Jonathan Donihue

“Effective managers make effective decisions. There are six steps of effective decision making and five characteristics of effective decisions. First, and by far the most important step, effective decision makers define and classify the problem. It is much easier to fix a wrong solution to a problem if the problem has been defined correctly than it is to fix a “correct” solution to a problem that has been defined incorrectly. If a problem has been defined incorrectly, no solution to that problem can be found. Conversely, if a problem is defined correctly, then an incorrect solution will provide useful feedback information, leading the executive closer to the right solution. The remaining five steps of effective decision making are Ask, “Is this problem generic or unique?” Decisions that are generic ought to be solved by finding and applying a rule that someone else has used to solve the problem. For problems that are unique, the decision maker must next determine the boundary conditions that must be satisfied in order for the decision to be effective. Establishing boundary conditions requires an answer to the question, “What does the decision have to accomplish to be effective in solving the problem?” Next, the decision maker asks, “What is the right solution, given these conditions?” Then—and this is where a great many decisions fail—the decision maker must convert the decision into action by assigning to one or more persons the responsibility for carrying out the decision and by eliminating any barriers faced by those who must act. Finally, the effective decision maker follows up on the decision, obtains feedback on what actually happened as a result of the decision, and compares this with the intended or desired results.”
― Peter F. Drucker, Management, Revised Edition

“In the sea battles of World War I, German sailors were sometimes stranded in lifeboats for days or weeks after their ships were sunk. Invariably, the first men to die were the youngest. This phenomenon remained a mystery until it was realized that the older sailors, who had survived earlier sinkings, knew that the crisis could be weathered; lacking such experience, the young sailors perished because they saw themselves as trapped in a hopeless situation.”
― Deepak Chopra, Ageless Body, Timeless Mind: The Quantum Alternative to Growing Old

“Although the book is exceedingly strange, expending undoubtedly several hundred thousand words [an astonishingly accurate word count], but its general importance may be stated in one sentence: it is only about the retrieving or releasing one’s mind (). For whether we folks act like demons and become Buddha are all dependent on this mind.”
― Wu Cheng'en, The Journey to the West, Volume 1

“By applying the same optical principles responsible for normal eyesight it was possible to extend vision artificially; similarly, the calculus of probabilities formalized the good sense that came naturally to the fortunate few to help out the befuddled many.”
― Gerd Gigerenzer, The Empire of Chance: How Probability Changed Science and Everyday Life