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Smart Choices: A Practical Guide to Making Better Life Decisions (平装)
by John Hammond, Ralph Keeney and Howard Raiffa
| Category:
Decision-making, Life skills, Self help, Self improvement |
| Market price: ¥ 168.00
MSL price:
¥ 158.00
[ Shop incentives ]
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| Stock:
In Stock |
MSL rating:
 Good for Gifts |
| MSL Pointer Review:
Good for making decisions in both personal and business setting, this rare good read is solid and practical in showing you how to make better life decisions. |
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AllReviews |
1 2   | Total 2 pages 12 items |
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Jerome (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-11 00:00>
"In Smart Choices, John Hammond, Ralph Keeney, and Howard Raiffa tell us in plain language how to make optimal decisions in our everyday lives. They combine one hundred collective years of experience in an exceptional resource that takes the reader step-by-step through problem formulation and final decision. |
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Stephen (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-11 00:00>
Throughout Smart Choices, Hammond, Keeney, and Raiffa provide valuable insight and guidance on the inevitable and ongoing negotiation with yourself when facing a difficult decision. By following their effective, systematic process, anyone can make important personal or business decisions with greater clarity, confidence, and efficiency. |
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Yeager (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-11 00:00>
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. That is, emotions frame the overall decision-making stage which relegates "rational" checklists to bit players in the story of the decision process. Relatively few individuals are able to shift the balance toward the rational end of the gap and away from emotional dominance. Emotional tune-ups, done by a trained professional, do more to improve decisions than any rational checklist possibly can.
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David (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-11 00:00>
Making decisions is a fundamental life skill. Most of us dread making hard decisions. In real life tough choices almost always involve high stakes and serious consequences, they may involve numerous and multiple complex considerations, and they expose us to the judgment of others. The need to make a difficult decision put us at risk of anxiety, confusion, doubt, regret, embarrassment, loss, you name it.
In this book the authors explain in a practical, and easy to follow language, decision-analysis techniques and stratagems for the benefit of the rest of us. They provide substantial, straightforward explanations of fundamental concepts (risk tolerance, sunk costs, desirability curves, etc.).
In the step-by-step procedures they combine expertise, solid investigation, practical experience, and common sense, to help the reader understand what they want to accomplish, identify creative choices, evaluate risks, clarify any existing doubt, and establish reasonable transactions. This book won't tell you what to do, but how to do it.
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Hossein Arsham (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-11 00:00>
Decisions are made every single second of the day by many different people all over the world. But of all those decisions, how many of them are actually 'good' decisions? This is a question that most of us hardly ever think about because we have been faced with many problems/situations and making decisions to most of them without much thought all of our lives. A lot of times we don't question our decisions unless the outcome is unfavorable, but even when it is favorable, it does not always mean the best decision was made. Unfortunately, this is exactly why most of our decisions are not really 'good' decisions. When an individual is in a situation where a decision must be made, how does that person go about deciding what their decision is going to be? Do they know what the real problem is? Have they determined the true objective of their decision problem? Are they aware of the consequences of each choice they have to decide from? These are only a handful of questions that need to be addressed when faced with a situation or predicament where a decision must be made. Some of them may be addressed during the decision making process, but for the most part, there are so many more that are not. Decision-making is a long detailed process that requires a lot of thought and analysis before a decision can be made. Fortunately to help us learn the art of making 'good' decisions, there have been an overwhelming amount of books, articles, and other reading material to help us refine and enhance our decision-making skills.
One such book is Smart Choices, written by John S. Hammond, Ralph L. Keeney, and Howard Raiffa. Hammond, Keeney, and Raiffa have brought together years of research and experience in decision-making into the aforementioned book to educate all of us on how to make 'good' decisions. They are not saying that their method will make all of our decisions easy, but that they will become easier. Smart Choices encompasses a lot of important concepts needed to fully understand the process of making 'good' decisions. Hammond, Keeney, and Raiffa provide us with a step by step process to making 'good' decisions that can be applied to many different aspects of our lives. Not only will we be able to apply these concepts professionally, but personally as well. The authors of Smart Choices believe that the foundation of 'good' decision-making consists of eight specific elements, which are Problem, Objectives, Alternatives, Consequences, Tradeoffs, Uncertainty, Risk Tolerance, and Linked Decisions. Of those eight elements, the first five are the keys to becoming an effective decision-maker and will be part of every decision problem. The remaining elements help to justify and clarify decisions and may not always be incorporated. Now they refer to the first five elements as PrOACT, which they feel will help us to remember that the best way to approach a decision situation is to be proactive and seek them out instead of waiting for them to come to us. They are trying to express to us that by being proactive and seeking them out, it enables us to avoid being in a position where a decision has to be made immediately and we are not prepared to really make the best decision. They feel that being proactive is invaluable in becoming the best possible decision-maker. I agree with them that being proactive is important, but I don't necessarily see how feasible it is during our everyday lives. I feel that most people are not going about their day trying to find decision situations because they already so much going on in their lives and in their minds. I know that I don't, and maybe that is why I have not always made 'good' decisions. I see why it is important to be proactive because it does enable us to give ourselves the proper time to think them through and make 'good' decisions.
