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think of everybody as being your ally. Get initial feedback from people lower in the organizational structure and use it as a trial session to see what questions people have and what weaknesses and strengths are attributed to your idea. Never think you can please everyone; there will always be objectors. In fact, one way to gather support for your project is to ask for input from those you expect will be most affected. Note that most good ideas are defeated by irrelevant issues. It should come as no surprise that the people who are most affected by the potential implementation of an idea tend to have a knack for raising irrelevant issues. Use this fact to your advantage. Make note of such issues and prepare to defend against them.

Assuming your idea is good, people will want to invest in it. Let them. It is important to give the impression that you do not want to take total credit for the idea you have created. People who do invest in your idea will hope to get something in return. Upon their acceptance of your idea, you have to determine what that “something” is. Never believe that you will not have to alter your idea; compromise is an inevitable reality.

Last, think hard about your ultimate decision makers — your real audience — and do some research. The better you know who your audience is, the better you can tailor your presentation. The ultimate presentation is customized, organized, and passionate. Strive to combine logic and novelty, but remember, above all else, that research indicates that people are persuaded more by passion and dedication to an idea than they are by a logical, detailed presentation.

Chapter 3

Decision Making

Nothing is more difficult,

and therefore more precious,

than to be able to decide.

—Napoleon

OVERVIEW

This chapter introduces a variety of tools that can be used in making decisions for the purpose of solving problems or capturing opportunities. In this respect, it addresses applied reasoning. Perhaps the most important benefit of these techniques lies in our ability to use them to structure the thinking process. Imagine building a house without a plan! Adding structure to the decision-making process is like having a blueprint before building a house. Certainly a house could be built without a blueprint, but not as accurately or efficiently as it would be with one. A crucial distinction between structuring and decision making is that structuring doesn’t make decisions; people do.

The tools presented here are principally “trees” and “boxes.” Trees impose order and hierarchy; boxes summarize data or information. Using trees is similar to flowcharting, and decision-event trees provide a classic example of techniques used to diagram information and visualize outcomes.

Using boxes is similar to using a table to sort information or data, although in this material, “boxes” most often refers to matrixes. Frequently the need exists to contrast information according to two (or more) variables, and this leads to four (or more) distinct outcomes. Work done in a factory might involve making small and large widgets and silver-colored and gold-colored widgets. Matrixes help us to set up the information in a table to quickly see how many items fall within each category: silver-colored widgets that are small, silver-colored widgets that are large, gold-colored widgets that are small, and gold-colored widgets that are large.

Weighted ranking is a technique to help us quantify the decision-making process in order to evaluate outcomes or options. We rank items and assign weights to them. An example occurs if we are buying a house and want to make the best decision. Say we believe, for example, that the ideal house is a combination of having the right location, size, and livability. By ranking prospective houses not only under each of the three categories, but by also assigning weights (or probabilities) to them, the optimal choice is quantifiable.

Hypothesis testing is useful when we want to test an idea or theory. It provides a framework for testing ideas and it begins