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Winning Decisions: Getting It Right the First Time

Article · January 2001

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J. Edward Russo Paul Schoemaker

Cornell University University of Pennsylvania
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 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: David Drake
212-782-9001
ddrake@randomhouse.com

From two seasoned business advisors—and world leaders in

behavioral decision studies—a comprehensive, one-of-a-kind guide
to making critical decisions quickly, confidently, and correctly

WINNING DECISIONS
Getting It Right the First Time
J. Edward Russo & Paul J.H. Schoemaker

“[A]n outstanding book on the process of decision-making…. This book makes a

comprehensive analytical tool, with excellent case studies, exercises, evaluators,
and notes. It transcends many of the ordinary organizational behavior theory and
strategy books on the shelves, and managers, executives, and business-school
students who read it will be put through their paces.”
— Booklist (starred review)

“A clear, straightforward explanation of how managers should perform one of

their most basic tasks: making a decision…. This book will prove valuable to
managers at all levels of an organization.”
— Publishers Weekly

“In Winning Decisions, Jay Russo and Paul Schoemaker shed much-needed light
on one of the most complex processes we encounter every day. Exhaustively
researched yet written with clarity and verve, it offers tools, skills, lessons, and
insight that you will not find in any other publication. This is a book that will
benefit manager or executive, whatever their field."”
— Ken Blanchard, co-author of The One Minute Manager

In today’s volatile, high-stakes business environment, more people at every level in every
industry are making more decisions—and being forced to make them faster. Left to fend for
themselves amidst an avalanche of information, most rely on a slapdash mix of intuition,
common sense, and specialized knowledge to decide matters for them. As a result, countless
well-intentioned, smart, experienced professionals wind up making poor decisions—again and
again—and bemoaning their misfortune.
How can a corporate manager, financial analyst, marketing specialist, lawyer, doctor, not-for-
profit leader, public official—or anyone who must take intelligent actions—make fast, frequent,
sound decisions with superior odds for a successful outcome?

WINNING DECISIONS: Getting It Right the First Time (Currency/Doubleday; January 02,
2002; Hardcover; $27.50) provides the crucial answer. The premier experts on the dynamics of
decision-making behavior and its impact on business, J. Edward Russo and Paul J.H.
Schoemaker, share their proven step-by-step process for making any decision as well as is
practically possible. As the authors contend and clearly demonstrate: “Decision-making
prowess is a skill that can be learned—and that should be learned.”

With an emphasis on critical thinking and systematic action, WINNING DECISIONS shows in
detail how great decisions are made—and reveals how deep seated biases and mental limitations
can derail even the most diligent decision-making effort. Combining extensive research with
real-world experience, the authors present a conceptual framework as well as concrete
techniques for tackling every decision in four stages:
1. Framing: to examine each decision from the best viewpoint, multiple perspectives must
be explored in order to focus attention on the truly important aspects of the situation, and
avoid solving the wrong problem.

2. Gathering Intelligence: to determine hard facts, assess the unknown, diversify

interpretations, challenge assumptions, expand options and avoid the pitfall of personal
biases and various mental short-cuts.

3. Coming to Conclusions: by integrating both facts and values, and following a

disciplined process of weighing pros and cons, a much better choice can be reached than
simply relying on seat-of-the-pants judgment or gut-feel.

4. Learning from Experience: understanding not only what happened but also why is the
key to continual learning; appreciating and overcoming the numerous obstacles to
learning in the real world will eventually strengthen decision-making skills and improve
chances of success.

Guiding all decision-makers—the novice, the wary and the destructively impulsive—through
these steps, Russo and Schoemaker supply concrete techniques, hands-on tools, helpful
worksheets and savvy tips for making critical decisions under fire. In addition, they offer real-
time decision-making coaching through the story of an Internet startup, RealHome.com—an
actual case illustrating the entire decision-making process of hiring a new chief operating officer.
Along the way, decision-makers will develop the essential insights and accomplished skills to:
  Improve the quality and expand the quantity of their options
 Convert expert yet conflicting opinions into valuable insights
 Make group decisions attain their full advantage
 Create working environments that enhance feedback and learning
 Make intelligent decisions in the face of uncertainty, even great uncertainty
 Trust in their decision-making ability even when circumstances undermine the
best laid plans

Authoritative and eminently practical, WINNING DECISIONS is an indispensable book for

every manager and any professional called on to choose the right course of action for their
organization—with stakes that include their reputation and career.

# # #

WINNING DECISIONS
Getting It Right the First Time
by J. Edward Russo & Paul J.H. Schoemaker
Published by Currency/Doubleday
Publication Date: January 02, 2002
$27.50; Hardcover; 352 pages
ISBN: 0-385-50225-7

About the Authors

J. EDWARD RUSSO, PH.D. is a Professor of Marketing and of Management and
Organizations at Cornell University’s Johnson Graduate School of Management. He has served
as an adviser to many distinguished companies, including Boeing, Eli Lilly, General Motors,
IBM, Price WaterhouseCoopers, and SmithKline Beecham. Russo is also actively involved in the
study and application of leading-edge decision technologies to real-world problems and is a
frequent speaker in executive decision programs. He lives in Ithaca, New York.

PAUL J. H. SCHOEMAKER, PH.D. is the founder and chairman of Decision Strategies

International as well as Research Director of the Mack Center for Technological Innovation at
the Wharton School. He has consulted with about a hundred organizations, including two years
spent with Royal Dutch/Shell’s scenario planning group in London. For many years, he was a
professor at the University of Chicago as well as a visiting professor at Cedep/Insead in France.
A frequent speaker in executive programs (at Berkeley, Cornell, Wharton and others), he
currently lectures and conducts research at Wharton. He lives in Villanova, Pennsylvania.

Russo and Schoemaker are joint authors of one previous book, Decision Traps (1989). Also,
Schoemaker co-authored Decision Sciences (1993) and co-edited Wharton on Managing
Emerging Technologies (Wiley, 2000). This summer he will publish Profiting from Uncertainty.

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