Deciding what you want.

Deciding what should be is an oft-missed first step in decision making. It’s more common to think about the future and the path to get there than what one wants right now as the ideal state. This failure leads to misassumptions about what the options are within current constraints.rA4 Deciding what should be is one of the most critical parts of leadership.


  1. Russell Ackoff, “From Data to Wisdom,” Journal of Applied Systems Analysis 16 (1989): 3–7. (See notes.)