HBR's 10 Must Reads Collection (12 Books)

What You Don’t Know About Making Decisions

by David A. Garvin and Michael A. Roberto

LEADERS SHOW THEIR METTLE IN many ways—setting strategy and motivating people, just to mention two—but above all else leaders are made or broken by the quality of their decisions. That’s a given, right? If you answered yes, then you would probably be surprised by how many executives approach decision making in a way that neither puts enough options on the table nor permits sufficient evaluation to ensure that they can make the best choice. Indeed, our research over the past several years strongly suggests that, simply put, most leaders get decision making all wrong.

The reason: Most businesspeople treat decision making as an event—a discrete choice that takes ...