Clear Thinking

Our goal in decision-making is not just to gather information, but to gather information relevant to our decision. That requires more than building an inventory of data points; it requires understanding the why and how behind those data points—the principles that good decision-makers use in this area. Getting at those principles requires asking the

From the start, Abrashoff knew you can’t simply order people to be better. Even if that appears to work, the results are short term and the consequences enormous. It doesn’t matter if you’re on a ship or running a manufacturing company. You don’t tap into people’s resourcefulness, intelligence, and skills by command-and-control. “Show me an organiz

Knowing what to ignore allows you to focus on what matters. Follow the example of the best investors and know the variables that matter for evaluating the options before you start sorting through information.

One way of creating space for reason in your thinking is to ask yourself what your exemplars would do if they were in your position. It’s the natural next step. Once you imagine them watching, you make decisions and put them into action. If, for instance, you’re making an investment decision, ask yourself, “What would Warren Buffett do?” Likewise,

There is only one most important thing in every project, goal, and company. If you have two or more most important things, you’re not thinking clearly. This is an important aspect of leadership and problem-solving in general: you have to pick one criterion above all the others and communicate it in a way that your people can understand so they can

The people executing established practices say they want new ideas, but they just don’t want the bad ones. And because they so want to avoid the bad ones, they never deviate enough to find new good ones.

What’s true of maps is true of any other abstractions: by nature, they’re designed to serve the interests of their designers. If those designers don’t have the same interests as you, their abstractions aren’t going to give you the information you need. Similarly, any information you may get from a secondhand source has likely been filtered through

If you find yourself struggling to determine specific criteria, it’s a sign either that you don’t really understand the problem, or that you don’t understand the general features that criteria are supposed to have. Those features include the following: Clarity: The criteria should be simple, clear, and free of any jargon. Ideally, you should be abl

Creating personal rules is a powerful technique for protecting yourself from your own weaknesses and limitations. Sometimes those rules have surprising benefits.

The first principle of decision-making is that the decider needs to define the problem.[*] If you’re not the one making the decision, you can suggest the problem that needs to be solved, but you don’t get to define it. Only the person responsible for the outcome does.