The Art of Critical Decision Making

By: Michael A. Roberto, The Great Courses

Narrated by: Michael A. Roberto

Length: 12 hrs and 22 mins

Publisher's summary

Learn to approach the critical decisions in your life with a more seasoned, educated eye with this fascinating 24-lecture series that explores how individuals, groups, and organizations make effective decisions. The heart of this accessible series is a thorough examination of decision making at three key levels. First, you'll look at decisions made at the individual level, where, among the many things you'll learn is that intuition is more than just a gut instinct and, in fact, represents a powerful pattern recognition capability. Then, you'll explore decisions made at the group level, where you'll try to answer the question of whether groups are "smarter" and more capable of making critical decisions than individuals. And finally, you'll pull back to analyze organizational decision making, in which Professor Roberto demonstrates how some organizations have encouraged and reliably performed vigilant decision making in the face of risky scenarios.

Whether you're the head of a Fortune 500 company, a government agency, or an everyday household, you constantly make decisions important to you and those immediately around you. These lectures offer you a toolbox of practical knowledge and skills that you can apply to various decisions - whether large or small - in your everyday life and work. Professor Roberto's lively lectures are packed with useful anecdotes, tools, and advice designed to improve your own ability to make informed decisions. As you explore the intriguing process of making a good decision, you'll strengthen your grip on individual theories of decision making and the situations that illustrate them.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.

©2009 The Teaching Company, LLC (P)2009 The Great Courses

A Good Primer...

for much of the material covered in a better book, namely, Malcolm Gladwell's Blink: How To Think Without Thinking. Though Blink is more dynamic and interesting, I would not say that this course should be simply blown off in favor of Gladwell, but rather that it should be used as a preparation for it. There is also additional information and knowledge to be gleaned from this course that one does not find in Blink, and thus, it remains a fine choice on its own merits. Roberto also does a good job of combining business, psychology, cognitive science and sociology to get to the root of what makes for good decision making. Listen to Roberto, and then use what is gotten here to move up to Gladwell.

Great book for aspiring leaders

Where does The Art of Critical Decision Making rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

Top 10 books.

Who was your favorite character and why?

The fireman leader.

What about Professor Michael A. Roberto’s performance did you like?

The clear and effective manner of articulation of complex concepts

What did you learn from The Art of Critical Decision Making that you would use in your daily life?

To be aware of my biases and manage them in my decision making at my profesional career.

Fundamentally Good

I thought the book was fundamentally good. It went a little slowly for me - many of the topics (and even case studies) are covered in more depth in other books, like "Thinking Fast, Thinking Slow." The points he makes are widely applicable, even though many of them seem like common sense.

This book will change your view of decision-making

Where does The Art of Critical Decision Making rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

This is one of the best audiobooks I have listened to thus far.

What other book might you compare The Art of Critical Decision Making to and why?

This book reminds me of Robert Greene's "48 Laws of Power," but this book goes into much more detail with real-life case study examples.

Which character – as performed by Professor Michael A. Roberto – was your favorite?

This was non-fiction, and the author did not present multiple characters.

What did you learn from The Art of Critical Decision Making that you would use in your daily life?

The best thing about this book is that its lessons can be applied to any decision one must make. The ideas in this book can literally be used every day.

Any additional comments?

I don't give many books the maximum rating, but this one deserves it. Bravo Great Books and Michael A. Roberto!

Great Way to Cover Organizational Decision Making

I was expecting it to help on personal decision making, but I wasn't disappointed since he did such a good job of covering this more complex problem.

Headline

It covers a wide range of mature decision making situations. Adults only course. Thought provoking

The Best Ever! Awesome!

Any additional comments?

Note to future self - Listen to this again and take notes.This is an amazing book on leadership. The case studies are great. The best thing I liked about this book is it simply doesn't mention the challenges, but also suggests practical actions on how such challenges could be overcome.
I would most certainly recommend this to a friend.

Good Lectures

Well delivered case studies. Good insights and we'll laid out. Good pace to the content

Excellent Lecture

Professor Roberto has developed exceptional insight into critical decision making processes. He also communicates his ideas with clarity and concisely. I have found this lecture to be extremely engaging and intend to listen to it again. I highly recommend this to everyone to listen to.

5 star with a caveat

The course got off to a slow start but got more and more compelling. I will probably go back and listen to parts over and over.

My complaint may sound trivial but it suggests a lack of care and respect for the listener. It is mispronounced words. Sometimes a reader just doesn't know the pronunciation, which is understandable though less so in a
Professor. Mostly it wasn't much of a problem. However, when a lecture concerns Three Mile Island and the lecturer pronounces nuclear as "nucular" over and over it isn't a mistake it's a choice. I don't know his reasoning but every time he says the word it interrupts concentration on what he's saying. I found myself waiting for it, which is surely not what Prof. Roberto intended.