“Decisive: How To Make Better Decisions in Life and Work” Book Summary
13 min readApr 18, 2024
Best Quotes from Decisive: How To Make Better Decisions in Life and Work by Chip & Dan Heath:
Introduction
- 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
- Given that we’re wired to act foolishly sometimes, how can we do better?
- Most companies make decisions by having a team arguing only one side of the case
- A better decision process substantially improves the results of the decisions
- Discipline exhibited by good corporate decision makers involves exploring alternative points of view, recognizing uncertainty, searching for evidence that contradicts their beliefs
- Why a process? Because understanding our shortcomings is not enough to fix them. Does knowing you’re nearsighted help you see better?
- Push the spotlight around until you feel ready to make a decision
1: The Four Villains of Decision Making
- “Any time in life you’re tempted to think, ‘Should I do this OR that?’ instead, asl…