Book Summary

1. Seven Habbits of Highly Effective People (Stephen Covey)*****
2. The Dynamic Decision-Maker: Five Decision Styles for Executive and Business Success (Kenneth R. Brousseau, Michael J. Driver, Phillip L. Hunsaker)***

Seven Habbits of Highly Effective People (Stephen Covey) 

Emotional Bank Account

    We deal with others in a way such as we have our bank account in somebody else heart. If we do something great to the person we add our account to them and if we do someting bad to them we withdraw our money from 'our bank account'. The good relationship can be built if you have a sufficient emotional bank account to your freinds and relatives. And please, be ensure if you withdraw your account don't forget to add additional 'fund' to replace it.

Product and Product Capacity

    A good product can be deliver continuously if we have a good product capacity. Don't drain your resources by forcing them to deliver a good product without maintaining their capacity. So the idea of maintaining capability by relaxation, learning, and other renewal effort is a 'must do' jobs in order to maintain our product quality.

PRIVATE VICTORY

Habit 1 : Be Proactive

    A human was created which such great intention, so that he/she actually can determine 'everything' by their own. A proactivity is described as an ability to be independent to any circumstances arround you. The independecy will create a freedom to choose anything in your life but you have to live with the consequences of your choices. An effective person is that a person which focus on their circle of influence using all of his efforts, and by focusing on it he/she will improve it and make it bigger, Those who are not focusing on their circle of influences will end up having a very big circle of concerns but his/her circle of influence will be very small.

Habit 2 : Begin with The End in Mind

    To be effective, a person should have a clear destiny to what he/she want to be at the end of his life. He/She must have a clear dreams. By using this dream, a person can drive any activities that he/she will do in his/her life. The book suggest that each person should have a written personal Vision and Mission statement.

    The Book also suggest every personal to broaden the horizon by gathering all information in surrounding so that the way to the achieve their dreams is one of the optimum way to achieve it. And always continuously asking him/her self ' Why am I doing to what I am doing now ?

Habit 3 : Put First Thing First

    This one of the habits talking about prioritization. Prioritization is very important in everybody life, because it will directly impact every person achievement. The book introduce the 4 quadrant as below :

An effective person, based on this book will try to focus their effort on Quadrant II, because by focusing on that quadrant you will decrease the Quadrant II, and omitting Quadrant III and IV.

There are 2 types of leadership :

PUBLIC VICTORY

Habit 4 : Win-Win

    A win-win solution can be acheived with high courage and high consideration. A win-win is NOT a compromise but a thoughtfull action that really benefit both sides. It is actually 'the other' unthinkable solution to any problem or situation we face in day to day life.

   The stewardship type leadership can only be achieved if both leaders and members can fullfill the follwoing process : Character --- Relationship --- Agreement --- Stewardship. A Character means the integrity of values on ourselves which usually measuresd by the maturity (a capability to balance between courage and consideration)

    A Win-Win solution can only be achieved if every parties have 'Abundance Maturity' by considering that life is not a cake but life is a kitchen that can produce as many cakes as we want. To always put ourselves in this position we have to do the following steps :

Habit 5 : Seek to understand.........then to be understood

    The key lesson from this habit is 'LISTEN'. There are 4 types of listening which are : ignoring, pretending, selecting, and emphatic. Listening emphatically is listening by observing data given by the speaker and try to understand the information inside it. It is just like how the doctor diagnose the patient symptoms first before he prescribe. Do not use "AUTOBIOGRAPHY' mode to response, but rather use 're-state conversation.

Habit 6 : Synergize

    Using any capabilities to interdependent with others to achieve an outstanding result compare to result done by ourselves.

RENEWAL

Habit 7 : Sharpen The Saw

    Always renew the knowledge you have by reading, take seminar, listening, etc.

Back to Book List   Back to 7Habbits

The Dynamic Decision-Maker: Five Decision Styles for Executive and Business Success (Kenneth R. Brousseau, Michael J. Driver, Phillip L. Hunsaker) 

My preface :

This is a good book for us to read in order to understand other people way of deciding something. By understadning this we will avoid any missunderstanding during any critical situation when a very critical decision should be made. One of the key message this book try to broadcast is that each of decision making style is right what matter is how can we use our style in the right time for the righ condition. So happy reading...

