Introduction: Great Men, Not So Great Decisions--Why Successful Organizations Know How to Tap Their Collective Judgment
NASA STS-119: Should We Launch?--Adopting a Participative Approach to Decision Making in High-Stakes Situations
WGB Homes: How Can We Sell This House?--Calling on the Wisdom of Multiple Advisers to Solve a Problem
McKinsey & Company: Should We Recruit from a Different Pool of Talent?--Using Participative Decision Making to Manage Disruptive Change
Partners HealthCare System: How Should We Treat This Patient?--Using Information Technology to Make Better Decisions
Cognizant: How Will All These Daily Decisions Get Made?--Harnessing the Power of Organizational Wisdom on a Global Scale
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools: How Can We Improve Student Performance?--Using Analytics to Improve Performance
Ancient Athenians: How Can We Defend Against Life-or-Death Invasion?--How Civilization's First Democracy Exemplifies Collective Decision Making
Mabel Yu and The Vanguard Group: Should We Recommend This Bond to Investors?--The Importance of Dissent and Debate in Organizational Decision Making
EMC: How Can We Cut Our Costs in Tough Times?--Using Social Media to Increase Employee Engagement in Key Decisions
Media General: Should We Restructure for a New Strategy?--How Savvy Leaders Foster Better Decision Making to Eradicate Siloes
The Wallace Foundation: How Can We Focus a Strategy for More Mission Impact?--Building a Culture of Inquiry to Define Your Strategy
Tweezerman: Should We Take the Business to the Next Level of Growth?--How Entrepreneurs Build Their Businesses and Their Leadership Teams
Conclusion: Final Reflections and Some Implications for Tomorrow's Leaders--How to Build Great Judgment in Your Organization Now

Despite the dizzying amount of data at our disposal today--and an increasing reliance on analytics to make the majority of our decisions--many of our most critical choices still come down to human judgment. This fact is fundamental to organizations whose leaders must often make crucial decisions: to do this they need the best available insights. In "Judgment Calls," authors Tom Davenport and Brook Manville share twelve stories of organizations that have successfully tapped their data assets, diverse perspectives, and deep knowledge to build an organizational decision-making capability--a competence they say can make the difference between success and failure. This book introduces a model that taps the collective judgment of an organization so that the right decisions are made, and the entire organization profits. Through the stories in "Judgment Calls," the authors--both of them seasoned management thinkers and advisers--make the case for the wisdom of organizations and suggest ways to use it to best advantage. Each chapter tells a unique story of one dilemma and its ultimate resolution, bringing into high relief one key to the power of collective judgment. Individually, these stories inspire and instruct; together, they form a model for building an organizational capacity for broadly based, knowledge-intensive decision making. You've read "The Wisdom of Crowds" and "Competing on Analytics." Now read "Judgment Calls." You, and your organization, will make better decisions.

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