I highly recommend Decisive as a valuable aid to making more objective decisions. The Heath Brothers do a great job laying out a better and more memorable process for making decisions while illustrating the principles with a wide variety of examples. They begin by discussing how the normal decision making process proceeds in 4 steps, each of which has a "villain" that can negatively impact it. To quote from their introduction:
* You encounter a choice. But narrow framing makes you miss options.
* You analyze your options. But the confirmation bias leads you to gather self-serving information.
* You make a choice. But short-term emotion will often tempt you to make the wrong one.
* Then you live with it. But you'll often be overconfident about how the future will unfold

They spend the remainder of the book detailing a process to make better decisions - the WRAP process:
* Widen your options
* Reality Test Your Assumptions
* Attain Some Distance
* Prepare to Be Wrong

Each part of the process has several powerful ideas that are worth chewing on and implementing in the context of one's life. I have chosen a few of the ideas to give you a flavor of what is in store:

For widening your options, it is important to avoid a narrow frame. In order to make sure you challenge yourself to do this, they propose an idea called the Vanishing Options Test - what would you do if the current alternatives disappeared? Here is a key quote: "When people imagine that they cannot have an option, they are forced to move their mental spotlight elsewhere - really move it - often for the first time in a long while."
For Reality testing your assumptions. They have a chapter on "consider the opposite" - and there is an approach from Roger Martin that recommends for each option you are looking at, ask yourself "What would have to be true for this option to be the right answer?" This is an especially powerful concept in a business context where sides may be talking past each other - this helps reset the context to analyzing the options rather than arguing past each other.
In attaining some distance, they cover a simple but powerful question that is really helpful for a personal decision (though it applies in business contexts as well). The question is: "What would I tell my best friend to do in this situation?"
For preparing to be wrong, they cover the idea of a tripwire - something to make us come back and revisit the decision. This helps in making sure that past decisions get revisited periodically. This is especially important in reminding us that we have a choice in our actions and we are free to revisit those decisions we made in the past to make sure they are still meeting our needs. I find this important for reminding myself to remain actively engaged rather than passively falling into the status quo.

There are many other powerful techniques and ideas spread throughout the book. Some of my favorites are: prevention versus promotion focus, zoom out/zoom in, ooching, and pre-mortems. I highly recommend purchasing the book and integrating its concepts into your life in order to make better decisions.

Here are a few related thoughts and items that others may find interesting:

For reality testing your assumptions, see Richard Feynman's "Cargo Cult Science" article (freely available on the internet)
I have found the book Making Great Decisions in Business and Life by David Henderson and Charles L Hooper to be helpful as well. An interesting course on decision making is also made available by the Teaching Company (the course is taught by Michael Roberto who is mentioned in the book in the section on Recommendations for Further Reading)
For a powerful article on choices and values, see David Kelley's article "I Don't Have To" (also available freely on the internet)
The March 2013 Harvard Business Review has an article by Heidi Grant Halvorson and E. Tory Higgins related to prevention and promotion mindsets

Please note that this review is based on an advance copy (Uncorrected Proof) of the book that the authors made available via their website (a "secret" buried in a David Lee Roth story about tripwires). I enjoyed the book so much that I pre-ordered the hardcover right after finishing the advanced copy

171 people found this helpful

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Wally Bock

Best Book I've Read on Decision Making - Simple Process with Many Tools to Make the Process Work

Reviewed in the United States on December 18, 2018

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Chip and Dan Heath open their book, Decisive: How to Make Better Choices in Life and Work describing a woman considering whether to fire her firm’s IT Director. They ask you to reflect on your mental activity as you read their description. Next, they tell you what you probably did. They nailed that part for me. Finally, they show you why what you did, and what most people do, may not lead result in good decisions.

Here’s a summary of the book’s subject in two quotes from the introduction.

“Kahneman says that we are quick to jump to conclusions because we give too much weight to the information that’s right in front of us, while failing to consider the information that’s just offstage. He called this tendency “what you see is all there is.” In keeping with Kahneman’s visual metaphor, we’ll refer to this tendency as a “spotlight” effect. (Think of the way a spotlight in a theater directs our attention; what’s inside the spotlight is crisply illuminated.)”

And

“And that, in essence, is the core difficulty of decision making: What’s in the spotlight will rarely be everything we need to make a good decision, but we won’t always remember to shift the light. Sometimes, in fact, we’ll forget there’s a spotlight at all, dwelling so long in the tiny circle of light that we forget there’s a broader landscape beyond it.”

Decisive describes how you can make better decisions by following a simple process. The Heaths share research that shows that process is more important than analysis when reaching effective decisions. In fact, a good process can lead to better analysis.

They describe what they call the four villains of decision-making. The villains are: narrow framing, confirmation bias, short-term emotion, and overconfidence. They share a four-step process you can use to lessen the effect of the four villains.

