Examining results is a basic but often overlooked tool in decision-making – for business evaluation, about successful candidates you might hire, or for selecting companies as partners. Most decisions are emotionally based, and then rationalized.

Last weekend I was in San Francisco to speak at a conference, and a friend handed me the Sunday edition of the SF Chronicle’s SF Gate, pointing to the article linked below. It is about a “blind” evaluation of our two political parties.

Now, my mother told me not to discuss politics in public, and I never have, and I won’t here. But I found the methodology used in this piece fascinating, as a way to set up rational criteria for evaluation of anything. Now, any of us could argue with the issues selected here for evaluation, that’s not the point. And it is of course not scientific. But it is a useful example.

If we could train ourselves to agree to a set of issues and criteria of evaluation on business issues, we could apply this simple technique to a great range of opportunities to decide things.

For your consideration:
How Democrats, Republicans compare by Yagil Hertzberg, Sunday September 12, 2010, SFGate.  http://bit.ly/dzx6fp