Decision making and problem solving

Companies should hope for the best and prepare for the worst.

Many negotiations collapse over differences of opinion about how the future will unfold. Companies need to realize that it’s often better to bet on uncertain events than to argue about them.

Quit being the person you're "supposed" to be.

You’re late for work, and it’s pouring rain. In the parking lot, a car speeds around you and takes the last spot near the building entrance. You end up trudging from the back of the lot and get soaked to the skin. You’re mad, and you know your judgment at the moment is probably impaired. […]

Artificial intelligence seems to be on the brink of a boom. It's now guiding decisions on everything from crop harvests to bank loans, and uses like totally...

Look hard at the economics, but don't stop there.

2008 and several years preceding it will not go down in history as the best years for good decisions. While we did make a groundbreaking (and, so far it seems, pretty good) decision to elect a different kind of man as U.S. president, we have made a lot of bad ones, both individually and organizationally. […]

This is post 3 in a series of blog posts from downturn strategist Darrell Rigby and fellow partners at Bain & Company. We will walk you through the tools and strategies you need to survive the current downturn and to improve your competitive position. To go deeper and complement these posts, we will provide early […]

It’s his baby, after all. In 1994 Jerry Yang (together with David Filo) birthed an Internet web site named after him – “Jerry’s Guide to the World Wide Web” – and since then they’ve been inseparable. While at the age of one “Jerry’s Guide” was more formally christened – Yahoo! Inc. – the relationship between […]

A study explored the link between safety and profitability.

A meeting I had recently with some folks at Gillette highlighted an important issue facing the would-be innovator - the "curse of knowledge." Chip and...

Cut through complexity with predictive analytics.

Sometimes it's the best way to grow.

You are an up and coming leader and have just found the perfect stretch job opportunity. How much can you “dress up” your resume to make yourself as strong a candidate as possible without crossing the ethical line of deception? Consider a few conflicting thoughts: Over 50% of people lie on their resume. A Monster.com […]

In B2B selling, it matters if your buyer is female.

The past several years have witnessed a growing awareness among American managers of the central importance to competitive success of first-rate competence in the work of production. At the top of many corporate agendas now rests the determination to boost productivity, product quality, and new product innovation. This is all to the good. What managers […]

In times of crisis, sometimes even the most prevention-focused can crack - at great cost.

“It is a law of human nature,” David Brooks writes in his newest book The Social Animal, “that the more men you concentrate in one happy pack, the more each of them will come to resemble Donald Trump. They possess a sort of masculine photosynthesis to start with — the ability to turn sunlight into […]

The benefit of an almost inexhaustible supply of facts, figures and data can often be a double-edged sword in our increasingly complex, information-overloaded world. While having all the pertinent facts is critical to good decision-making, at the same time conflicting information can leave us stuck and uncertain of how to proceed. However, behavioral scientists have […]

It depends on how important the issue is to you.