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Smart Choices: A Practical Guide to Making Better Decisions Paperback – March 5, 2002

4.5 out of 5 stars 115 customer reviews

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Product Details

  • Paperback: 256 pages
  • Publisher: Crown Business; unknown edition (March 5, 2002)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0767908864
  • ISBN-13: 978-0767908863
  • Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.5 x 8 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 7.8 ounces
  • Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (115 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #157,569 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Top Customer Reviews

Format: Hardcover
I had the pleasure of reading this book last year as assigned material in a graduate business course taught by Ralph Keeney. My degree is in information systems management and, frankly, I took Managerial Decision Analysis only because I needed 3 elective credits to graduate. In retrospect, however, the course was among the most beneficial to me and Smart Choices was certainly the most relevant book I read in graduate school. I say it was the most relevant because it demonstrates how to define problems and make decisions not simply as a business leader, but as an individual. The PROACT approach is a valuable tool for making formal decisions like "Which career path should I choose?" or "Which software package should I recommend to my client?" But the mentality that the approach engenders is pervasive. You will find yourself unwittingly applying elements of it to questions like "How should I spend time with my kids this weekend?" or "What is the best Valentine's Day gift for my wife?" The greatest benefit to me has been the piece of mind that comes with knowing that I don't just make better decisions -- I am now a better decision maker.
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Format: Hardcover
I have read many books on decision analysis - however, the 3 authors managed to condense the most relevant points in one book, without academic speak. The famous Kahnmann & Tversky's Heuristics and Biases are nicely summarised in the final chapter. The case studies are easy to relate to. Definitely a professional book written for the layman. No need for a PhD to understand this!
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Format: Hardcover
This is an excellent book. The title may make this appear to be one of the too-numerous mass-market books which claim to offer advice on business and personal decision-making but actually offer lots of specific admonitions which are based on values which the reader may not share (example: anything by Steven Covey). This book, however, doesn't try to sell you any of the the authors' values; instead it teaches you an effective process that you can use to analyze any decision-making situation and make the choices which are most effective for achieving your objectives, whatever they may be. The book treats the subject in the same systematic way that it might be treated in an academic decision theory text, only it is written in plain language which can be read quickly and easily comprehended by the general reader. It finishes with a summary outline (they call it a "roadmap") which is a useful quick reference.
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Format: Paperback
The authors of the book "Smart Choices" (Hammond, Keeney and Raiffa) look at decision making as a disciplined informational affair. If you gather information according to their template you will make better decisions about some things. But they give only passing mention to the fact that decision-making is largely a psychological affair. Information handling (the topic of the decision) is opposed by psychological (emotional) determinants of decision-making. In the gap between these two factors, most people are driven more by emotions than by "rational factors" about information.

The motivation in decision-making is about what people want. The choices made are the expressions of motives - and motives are, by definition, psychological machinery. Psychological machinery is emotional. Period. If you consider the logic of TV's CSI show or Lieutenant Columbo, for example, any behavior depends on three things: motive, means and opportunity. The authors of this book have concentrated on the means for making a good decision. Opportunity to make a decision is taken for granted. But they have deleted the systematic emotional bias that disables so many motives of so many people so much of the time.

The downside of this excellent book is that the authors use the outline of their book in a way similar to the way pilots use a preflight checklist - to insure they will operate the machinery of their aircraft properly. Few human and interpersonal situations respond to "checklist logic". People are not normally as well organized as a well-maintained aircraft. People reach closure on decisions with emotional logic independent of the literal facts - in more cases than not. People have strong emotional habits and those emotions dictate the choices, not the information.
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Format: Paperback Verified Purchase
There are a lot of books about decision making and problem solving, and the vast majority of them are mediocre. There are a number of decent, readable accounts that give some simple tips and teach you about psychological principles, but these typically have very little in the way of solid tools. We all know it gets boring when the math starts or when we have start doing drills to learn basic skills. And the more specific they get with their methods, the less useful it becomes for our own problems. Books that cater to our creative side can help us learn how to break out of ruts, but they are weaker on helping us make good decisions more consistently.

Then there are systematic formal approaches by academics based on mathematical techniques, and these tend to be the equivalent of textbooks. Decision theory, mathematical modelling, strategy, optimization, probability, statistics, etc.. Great stuff. You can get a lot out of them if you put in the study, as far as useful tools and skills for hypothetical problems, but actually applying their lessons when you face a real problem is another matter. And as with most academic learning, practical transfer is left as an exercise for the reader. Also applying formal methods in situations where we already have good instincts, that often rubs us the wrong way. Using a spreadsheet to choose a mate? If you actually were to study systematic decision making and acquire the skills and habits for using those tools, you would surely make more decisions more consistently. But would you be wiser at knowing when to use these methods?

Smart Choices is closer to the first type of book, a practical guide to principles, but it has the soul of a textbook. No footnotes, bibligraphy, or exercises.
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