Making good, timely decisions is the highest-leverage activity going. That's why leaders and executives are paid royal sums. We've always known that the quality of our decisions determines our success in life. But in recent times, the need for good decision-making has become overwhelming. Our media- bombarded brains are confronted with as many choices in a single year as our grandparents faced in decades.
Rapid change presents new choices and requires new responses.
Data in, answers out. In our modern age, with instant access to virtually unlimited data, you'd expect that logical decision-making would have reached its apex. When we weigh pros and cons, analyze statistics, apply probability theory, or toy with computer models, logical analysis is only as good as the quality of the information available. And there's the rub. We've got too much information, and it's often impossible to differentiate the reliable from the bogus.