The John Adair Handbook of Management and Leadership

The truly effective thinker has these attributes:

1 Skills of analysis, synthesis and valuing

2 Open to intuition

3 Imagination (to find new ways to overcome problems)

4 Creativity (coupled with careful preliminary work)

5 Open to new ideas

6 Humility – when to recognise that others may have better

powers or knowledge and to combine with their thinking.

To improve your performance you need to ask yourself how good

your skills are (and have been) at:

• decision-making


• problem-solving


• creative thinking.
  Do you make false assumptions and jump to conclusions or are you
  prone to faulty reasoning or to not listening to others?
  Two maxims are useful in decision-making:


• ‘It can be done’


• ‘Always try to turn a disadvantage into an advantage.’
  Always operate in the context of facing reality and of seeking and
  speaking the truth.

The Manager as decision-maker

Management can be said to be ‘deciding what to do and getting it

done’.

Success in business stems from good quality management decisions

first of all and then the effectiveness in implementation which

44 The John Adair Handbook of Management and Leadership