Make Up Your Mind

The buck stops with you. As an entrepreneur, you're undoubtedly called on to make decision after decision. But-and let's be honest here-have you ever taken the time to analyze your decision-making process?

Probably not. Which is where Ann Graham Ehringer's Make Up Your Mind: Entrepreneurs Talk About Decision Making (Merritt Publishing, $19.95 paper) comes in.

As you can surmise from its subtitle, Make Up Your Mind takes the words out of small-business owners' mouths-and analyzes them in their proper context. Don't get the wrong idea, however: Despite the extensive research she obviously conducted, Ehringer doesn't get in the way of letting entrepreneurs tell their own stories.

In the final analysis, Ehringer determines that two distinct styles of decision-making exist-one that depends upon analysis supported by feelings, and one led primarily by emotion backed with data. Which decision-making style is yours? You make the call.

This article was originally published in the February 1996 print edition of Entrepreneur with the headline: Make Up Your Mind.