Response to Mr. Secretary

“How to Decide Effectively” is basically an article highlighting the decision-making process the author uses and recommends to his readers for better thinking and thus, more effective decisions (Bhattacharya, 2010). Bhattacharya essentially summarizes and cites the work of Michael J. Mauboussin, Think Twice—Harnessing the Power of Counterintuition in walking the reader through the process of deciding more effectively using Mauboussin’s proposed decision-making process (Mauboussin, 2009). Bhattacharya includes eight steps to follow from this specific decision-making process which can elevate a person’s ability to think more clearly, evaluate more thoroughly, and predict outcomes with plans of action more efficiently. Make specific goals, evaluate, and plan accordingly are some of the core steps in this process. “Using a specific process comes in handy when stakes are high and when your natural decision-making process leads you to a sub-optimal choice (Mauboussin).” Also, there is a recommendation of using a decision-making journal to chronicle important decisions, the process of how one has made their decisions, expectations, as well as the eventual outcomes. There are a couple of good points given about managing outcomes of a person’s decisions, one of which includes being prepared to fail, so after making a bad decision, there should already be a plan to deal with such an outcome. In other words, after making one’s decision, the reader should already know the reasons for possible failure, and then decide how to move on from there. Bottom line, Bhattacharya summarizes his article in his subtitle quite well, “It’s simple. Keep an eye on the goal (Bhattacharya).”

In summarizing the article, I continually wanted to interject my opinion, but scholarly writing dictates that I keep my personal opinion at a minimum or nonexistent, in an effort to more effectively share with my audience, teach, and eventually, show the author’s reasoning and presentation, not...