Decision Matters..?

Prof. Syed Ahsanul Alam

Make up Your Mind

A Decision-Making Guide to Thinking Clearly and Choosing Wisely Hal Mooz John Willey & Sons, INC

We often make decisions without recognizing and reacting to whether they involve the potential of bad and permanent outcomes that can determine our quality of life.- This is how Hal Mooz is summing up the book Make up Your Mind. Decisions matter at every level of our engagement irrespective of position, placement and creed; life is a total sum of decisions. In other words, decisions are where we are at now. The book under review is so pragmatic and intense in a sense that taking

decision is not somewhat emotional commitment under any circumstances but it has to be viewed, assessed and testified based on the reality we belong to and the reality we want to achieve. As I teach & run Business and was taught Business, so taking decisions has been an inevitable reality of mine. To what extent have they quintessentially dominated the way I have planned to see things go through. As a student, like many of peer group members, I had to digest and shallow down many things; was that we had to do that due to our choices and reservations? At this point, if we look back at, it seems vivid that we happen to struggle for and fight against many odds because of our sheer failure in decision-making and decision analysis. Here there is a role of Hal Moozs Make up Your Mind- a comprehensive grammar for decision analysis. If decision is some sort of judgment and critical verdict then everyone, objectively and subjectively, has to learn dynamic character of decision-making procedures in order to analyze, question and verify our stand on any issue before reaching a decision. This process sounds to be very critical and equivocal in terms of environment within which our decisions are taken and implemented. We need to train ourselves to be able to gauge the significance of decisions and assess their consequences. Hal Mooz goes on Once a decision is properly defined and categorized then the appropriate analysis and judgment basis can be decided and applied. Our life is getting harder and harder; bundles of challenges are getting fattier and fattier; every moment of our life at home and work is exposed to taking decisions but the very issue I want to point to our reader with regard to Hal Moozs exceptional thought in his book is his understanding of bases for judgment. Hal Mooz

precisely believes the maturity and optimum outcome of the judgment largely relies upon how wisely and comprehensively decisions are analyzed, formed, framed, taken and put into action. He carefully looks around and sees professionally how decision analysis is flawed and considerably studies to guide the readers towards achieving a flawless decision-making practice. However, he endeavors to make the reader understand that taking decision is something serious business of life that requires skill, knowledge, experience, training and above all selfdetermination and urge for accurate decision. Furthermore, the significant strength of this book is its tactical commitment to the readers requirement for critical judgment; the book, because of its proactive nature, clearly presents unique syntactical training for anyone who is deemed to make decision at any point of his time and life. Linguistically, the book has been structured to accommodate readers interest persuasively as well as vividly; the ideas are lucid and logical resulting in guiding the readers towards attaining appropriate decision-making.

Syed Ahsanul Alam, Professor & Chair, Marketing Studies & International Marketing, Chittagong University; Director, Chittagong Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce & Industries; Director Rupali Bank Limited and Chairman, Imperial Group.