Though I have read a few highly popular and immensely reputed self-help books, my venture into business books is about 4-5 years old. I started with job strategies, leadership on the job type books, corporate ethics titles, professional growth and also the books on team games that we play within the glass doors. And recently, this passion has made possible an encounter with Harjeet Khanduja’s latest book, a well-appreciated one, How Leaders Decide: Tackling Biases and Risks in Decision-making. The title and subtitle do exact justice to the book’s content. For anyone who wishes to know about the process of decision-making and its ins and outs, the book is the best one among the ones I have read. I will share my thoughts about this title. And, just to be clear, the author has complete authority to write such a book because he has been in highly dynamic positions with various leading companies in his decades-long career and still continues in the role of VP, HR, at Reliance Jio. People know him as R. K. Laxman of business.

To begin this review, I would like to point out that the book has been written in a purely professional manner. You will find the author starting from point A and reaching point B and this goes on until the author touches on point Z of the subject matter being discussed. This approach makes it very convenient for the readers to understand any idea that the author writes about. When reading books on serious issues like corporate decisions or organisational decision-making as the author puts it in his title (and the book), a reader hopes for clarity and a logical flow in the content that he or she can follow and learn. How Leaders Decide by Harjeet Khanduja offers exactly that. And therefore, in the first test of this review, the book stands tall!

The second thing that I want to highlight here is the choice of examples that Harjeet has put in his book. In every chapter, almost, readers will find examples that corroborate the ideas being shared by the author. Be it a bad decision taken by a good leader or a sudden decision taken by a dynamic team, be it the patents filed by Google and Apple or the uniform attitude in customer experience by a food chain, or, to end this, the KFC decision-makers listening to the locals in the Indian teams to adapt and thrive – the examples in the book will make things way easier to understand for the readers and learn things with perfect examples. So, not only convenient to read but also relatable and with proof – this is how the author has presented his book How Leaders Decide.

The third quality that I loved about this book is the author’s dedication to preparing the content and writing the book. When a chapter ends, readers will find a list of references leading to articles, research, papers, websites and more that anyone can follow and verify whether the author has supplied genuine facts or not. That tells about the integrity of the writer… also the genuine efforts being recognised and ultimately the readers getting quality content. While many authors just plan to share their ideas (howsoever emotional or irrational that might be), Harjeet Khanduja has shared authentic, viable, researched, scientific and genuine content in his book. Read it once and you will realise.

There are many things that a reader can like about this book. However, these were the elements that I wanted to highlight for those who are still not sure. Should you read it? Of course! If you want to know what it takes to make better organisational decisions, you have to read this title!

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Review by Rohit for BookWorm Reviews