After reading through Smart Choices, I do understand the importance of finding them before they find me and have been trying to incorporate it in my everyday life. Problem is the first of eight elements that Hammond, Keeney, and Raiffa believe start the process of 'good' decision-making. Defining the problem is the basis for the entire process. It is extremely important that enough time is spent on making sure that the 'true' problem is determined. How we tackle a decision influences what we decide in the end. A lot of 'good' decisions can become bad decisions if the root problem is not correctly defined. In order to truly determine what the real decision problem is, Hammond, Keeney, and Raiffa state that we must be creative and look at each situation in different ways other than the most obvious one. This way we can increase the potential of defining the true problem and giving us more and better options to decide from. This part of the decision process seems so logical, but I feel is something that a lot of us take for granted. Reading Smart Choices definitely helps to reiterate the little things that almost all of us know, just neglect or fail to implement. Another key to finding the right problem is going into your decision-problem with a positive attitude. How we feel about a situation has an overwhelming influence on our final decision. Being optimistic instead of pessimistic will help to make the decision process more enjoyable and beneficial because their will be a positive attitude. This is very true because I know that I have been faced with different decisions where I had positive and negative attitudes and it was definitely easier and more enjoyable when I had an optimistic view. It is a lot harder making decisions to situations where all we think about is the negative outcomes. The other keys to defining the problem are to be open to the impacts and effects of different decisions as well as open to seeking advice and insight from others.
All of the previous concepts will help to define the root to any decision problem. Once its established, it is important to stay focused and be open to continuous review of the original problem because times are always changing, which means that a decision problem can as well. I really enjoyed reading this first part of Smart Choices because it puts 'good' decision making into perspective. So many times mistakes are made at the beginning leading to bad decisions, which also include good outcomes to incorrectly defined problems. The emphasis that Hammond, Keeney, and Raiffa place on spending enough time thinking through and formulating the right decision problem is vital to anyone becoming a decision-maker. The second element is Objectives. This element goes hand in hand with the previous one. A lot of times once the decision problem is identified, we tend to jump right into making the decision much sooner than we should and it turns out to be the wrong one or not the best one. Just like the first element, a lot of time and effort needs to be spent on determining the true objectives, which pertain to what we want to get out of our decision problem.
Hammond, Keeney, and Raiffa have identified five steps to help us master the art of identifying our objects. They are 1) Write down all of the concerns you hope to address through your decision, 2) Convert your concerns into succinct objectives, 3) Separate ends from means to establish your fundamental objectives, 4) Clarify what you mean by each objective, and 5) Test your objectives to see if they capture your interests. By utilizing these five steps, we can come up with our true objectives that will lead to 'good' decisions. One thing that they feel is important has to do with asking a lot of 'why' questions. This helps to clarify things and ensure that nothing is being overlooked and our fundamental objectives have been determined, which are the key objectives that from our original list, are achieved. I think that their explanation of why it is important to determine the right objectives is valuable and extremely valid. I don't think that the majority of us really spend a lot of time making sure that we have our true objectives identified. Hammond, Keeney, and Raiffa do an excellent job of conveying the importance and relevance of there second element of the decision- making process. I definitely agree with them. In order for anyone to become an effective decision-maker, they must be willing to spend time developing the objectives that they want to achieve before rushing into making a decision. The next element of the decision-making process is Alternatives. The alternatives represent all of the different options available to choose from for pursuing the objectives. They are extremely important in the decision making process because they represent the choices we have to choose from and they have direct influence on the final outcome. Hammond, Keesey, and Raiffa express the importance of making sure that we keep two important points in mind when determining our alternatives. They are 1) You can never choose an alternative you haven't considered and 2) No matter how many alternatives you have; your chose alternative can be no better than the best of the lot. They are emphasizing the importance of developing good alternatives and making sure that all of our options have been determined and considered before deciding what to do.
I agree with them emphasizing this because too many times people only give themselves a limited number of alternatives. They don't attempt to give themselves as many options as possible, which will help them to be aware of entire situation. I know that I don't do this enough when faced with a decision problem. The entire process of determining all of the alternatives is a long one. It is one that must be thought out and taken very seriously because it plays a big role in the final outcome of the decision. To help make things easier, Hammond, Keeney, and Raiffa have established several keys to generating more effective alternatives. They are 1) Use your objectives - ask 'How,' 2) Challenge constraints, 3) Set high expectations, 4) Do your own thinking, 5) Learn from experience, and 6) Ask others for suggestions. By using these keys, it will to generate as many quality alternatives as possible. I like the idea of establishing guidelines to help guide us into become better decision-makers. Another that they advise us to do is to always be open to more alternatives, but not to look forever for the perfect one because more than likely, there is never going to be a perfect alternative. Being open to new alternatives whenever they arise is important because things always change and you know when something an alternative that was missed or not a factor is recognized or becomes a factor. Now touching on the idea of not searching for the perfect alternative is a good one. Too many times people search and search and search for an alternative that does not exist because they do not want to accept any of the ones available.
