5 Reasons Leaders Should Read Judgment Calls
                                                    Best of Books
                                        
                                            May 23, 2012                                            
                                            
                                                Jane Perdue                                            
                                            
                                            Executive Director, The Jane Group                                        
                                    
Topics
Brook Manville, HBR, Judgment Calls: Twelve Stories of Big Decisions and the Teams that Got Them Right, Thomas H. DavenportIf your organization is mired in a command-and-control hierarchy, Judgment Calls: Twelve Stories of Big Decisions and the Teams that Got Them Right, a new book by Thomas H. Davenport and Brook Manville isn't for you. However, if you and/or your organization are self-aware and want to tap into the power of effective organizational decision-making, there's much to learn in this book.
The backdrop of the ongoing global economic calamity and the BP oil platform explosion in the Gulf of Mexico prompted the authors to ask why "is it so hard for organizations to do the right thing?" Their search for answers led them to "organizational judgment—the collective capacity to make good calls and wise moves when the need for them exceeds the scope of any single leader's direct control."