Power Decision Making

 From Ray Dalio's book "Principles" Chapter 5 - Learn how to make decisions effectively.

"Successful organizations have cultures in which evidence-based decision making is the norm rather than the exception."

The Real Challenge

 From the "4 Disciplines of Execution" by Chris McChesney, Sean Covey and Jim Huling

Whether you call it a strategy, a goal, or simply an improvement effort, any initiative you as a leader drive in order to significantly move your team or organization forward will fall into one of two categories:  The first requires mainly a stroke of the pen: the second requires behavioral change.

Stroke-of-the-pen strategies are those that you execute just by ordering or authorizing them to be done.  Simply put, if you have the money and the authority, you can make them happen.  It might be a major capital improvement, a change in the compensation system, a realignment of roles and responsibilities, adding staff, or a new advertising campaign.  While executing these strategies may require planning, consensus, guts, brains, and money, you know that in the end it is going to happen.

Behavioral-change strategies are very different from stroke-of-the-pen strategies.  You can't just order them to happen, because executing them requires getting people - often a lot of people - to do something different.  And if you've tried to get other people to change their ways, you know how tough it is.  Changing yourself is hard enough.