I totally agree with Hammond, Keeney, and Raiffa that we must obtain as many alternatives as we can and at the same time we should not continuously search for the perfect one because it just doesn't exist. I think one of the most important part of their explanation on alternatives pertained to the types of alternatives that we can give ourselves to tailor to our decision problems. There were four different types to be exact. The first one is called a Process alternative. It deals with having a process make a decision for you. The example that they used was flipping a coin to make a decision. The flipping of a coin is a process. I think that this one will work when the decision is affecting other people or things. The example in Smart Choices dealt with flipping a coin to decide between two friends who was going to go to a skate show with the one that got the tickets. The reason why I say this is because I have flipped a coin to make a decision before and if it didn't land on the one I called, I automatically said, 'Best 3 out of 5.' I know that this is only one of many processes that can be used, but I just think that the other options available to help determine alternatives are better. A second type is the Win-Win alternative. This is one that I believe many people are aware of and probably use all of the time. This is when the decision that is made benefits two different parties. I like this one because it makes deciding a decision between several participants an amicable one. This way no one has to worry about the other one getting upset or disagreeing with the final decision and or outcome. I agree with them that this type of alternative is very common and efficient where both parties are satisfied. Information gathering is the third alternative. This deals with obtaining a lot of information of the situation or problem that will help to make a more educated decision. This helps to relieve any uncertainty that might be around about the possible decisions. I feel that this one is very important because in my own experiences, I have seen a lot of alternatives neglected because their real meaning was unknown and no one actually wanted to go find out the true meaning. By not knowing about them, it means that they are pretty much ruled out and really don't matter in the end. They are alternatives, but not alternatives. In other words, they are there for someone to choose, but the person choosing can't choose them. |
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An American reader (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-11 00:00>
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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An American reader (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-11 00:00>
When I started reading this book, I was bored and disappointed with the examples. The process of decision making - problem, objectives, alternatives, consequences, and tradeoffs - seemed obvious. And the examples were silly: Should John and Jane Doe buy a house? I wasn't interested, but when I continued reading, some parts, such as the chapters about risk and uncertainty, grasped me. I also found that just enumerating the decision making process made it a lot easier. The PrOACT solution is very intelligent. Even if you've never heard of decision theory, you use the system. By quantifying it and understanding how you make decisions, you'll naturally become a better decision maker. You'll know that there are alternatives to eating the whole cheesecake, or what the real reason you're putting off that assignment is. I run a website, called the Wall Street Wizard, www.streetwhiz.com, and it's helped me craft a better, more perceptive site because of my decisions on a daily basis. And it can help you. One of the best decisions you'll make is to buy this book. |
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Leonard Pagon (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-11 00:00>
As an executive I am faced with making key decisions almost every day. In many complex decisions there is almost always conflict between logical analysis vs. intuitive processing while there is a shortage of perfect information and time. Smart Choices lays out a simple, clear and practical framework and process for decision making. Although many of the concepts are not novel, the power is that the book links various tools and technigues as discrete decision making steps. Each step builds on the next. They greatly enhance the concepts through many practical examples for making business and personal decisions. I highly recommend this book! |
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An American reader (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-11 00:00>
A good decision I made in the last weeks? I think to buy this book was a good choice. It offers of course not the answers to all your questions in life but a good and systematical way to make decisions. There's a special approach in this book called "PROACT" and this means that you have to define your problem and objectives, look for alternatives, describe the consequences and deal with tradeoffs. All this is written in a clearly language and easy to read but with academic background. After all the logical things about decisions the authors show you all the psychological traps when you make a choice. Sometimes your brain is looking for easy and quick solutions. But that's not always the best alternative. So read this book and be surprised how easy it is to make good decisions. |
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Donald Mitchell (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-11 00:00>
I was taught all of the techniques described in this book in their most complex form. I loved the ideas when I first learned them, and have used them with great success for the last 30 years. Professor Raiffa is someone I admire greatly, as a result. I was delighted to find that this book addresses these complex tools in their simplest possible form, and applies the lessons to everyday living (especially the most important financial decisions that most people have to make like buying a home). A strength of this book is in the many detailed examples of personal decisions that are used to explain the authors' concepts. I immediately bought copies for everyone in my family as a way to help coach them in how to have more effective lives. You should do the same. I also suggest that you use the book as a model the next time that an important decision comes up that your whole family should participate in, such as whether to take a new job in a different state. This will not only help you develop better choices, but it will greatly improve the communications in your family about the decision, overcoming stalled thinking that could otherwise harm your family. I strongly hope that the authors will write a similarly simple version for business people, that applies these concepts to important business decisions. I know a few hundred people to whom I would like to give such a book. |
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1 2 | Total 2 pages 12 items |
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