I like the simple process represented with a few letters. The military does the best job I know of in teaching people how to decide. One key to their method is to define a simple process for analyzing an issue. The Army uses an analysis tool called METT-TC. That stands for: Mission, Enemy, Troops available, Terrain, Time, and Civilian concerns. The simple process helps a decision maker consider all the important factors.

The Heaths’ tool is a little different. They use the acronym WRAP. Each letter of the acronym represents a way to deal with one villain of decision-making. W is for “Widen your options.” R stands for “Reality-test your assumptions.” A represents “Attain distance before deciding.” And P is “Prepare to be wrong.”

Each of those elements of their process gets several chapters’ worth of coverage. The authors illustrate their points with relevant, well-told business stories, some of which you probably haven’t heard before. The Heaths also introduce several tools you can use to make the process work better. I found tools I was already familiar with, such as pre-mortem. There were tools I knew about but which had slipped away from the front of my memory. An example is Suzy Welch’s 10/10/10. And there were tools I never heard about such as book-ending.

In A Nutshell

Decisive: How to Make Better Choices in Life and Work is one of the best books I’ve read on decision-making. The Heaths created a simple process with an acronym to help you remember it. Then they present an array of tools to help you make the process work. If you want to improve your decision-making, or even if you think you don’t need to, this book is a must-read.

53 people found this helpful

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One of the best business/psychology books I've read . . .

Reviewed in the United States on April 22, 2013

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This is the first book by the Heath brothers I've read, though I still have their first two waiting on my shelf. I was impressed - one of the most practical, entertaining books I have picked up in a long time. You are guaranteed to walk away from this book with, at the very minimum, a handful of tools that will help you (or allow you to help others) make better decisions.

I really picked this book up because of the buzz I had heard about it, not because I needed help making any one decision. That said, I've already been able to apply the principles to two decisions and given advice to others as well based on this book. It's really a goldmine of information.

By reading this you will learn the WRAP system to make better decisions, which will help you overcome the four villains of decision making: narrow framing, confirmation bias, short-term emotions, and overconfidence. Below is a brief synopsis of my two favorite techniques for each . . .

Widen Your Options
Method 1: The Vanishing Options Test - Ask yourself if you could not choose any of the current options you are considering, what else could you do?
Method 2: Multitrack - Ask yourself if you can do this AND that, rather than this OR that.

Reality-Test Your Assumptions
Method 1: Ask Tough Questions - Ask tough, disconfirming questions. For instance, instead of asking a future colleague if the business allows them time to spend with family, ask how many times he ate with his family last month.
Method 2: Ooch - Test your assumption by slowly implementing small pieces of the plan in place, rather than all at once. What small part of your assumption can you test right now?

Attain Distance Before Deciding
Method 1: 10/10/10 - How will you feel about your decision in 10 minutes, 10 months, and 10 years?
Method 2: Give yourself advice - Ask yourself, " What would I tell my best friend to do in this situation?"

Prepare to Be Wrong
Method 1: Pre-mortem analysis - Assume that 12 months from now, you are wrong (product failed, job is no good, etc.). Now answer the question: What happened for you to be wrong?
Method 2: Assume overconfidence - Give yourself a margin of error with decisions you make.

BOTTOM LINE: This is one of the best business/psychology books I have read. It's practical, entertaining, and easy to apply. The authors did a great job of putting this material together and giving the reader a framework for making better decisions. The entire book is definitely worth reading and you'll want it on hand to reference afterwards. I highlighted something on almost every page, and I almost never do that. I will be picking up their previous two very soon now ( Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die & Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard ). Can't recommend this one enough, especially if you are struggling with any big decisions in your life or regularly help walk other people through their decisions. Pick up a copy of Decisive today.

5 people found this helpful

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CPWR

A quick read

Reviewed in the United States on April 28, 2013

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Decisive is structured for clarity and accessibility. Every chapter ends with a one-page synopsis of high points.
End notes offer more depth on studies. Readers are cleverly given a choice of how they read the book: fast or slow. Decisive can be scanned by the impatient or read in depth by the reflective.

Readers of other popular books on decision making such as Barry Schwartz's excellent "Paradox of Choice" will notice the Heaths use some of the same research. It's disappointing to read about the supermarket jam story yet again.However, if this book is not entirely original, what sets it apart is its presentation and accessibility. After all, their previous book was called "Made to Stick". And they have sensibly followed their own advice.

We meet the authors' four villains of decision making:
1. narrow framing blinds us to options
2. confirmation bias focuses attention on self-serving information
3. short-term emotion
4. over-confidence.

Primary points are made "sticky" with the acronym WRAP:
* Widen your options
* Reality-test your assumptions
* Attain distance before deciding
* Prepare to be wrong.
Each of these areas is fully unpacked over several chapters.

