Decision Making: Going Forward in Reverse

Busy managers analyze many situations and make hundreds of decisions every day. Why, for example, are sales up in one city but down in another? Would an investment in new equipment mean higher productivity or greater confusion? Is now a good time to look for a joint venture partner, or is it better to wait? Rarely, however, do we stop to think about how we think. Each decision is the outcome of a complex process that usually involves two different kinds of thinking: looking backward to understand the past and looking forward to predict the future.