Introduction

CAN YOU EVER BE SURE YOU'RE MAKING THE RIGHT DECISION?

Should you stay in a comfy job with little chance of advancement-or take a riskier one in which you could make lots of money but also wind up on the street?

Should you listen to a doctor who advises surgery-or trust another who tells you to wait and see if your condition improves?

Should you remain in a cozy relationship without much spark-or cut your losses and search for your soul mate?

Is there ever a ?right? decision? Professor James Stein would argue yes, and in this provocative new book, he shows you how to apply the mathematical principles of Decision Theory to every aspect of your life. Ingeniously blending statistics, probability, game theory, economics, and even philosophy, this dynamic new approach to decision making can help you choose a new career path, buy a better home, even pick the perfect mate. With The Right Decision, you can't go wrong.

INCLUDES ENTERTAINING INTERACTIVE QUIZZES TO HELP YOU MAKE THE RIGHT DECISION EVERY TIME!

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Excerpt

Learning how to make successful decisions is something like learning how to ride a bike - you've got to actually do it rather than just read about it. The core of this book is a collection of interactive quizzes that give you an opportunity to make a decision - and then to see how well you did. The first quiz in the book involves one of the most important decisions of the last hundred years - and it's a big reason that you're reading this quiz in English rather than German.

Second-in-Command

The U.S. government has just handed you, General Leslie Groves, the biggest blank check in history and with it a mission: to build the first atomic bomb. You're going to have to find a physicist to be your second-in-command, because only physicists can build an atomic bomb (if it can be built at all), and a general is about as popular with physicists as a fox at a chicken convention. However, you've finally narrowed your choice to three possibilities, and you've even pinned nicknames on them:

A. Slim: a chain smoker who could charm the birds out of the trees. Everybody in the physics community loves him, but can you trust him? The FBI thinks he might have Communist affiliations.

B. Sarge: a monomaniacal anti-Nazi who could probably lead a platoon of raw recruits to take an enemy machine-gun nest. An émigré from Hungary, even those who dislike him admire him.

C. Doc: winner of a Nobel Prize, he may be the brightest of the lot. A brilliant theorist and technician, he has only recently arrived from Italy, and he's something of an unknown.

Nobody wants to think about the horrifying possibility that the Germans will get there first, so it is quite possible that Western civilization could be riding on your decision. Should you choose

A. Slim?

B. Sarge?

C. Doc?

Solutions: Second-in-Command

A. You choose Slim. 5 points. Every decision has a goal, and often this goal can be quantified, that is, expressed in terms of numbers. Quantifying results is an important part of making good decisions; these quantified results are called payoffs, and many decisions come down to how to maximize favorable payoffs or minimize adverse ones. Your payoffs for this decision are measured in the number of top physicists you can motivate to work on the project. In order to get that done, they'll need to love both what they are doing and the man who makes them do it, and Slim is beloved in the physics community. Yes, you are a little worried about his purported Communist affiliations, but Communist countries are not the enemy in this conflict. Your money should be riding on Slim, who is much better known as J. Robert Oppenheimer.

B. You choose Sarge. 3 points. A close runner-up. This guy obviously has leadership potential, and there are certainly situations in which the success of a mission may even be enhanced if some of the men on the line dislike the leader. Many military objectives have been captured by men who hate their sergeant so much that they just want to show up that SOB. If something happens to Oppenheimer, it might well be a good idea to go with Sarge, otherwise known as Edward Teller, later to be known as the father of the hydrogen bomb.

C. You choose Doc. 0 points. This choice may well be counterproductive. Sometimes it is not a good idea to have the most talented individual be the administrative head, as you could be taking him away from doing what he does best. Because he is so brilliant, however, it is probably a good idea to make him the head of an important technical subproject. Doc, also known as Enrico Fermi, was actually placed in charge of developing a sustainable chain reaction, which he accomplished under the football stadium at the University of Chicago in December 1942.

What Actually Happened

In the fall of 1939, shortly after Adolf Hitler invaded Russia, a letter from Albert Einstein and Leo Szilard was delivered to President Franklin Roosevelt outlining the possibility of developing an atomic bomb. A committee to study the feasibility of such a weapon was formed; over the course of the next couple of years, it evolved into the Manhattan Project, headed by General Leslie Groves.

Against the advice of almost everyone, Groves took the risky step of placing J. Robert Oppenheimer in charge of Los Alamos National Laboratory, where the bomb was eventually built. Although Groves and Oppenheimer were almost complete opposites--Groves a methodical conservative, Oppenheimer a leftist intellectual--they were an extremely effective duo, and Groves's decision to appoint Oppenheimer was instrumental to the eventual success of the project. view abbreviated excerpt only...

Discussion Questions

1) What are payoffs? Can you think of a decision from your own life in which the key point was to maximize favorable payoffs? Can you think of a decision from your own life in which the key point was to minimize adverse payoffs?

2) How can an estimation of the probabilities help you make a successful decision?

3) What is an inadmissible action? Can you think of an instance from your own life where you either did or should have eliminated an inadmissible action?

4) What is the minimax criterion? Under what types of circumstances should the minimax criterion be applied? Can you think of a decision that confronted you in which you should have applied the minimax criterion?

5) What is Bayes' Criterion? Under what types of circumstances should Bayes' Criterion be applied? Can you think of a decision that confronted you in which you should have applied Bayes' Criterion?

6) What is the maximax criterion? Under what types of circumstances should the maximax criterion be applied? Can you think of a decision that confronted you in which you should have applied the maximax criterion?
7) Can you think of a decision that you made with insufficient information? Could you have obtained additional information that would have helped you make a better decision?

8) Can you think of a decision in which information is concealed that would have a more favorable outcome if that information were revealed?

9) Can you think of any current examples of stable and unstable equilibria, either from your own life or from current events? When is it advisable to try to maintain an equilibrium, and when is it advisable to try to upset an equilibrium?

10) What is the difference between competitive and cooperative solutions? Under what conditions can a competitive solution evolve into a cooperative one?

11) What is a vindictive solution? Have you ever attempted to achieve one?

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