Widening options shows us how making choices with only an on-off switch keeps us from seeing that we can have this AND that. The object is to create more options.

After initial selections have been made the next stage is reality-testing assumptions. These include sniffing out any tendency for the confirmation bias. Validity testing includes examining initial assumptions, seeking out conflicting opinions and taking time to explore them. The tripwire is a warning mechanism preventing straying too far from the topic.

Decisions are based in feeling. Individuals who suffer from autism can find it particularly hard to make decisions. They fail to recognize and respond to some emotional cues. Unemotional analysis has its place, yet analysis alone is not enough. In the reality testing stage we check in with how we feel about each incremental change.The next stage addresses the tendency for our emotions to run away with us.

Attaining distance before deciding is the act of stepping back. This is easier said than done. The idea here is to distance ourselves from our emotional biases. The goal is to take a wider, deeper view. Our choices need to be aligned with our stated priorities.

Prepare to be wrong (which I've already mastered). The Heath brothers show how we are often wildly overconfident about the future.

They suggest these three fixes to get closer to what actually happens:
1. Book-ending the future is a technique for getting closer to the bulls' eye by setting low and high parameters.
2. A tripwire is a boundary beyond which you won't go before checking in and correcting course.
3. Trust the process: "Trusting a process can permit us to take bigger risks, to make bolder choices. Studies of the elderly show that people regret not what they did but what they didn't do."
Concepts are clearly explained, and illustrated with persuasive examples. Who knew that David Lee Roth's fixation with brown M&Ms was all about security?

We all need to decide. Deciding to read Decisive shouldn't be a difficult choice.

4 people found this helpful

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Steve from Boston

A useful framework for decisions

Reviewed in the United States on May 13, 2023

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I enjoyed this book all the way through. It offers several angles of approach for making better decisions, and I find myself applying the ideas in my day-to-day life. And I'm retired! It might have been even more meaningful for me if I had work decisions to make as well. Anyway, I've bought a second copy as a gift and I recommend the book in print or audiobook format. For me, it did not seem repetitive. I just found it clear.

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William N. Parker

Particularly Beneficial for My ENFJ Personality Type!

Reviewed in the United States on June 7, 2014

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This book revealed my tendencies around decision making, and it suggested a process that seems practical, objective, and mindful. If you are not familiar with the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, you would do well to stop reading here.

I am an ENFJ. Using Forms F or G of the instrument, my tendencies on each scale are as follows: Extraversion- moderate/11; iNtuition- moderate/17; Feeling-moderate/15; and Judging/strong/33. As an Extravert, I tend to prefer action to reflection and live in the outer world of people and things. As a strong judger, I prefer finishing projects (or making decisions) rather quickly, so that I can begin another one. As a Feeler, I tend to let head rule heart in decision making, thus the tendency to let emotions rule action. As an intuitive, I am idea-and-future focused; am a global thinker.

The author relates a powerful story of a new hire that was being considered in his print shop. The individual's role was to develop higher level mathematical tables. My learning from his story: TRUST what you can see. Trust the output sample of an individual's work, and let that be your number one criterion for personnel selection! (One exception to this would be if an individual cannot pass required background/character checks, when ethics and integrity are of high importance, etc.) Back to the print-shop story: Without the author sharing his telling experience, I would have rejected the individual in the interview, period. The applicant's personal appearance (ostentatious jewelry), his wearing apparel, and his verbal jousting tendencies would not have been acceptable! This writer happens to be a senior citizen, so I am much more flexible in my thinking than I was when I was thirty years ago. The author's story was one of the most compelling in the book.

I appreciated the way that each chapter was summarized. The names, events, statements, or questions relating to specific points were effective reinforcers. I'd have bolted to the next chapter without these, leaving some content to become fugitive information.

The ancillary resources found on their website were excellent: the Decisive Workbook provided an excellent review of the WRAP process. The 12 Decision Situations lets the reader see the WRAP process in action! The Heath brothers just went a step-beyond what the reader/customer expects by providing these helpful resources. Thanks!

Finally, I have begun reading this book for the second time. I rarely do this!

4 people found this helpful

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Mike Cook

Another Keeper but a Tougher Read

Reviewed in the United States on April 5, 2013

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When I received news of a soon to be released third book by the brothers Heath I immediately jumped on the opportunity and as with the earlier two I am glad I did.Now, a word of caution to the reader, this book is a lot more dense than the other two and therefore takes more energy to read. However, I applaud the Heath's for continually tackling tough and complex topics and doing their best to make them accessible. As a business owner I know the book took me on a roller coaster ride through my personal history of decisions made, those with both good and bad outcomes.

As a collector of resources that become permanent parts of a practical tool kit I think Decisive is a worthy addition. Let the buyer beware though, Decisive is a look at a much more complex process than either Made to Stick or Switch, at least in my view.

