ABSTRACT
Effective people know when a decision has to be based on principle and when it should be made on the merits of the case and pragmatically. The effective decision-maker spends time to determine with which of the situations he is dealing. He knows that he will make the wrong decision if he classifies the situation wrongly. A decision is a judgment. It is a choice between alternatives. It is rarely a choice between right and wrong. It is at best a choice between “almost right” and “probably wrong”—but much more often a choice between two courses of action neither of which is provably more nearly right than the other. The effective decision-maker assumes that the traditional measurement is not the right measurement. Otherwise, there would generally be no need for a decision; a simple adjustment would do. The effective decision-maker, therefore, organizes disagreement. This protects him against being taken in by the plausible but false or incomplete.
