Statistics and Stuff

The words of Eleanor Roosevelt ring true: One's philosophy is not best expressed in words. It is expressed in the choices one makes. In the long run, we shape our lives and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And the choices we make are ultimately our responsibility. 

Tim Kimmel, Little House on the Freeway,  p. 143.

Years ago a professor at Stanford devised a check lest of nine questions that can be applied to any problem. Used as a self- quiz, the questions spur imagination. They are:

1. Is there a new way to do it?
2. Can you borrow or adapt?
3. Can you give it a new twist?
4. Do you merely need more of the same?
5. Less of the same?
6. Is there a substitute?
7. Can the parts be rearranged?
8. What if we do just the opposite?
9. Can ideas be combined?

Bits & Pieces, February, 1990, p. 20.

While an open mind is priceless, it is priceless only when its owner has the courage to make a final decision which closes the mind for action after the process of viewing all sides of the question has been completed. Failure to make a decision after due consideration of all the facts will quickly brand a man as unfit for a position of responsibility. Not all of your decisions will be correct. None of us is perfect. But if you get into the habit of making decisions, experience will develop your judgment to a point where it is better to be right fifty percent of the time and get something done, than it is to get nothing done because you fear to reach a decision. 

H.W. Andrews.

Actually, a manager needs the ability not only to make good decisions himself, but also to lead others to make good decisions. Charles Moore, after four years of research at the United Parcel Service reached the following conclusions:

1. Good decisions take a lot of time.
2. Good decisions combine the efforts of a number of people.
3. Good decisions give individuals the freedom to dissent.
4. Good decisions are reached without any pressure from the top to reach an artificial consensus.
5. Good decisions are based on the participation of those responsible for implementing them.

Charles W.L. Foreman, "Managing a Decision Into Being," from the Management Course for Presidents, pp.3-4.

What kind of person is best able to involve others and himself in good decision making? J. Keith Louden lists seven qualities:

1. The ability to look ahead and see what's coming -- foresight.
2. Steadiness, with patience and persistence and courage.
3. A buoyant spirit that in spite of cares generates confidence.
4. Ingeniousness, the ability to solve problems soundly yet creatively.
5. The ability to help others.
6. Righteousness, the willingness to do the right thing and speak the truth.
7. Personal morality of a quality that commands the respect of others.**

J. Keith Louden, "Leadership," from the Management Course for Presidents, pp 10-11.

Poems

To every man there openeth
A way, and ways, and a way.
And some men climb the high way,
And some men grope below,
And in between on the misty flats
The rest drift to and fro.
And to every man there openeth
A high way and a low;
And every man decideth
Which way his soul shall go.

John Oxenham.