Decisive by Chip and Dan Heath

Decisive by Chip and Dan Heath offers a guide to making decisions in life and work.  I am currently using it for some difficult decisions at work helping determine the best course of action for stadium security.

When do you trust your intuition- When feedback is immediate.  When you can't trust your intuition.  When feedback is delayed for a long time.  Will this stock go up or down? 

Following the process of decision making was much more important than narrowly focused analysis.   If it is an important decision we need to follow a process- Use a wide focus,

The authors recommend to "Ooch" first before going all in.  This means try out several small pilot projects prior to making a full commitment on something new.  A lot can be learned with low risk.  Running several small projects at speeds up the learning curve and allows the success of each project to be compared and the lessons learned from the failures and successes to be combined for a better final  decision. 

Our ability to predict the future is not very good.  We are overconfident about our abilities.  The authors point to an inverse correlation between the accuracy of predictions and the amount of time an expert is on TV.   

When making a choice have more than two options avoid narrowing the focus too early and avoid the spotlight effect.  Spend some time scanning the environment. Having more than two is better because it pulls people out of a binary vision.  My favorite bad binary choice from the 20th Century: Choose between door #1 Fascism or door #2 Communism?  I'd really like a door number three.

We also must make an active effort to seek out information that does not confirm our original assumptions. 

 

The 4 Villians of Decision Making - Narrow framing, confirmation bias, short term emotion and overconfidence.

 

 

Synopsis of Decisive by Randy Mayeux of First Friday Book Synopsis.

Read books by people with whom we disagree.  Read books outside of the field of our expertise.

 

The Irregulars: Roald Dahl and the British Spy Ring in Wartime Washington

The Irregulars: Roald Dahl and the British Spy Ring in Wartime Washington by Jennet Conant covers the story of Roald Dahl from a WWII pilot shot down in the early part of the war to his espionage efforts for the BSC (British Security Coordination) in coordination with the OSS run by Wild Bill Donavon in the United States.  The book outlines the strategies the British used to influence America. This was done with the secret approval of Roosevelt over the objection of J. Edger Hoover. 

Dahl along with Ian Fleming and other unconventional spies were recruited by a Canadian businessman William Stephenson to assist with the British efforts to move the US out of its isolationist mindset and bring them about to support the British in their fight against Germany.  Many of Ian Flemings ideas for the James Bond character and the gadgets used came from his wartime experience spying on the U.S.  He described William Stephenson as the real James Bond.   He was played by David Niven in a TV miniseries "A Man Called Intrepid."

Roald Dahl befriends some of the most influential people in Washington, DC, including FDR and his wife Eleanor.  He befriended Charles E. Marsh a Texas newspaperman who is one of the power brokers behind LBJ's rapid rise to power in Congress.  Dahl and Marsh engage in an extended satirical correspondence with British Ambassador Halifax being the main target.   Marsh was a good friend of Henry A.Wallace the wartime VP for Roosevelt.  As part of his job, Dahl woos then discards a significant number of women including Clare Boothe Luce.

 

Jennet Conant on the Irregulars- 2 min.

 

 

 

Roald Dahl wrote Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory

 

 

 

A Man called Intrepid - William Stephenson