The Deciding Room.
Notes on judgement under strain — twenty years of boardroom observation reduced to nine chapters on how senior groups actually decide.
Where the hours go, and what endures a crisis
Nine chapters dissect the anatomy of weighty choices: the waiting that poses as diligence, the questions that release a frozen room, the trust that must be stored before the shock. Every chapter ends with an exercise — something a chair can attempt at the next meeting, not a theory to admire.
Written from the notebook, not the lectern: board sessions clocked with a stopwatch, 412 verdicts measured, fourteen organisations tracked through their toughest chapters.
- Published 2024 · 288 pages · available wherever books are sold.
- Board orders ship with a companion discussion guide.
- Pairs with the slow-decisions keynote and the decision audit.
Three strands running through the book
01 · Latency
Why fifty-four elapsed days hide six days of thought — and the four snares that fabricate the other forty-eight.
02 · Courage
Four times in five, groups wait on nerve instead of data: appointing owners, setting deadlines, and settling who may err.
03 · Maintenance
Promise-tracking, dissent habits and mending pace — the service log for confidence as infrastructure.
Continue with the companion pieces
A Field Guide to Better Boards
The earlier volume: forty-one tight routines for the chair’s desk drawer.
Trust as Infrastructure
The essay this book formed around — assurance as weight-bearing kit.
The Quiet Work of Trust
The keynote version of the book’s closing chapters, for company-wide audiences.