I'd recommend that interested buyers read the reviews here, especially the one and three star entries. I suppose we all knew that there would be readers who couldn't wait to provide a five star review; that would have been me until I got about a third of the way in and wasn't having as much fun as I did with the first two books. Then I realized that what the Heath's were guiding me towards was a rigorous process of subjecting my decisions to objective reviews. Yuck! Who wants to do that? If it sounds like I am saying that Decisive may be a bitter pill for some to swallow you'd be correct. It really does reveal that lack of rigor and critical thinking that many of us employ in our own personal quest to simply do what we want to do.

Decisive is not as entertaining as Made to Stick or Switch but it takes us into an area of life where the consequences are much weightier and maybe just harder to look at. I'd recommend it to students as a general reference source or especially to anyone considering making a decision that has considerable consequences to account for.

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Dr. C.H.E. Sadaphal

Strong evergreen advice on how to make better decisions amidst many, many stories.

Reviewed in the United States on January 15, 2016

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The reason why you need to read a book on how to make better decisions is because, based on cognitive research, human beings are wired to make less-than-wise decisions.

Science has shown that the formulas our brains use to decide simplify things, but the mental shortcuts often are not in our best interests. Cognizant of this, the questions then becomes: How do we overcome these innate predilections and decide better? Decisive illustrates four specific strategies.

The four strategies are W.R.A.P.: Widen Your Options, Reality Test Your Assumptions, Attain Distance Before Deciding and Prepare to Be Wrong. The book proceeds linearly through W.R.A.P. and each section goes into detail about how a specific strategy can help you to decide better. Furthermore, within each section, sub-strategies are detailed that explain the critical building blocks you will need when deciding.

Also located throughout Decisive are ‘clinics’ that pose a question and invite you to apply what you’ve learned to a case study. For those who just want to get straight to the point, each chapter ends with a one-page summary of bullet points.

The only negative comment I have about this book is that it is told through many, many stories. Decisive is a non-fiction book but at times it feels like you are reading a fiction novel about a series of characters who had to navigate through tough scenarios. It’s understandable why the authors did this (because stories are memorable, impart knowledge and inspire to act), but it felt as if they went overboard at times. The hardcover is 300 pages and I would presume over 100 of those pages consist of the stories alone.
Decisive is the third book (Switch and Made to Stick) from Chip and Dan Heath that I have read and the sole reason why I bought Decisive is because of the others. All three books are insightful, practical, and have significant overlap, so whether you are a business leader, a chef, a or a Sunday school teacher, there will be something for you to learn and apply.

Essentially, reading all three will show you how to develop a lasting idea that people will believe in, care for, and take action on (Made to Stick); how to materialize that idea into transformative change (Switch); and how to navigate along the path you have chosen in your personal life and job (Decisive).

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David G.

Start Making Better Decisions Immediately with the Process in this Book!

Reviewed in the United States on May 18, 2013

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Do you want to make better, more confident decisions in life and work? "Decisive" will help you. Many decisions regarding career choices, corporate mergers and acquisitions, and personal life are poor. A lot of research has explored problems with decision-making; "Decisive" presents a process for making better decisions.

The authors of Decisive, Chip and Dan Heath, maintain that a good process is essential to making good decisions, whether in work or personal life. They identify four major obstacles to making good decisions: narrow framing, confirmation bias, short-term emotion, and overconfidence. Benjamin Franklin’s “moral algebra”, in which pros and cons are balanced against each other, is not a very good decision-making process because it addresses only one of the four obstacles. The Heath brothers propose the WRAP process to specifically address them: Widen your options (to counteract narrow framing), Reality-test your assumptions (to counteract confirmation bias), Attain distance before deciding (to counteract short-term emotion), and Prepare to be wrong (to counteract overconfidence).

Chip and Dan Heath summarize a wide range of literature on factors in decision making from psychology, economics, and management and illustrate their points with examples from many areas, including retailing, corporate mergers, advertising and marketing, high-tech business, scientific research, college and career choices, and personal relationships.

Like Chip and Dan Heath’s earlier books, such as Made to Stick, Decisive is engaging to read and practical. A feature of the WRAP process is that you can immediately start making better decisions by using only one or two of the elements of the method, such the “Vanishing Options Test”, “ooching” (performing a small experiment to test your hypotheses), the “10/10/10” perspective, or setting tripwires. The more of the method you use, the better your decisions will be, but you can “ooch” your way to better decisions almost immediately.

Since reading "Decisive" I have been using elements of the WRAP process in making personal and business decisions and already see an improvement in the quality of those decisions. I purchased copies of "Decisive" for relatives who are are facing college and career decisions and I think the WRAP process will help them make better decisions in those areas. And I have been recommending "Decisive" to my colleagues and staff too, to help them improve their decisions.

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