Understanding the style

To be an effective and successfull managers somebody should have 3 following skills in term of decision making :
			1. Know their own style
			2. Identify, understand and able to work with other people decision making style
			3. Match the style with the current position so that it is best suited
There are 2 main factors that will affect the way a peson make tehir decision:
			1. Information use
			2. Focus
Those two factors shape the stage in decision making into 2 phase which are:
			1. Analyzing situation
			2. Formulating solution
Based on the information used, the categorized people into 2 major type (while other two are rarely found)
			1. Satisficer : work it now and worry about it later; enough information for good enough solution
			2. Maximizer : get information as much as they can before making any decision; for them sometime   important point can be overlooked and cause a great damage in the future
			3. Searcher : never make any decision
			4. Lurcher : make decision without any info
Based on focus, the book categorized s person into 2 major type :
			1. Unifocus pattern
			2. Multifocus pattern
It is not easy to melt people with different style in one team and as a manager you should understand and tolerate your counterpart decision making style. Below is the box that describe thos categories.
			Focus Info Gathered Satisficer Maximizer Unifocus Decisive Hierrarchic Systemic Multifocus Flexible Integrative
More details on each of style :
1. Decisive
	is a unifocus and satisfying style, means with minimum amount of data they will make a clear decision. This kind of people will prize an action  on :
			action, speed, efficiency and consistency.
	Example
			1. President Trumman in his decision when dropping atomic Bomb in Hiroshima
			2. Lee Iacocca in his various decision to boost up Chrysler
			3. Ross Perrot
	Advantages and Disadvantages :
			No Advantages Disadvantages 1. Fast Rigid 2. Consistent Avoid Changes 3. Reliable Avoid complex data 4. Loyal Inflexible 5. Orderly Shortsighted 6. Obedient Low empathy for others
2. Flexible
	is a satificer-multifocus style and emphsize on adaptability. This kind of people usually can rapidly identify a line of attack (action for a decision to make) but then can shift quickly if plan is not working. The other interesting 'feature' about this people are their opennes to options and always trying to avoid conflict but always supportive on any ideas.
	Example :
			1. Donald Trumph on his investment strategy
			2. J Paul Getty owner of Getty Oil
			3. Frank D. Rosevelt
			4. William Durant CEO and founder of GM
	Advantages and Disadvantages :
			No Advantages Disadvantages 1. Intuitive Short Term Perspective 2. Fast Lack of Planning 3. Adaptable Inconsistent 4. Enterpreneurial Short Concentration 5. Opportunistic Resist Structure 6. Likeable Unreliable
	Tips :
			If your boss come from this type, expect : fluid organization, vague job description, high adaptability, short reports, like spontaneous with people, popular, and delegation
3. Hierrarchic
	a maximizing and unifocus, emphasize on thorough analysis and quality. Get lots of information of a problem and carefully construct a detail and specific course of action. Relationship that should be built : mutual respect, long term angagement rather than short acquintances.
	Examples :
			1. Huges during his world flying planning
			2. H. Kissinger for Pres. Gerald Ford.
			3. Gen. Gunther for Dwight Eisenhower
	Issues :
			Poor delegation of authority, people with this kind of style tends to do anything by themselves. To gain respect from them you have to show your quality of work, and the way you do the communication you should always provide a 'hook' - something they can say something about. This type of person is very good to be your analytical person or advisor for something they really believe in.
	No Advantages Disadvantages 1. High Quality Lots of Control 2. Thorough Lack of Delegation 3. Precise Planning Resist other influences 4. Logical Overinvolved in detail 5. Inspirational Rigid 6. Good follow-through Argumentative
4. Integrative
	Maximizing and multifocus who will trying to get lots of information and develop the alternatives before making any decision. This kind of people are very interested in creativity and idea exploration. They are very good in working in-grouops, since they love varied ideas. They are best suited in the atmosphere of cooperation and trust.
	Several important points :
			getting as much as information to generate alternatives simulatanuously, others usually see this kind of person as good in analytical and thinking but lack of action get done. This tyow of style prefer to have several goals or objectives, and does not like any hierrarchical and rigid situation.
			If they are your boss, this guy prefer long detail report with complex alternatives and analysis. And always want their members to participate in decisions.
	Examples:
			1. Edison, he is not good only because he is smart but also because his willingness to accept other opinions
	No Advantages Disadvantages 1. Good Listener Ambiguous Communicator 2. See big picture Indecisive 3. Creative Unable to meet deadline 4. Emphatetic Overintellectual 5. Informed Passive attitude 6. Open Slow
5. Systemic
	approach problem like integrative guys, gatehring lost of information, then layout alternatives. After that they shift into hierrarchic style by evaluating alternatives based on criteria and values. The results are prioritized strategy in dealing with problems. They really value the information, and controlling it. Usually using one year planning and put every detail aspect of t in that planning, but usually tolerant of mistakes.
	Examples :
			Harold Geneen of ITT
	No Advantages Disadvantages 1. Sees big picture Manipulative 2. Handles complexity Information Hoarder 3. Strategic Planners Needs to be right
The dynamics
	a decision making style of a person can be dynamically changed due to some conditions, in this book they call it environmental load which is a condition that influence the style shift or anything that increase personal pressure.
	Some examples of environmental loads:
		No Normal Load High Load 1. No Deadline High time pressure, frequent deadline 2. Simple Task Highly complex task 3. Predictable events High uncertainty, unpredictable events 4. Unimportant or trivial consequences Important Consequences 5. Natural emotional environment High change emotional environment
	The changes of a person decision style usually trigerred by 2 main cause, environmental load and information processing, the graph below shows the impact of those two factors in somebody decision making style.
	The graph below shows how a style can be changed due to those two factors :
	Primary and backup style :
		primary style is a style that usually appeared in our manner in the common condition, and backup style is a style that come up if the person in high pressure environment.
	The usual combincation of primary-backup decision amkign style which are commonly found :
		1. Decisive - Integrative : like to open issue
		2. Flexible - Sytemic : does not like long conversion and rambling conversation
		3. Hierrarchic - Decisive : highly organized, determine specific goal, and littel tolerance
		4. Integrative - Hierrarchic
		5. Sytemic - Decisive
My Closure
	This book definitely give us a good understanding of how people make decision. But more important than that is actually this book give us a tool to review ourselves, our bosses, and our sub ordinates of what kind of decision maker they are. By having it into our mind then we can behave in a such way that a synergy can be formed to achieve better result. So.... implement it !

Back to Book List   Back to Decision Making Style