Common Mistakes in Decision Making and Problem Solving according to Drucker

In his book Effective Executive Peter Drucker, outlines common mistakes and pitfalls that people tend to make when Deciding or choosing.

1. First mistake that people make in decision making, Drucker says, is confusing the type of situation they are in. They confuse Generic situations with exceptional ones. Instead of having a General Rule, Policy or Principle for Dealing with the Situations/Events of the same type they try to solve, come up with a solution for every situation they encounter. Drucker says that this leads to frustration and futility.


2. The second type of mistake, according to Drucker, is to classify a new situation as being equivalent to a old one. In making this assumption people also tend to assume that since the situations are similar the old set of rules should apply to the new situation. When this doesn't happen people tend to get frustrated, confused.

3. The third type of mistake is to partially or incompletely define the Situation they are dealing with. This tends to lead at best to partial solutions.


4. The Fourth type of mistake, according to Drucker, is to come up with Definitions / Explanations for the Event or the Situation they deal with that even though are plausible at first view are erroneous/ wrong at closer inspection.

So in the future when you try to make decisions be sure to take into account the Mistakes outlined by Drucker and do your best to avoid them.

Check out the Steps in Decision Making and Problem Solving.