About the Author

Robert E. Gunther is coauthor or collaborator on more than 20 books. Among many projects, he served as collaborating writer on Wharton on Making Decisions and coauthored The Wealthy 100, a ranking of the wealthiest Americans since the start of the country. His books have been translated into more than a dozen languages. He has appeared on CNBC’s Power Lunch, NPR’s Morning Edition, and numerous local and national radio and television programs. His projects also have been featured in The New York Times, Time, USA Today, and Fortune. His columns or articles have been published in Harvard Business Review, American Heritage, Investor’s Business Daily, and The Philadelphia Inquirer.

As founder of Gunther Communications, he has collaborated with leading business professors on books and articles, and engaged in communications work for Fortune 500 companies, universities, and major non-profits. After graduating from Princeton University, he worked as a reporter and editor for The Press of Atlantic City. He later joined the Wharton School where he served as director of development communications and director of publications in executive education. He and his wife have three children and live outside Philadelphia.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Praise for The Truth About Making Smart DecisionsPraise for The Truth About Making Smart Decisions

"The Truth About Making Smart Decisions offers a truly valuable and entertaining journey through the complex terrain of decision making. Robert Gunther combines a writer's gift of the pen with a keen understanding of human nature, drawing upon his own experiences, business anecdotes, and vignettes from other walks of life. His selection of traps, insights, and truths are edifying as well as amusing, and many readers will recognize themselves as he exposes our weaknesses, and occasional brilliance, as we carve the trajectory of our life one decision after the next."

Paul J. H. Schoemaker, Ph.D., coauthor of Decision Traps and Winning Decisions

"Robert Gunther crystallizes years of expertise and insight in business writing into a book on probably life's most important matter: decision making. How do you do it and how do you do it much better? He offers many tools to organize the mind and maximize your ability to be a leader and money maker."

Rick Rickertsen, Managing Partner of Pine Creek Partners and
author of The Buyout Book and Sell Your Business Your Way

"We make decision errors predictably, and Robert Gunther offers fifty ways of taking decisions more intelligently. The Truth About Making Smart Decisions is a concise and actionable guide for what to consider when facing critical choice points."

Michael Useem, Ph.D., Wharton Professor of Management and
author of The Go Point: When It's Time to Decide

"If you think decision making is cut and dried, this book will make you think again. In The Truth About Making Smart Decisions, Robert Gunther offers challenging insights on how factors from sleep to intuition to emotions to mental models affect the quality of our decisions. He urges readers to take a broader view and raises issues that anyone should consider in making smarter decisions."

Yoram (Jerry) Wind, Ph.D., The Lauder Professor and Wharton Professor of Marketing,
and coauthor of The Power of Impossible Thinking

Preface

Think quickly. Should you buy this book? You have to make a decision. Every minute of every day, you are making a series of small decisions that could change the course of your career and your life. Our lives are the sum of our decisions. Your success is largely a result of the quality of your decisions. Have you given any thought to how you make decisions?

This book won't keep you from making stupid decisions. Alas, it won't offer you a life without regret or buyer's remorse. It will help you step back from the heat of decision making and think about how you approach decision making. I've had the opportunity to work with some of the leading researchers in the field of decision making, including Paul Schoemaker, author of Decision Traps and Winning Decisions, Howard Kunreuther, co-director of the Wharton School's Risk and Decision Processes Center, and Jerry Wind and Colin Crook, authors of The Power of Impossible Thinking. I have learned a great deal from them about making decisions.

I wish I could say that all this good schooling has kept me from making absolutely disastrous decisions, but I'd be lying. I've walked away from a stable job to start a business (turned out to be a pretty good decision). I've moved 2,000 miles from Pennsylvania to Colorado with a St. Bernard and three kids and back again in one year (a disaster but a fascinating adventure as well). It is a decision I'd make again in a heartbeat because it was for the sake of family. So the little knowledge I have hasn't kept my tail out of the fire. But the way I think about and approach decisions has changed.

There is no simple formula for decisions, but we can become better at making them. No decision is perfect, but often doing nothing is worse. The time to act is now. On the following pages are a series of sharp insights that will give you new ways of thinking about your decisions. There are no shortcuts or machines to make decisions for you. You just need to dig in, open your eyes and get to work. I hope the following truths about decision making can help you in making your own tough decisions.

But some decisions are not all that tough. I mean, buy the book already.

—Robert Gunther

© Copyright Pearson Education. All rights reserved.

ue.f_vip = 'fls-na.amazon.com';
ue.sid = '175-5208682-8995206';
if(window.ue){ue._publishJsErrorsLog=function(){var f="rid="+ue.id+"&sid="+ue.sid,d=10,h=[f];var a=function(k){var l="1",m="csm-jserr",j="1",i="OP";if(ue.f_vip){new Image().src=["/",ue.f_vip,l,m,j,i,k].join("/")}};var b=0,c=0,g=ue_err.buf.length;for(b=0;b1)){a(h.join(""));h=[f]}}return c}};

if(window.uet){uet("be")}if(window.onLdEnd){if(window.addEventListener){window.addEventListener("load",window.onLdEnd,false)}else{if(window.attachEvent){window.attachEvent("onload",window.onLdEnd)}}}if(window.ueh){ueh(0,window,"load",window.onLd,1)}if(window.ue_pr&&(window.ue_pr==3||window.ue_pr==4)){window.ue._uep()};

function updateCsmHit(c){var a=new Date();a.setTime(a.getTime()+(30*60*1000));var d="; expires="+a.toGMTString();var b=(window.ue&&window.ue.t.be)?(ue.t.be-ue_t0):(new Date().getTime()-ue_t0);if(b!=0){document.cookie="csm-hit="+(c/b).toFixed(2)+d+"; path=/"}};
updateCsmHit(303567);

if(window.ue){ue._if=function(a){if(!window.ueh||!window.amznJQ){return}ueh(0,window,"load",function(){setTimeout(function(){var d=document.createElement("div");var c="csmflash";d.style.visibility="hidden";d.style.width="0";d.style.height="0";d.id=c;document.body.appendChild(d);var b=function(){swfobject.embedSWF(a,c,"0","0","9.0.0",false,{},{menu:"false",allowFullscreen:"false",allowScriptAccess:"always"})};if(!window.swfobject){amznJQ.available("swfobject-2.2",b)}else{b()}},3000)},0)};ue._fljs=function(c,e,b){uex("at",ue.id,{ha:c?"1":"0",aa:e?"1":"0",fv:b});if(swfobject&&ue.urf==1){swfobject.removeSWF("csmflash")}else{if(ue.urf==2){var a=document.getElementById("csmflash");if(a){var d=a.parentNode;if(d){d.removeChild(a)}}}}};ue._fi=function(){var c=ues("ha",ue.id),d=ues("aa",ue.id),b=ues("fv",ue.id),a="";if(c){a+="&ha="+c}if(d){a+="&aa="+d}if(b){a+="&fv="+encodeURIComponent(b)}return a}};

if (window.amznJQ && !window.swfobject) {
amznJQ.addLogical("swfobject-2.2", ["http://z-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/media/swf/amznjq-swfobject-2.2._V210753426_.js"]);
}
if(window.ue){
ue.urf = 0;
ue._if('http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/csm/FlashUtil._V167657016_.swf');
}