Gerard Ibarra on ”Good Decisions, Better Outcomes”

My guest for Episode #433 of the Lean Blog Interviews Podcast is Gerard Ibarra, an author, business consultant, speaker, and entrepreneur.

Show notes: https://www.leanblog.org/433

Gerard is the author of the book Good Decisions, Better Outcomes: A Simple, Five-Step Process to Help You Make Important and Difficult Decisions with Confidence and Clarity, available now.

Gerard received his PhD from Southern Methodist University's (SMU) Lyle School of Engineering with emphasis in Logistics Systems Engineering and Operations Research. He has taught graduate courses in logistics systems engineering at SMU, as well as logistics, supply chain management and e-business courses at the University of Dallas' Graduate School of Management.

He's had executive roles in logistics companies, has had his own consulting firm, and was President and CEO of a company from 2008 to 2010. He was also the CEO of Jaguar Logistics, the largest medical on-demand transport company in Texas until acquired by Dropoff in 2018.

Today, we discuss topics and questions including:

• What's your origin story related to continuous improvement? Where and when and why?
• The story behind the book — why a book on decision making?
• Efficient and effective decision making?
• Decision making is not strictly rational, is it? How do emotions influence us and how should we take that info consideration?
• What is the P2MODE methodology, in a nutshell?
• How much of good decision making is process vs. having the right info?
• Evaluating needs vs. wants? How does that enter into decision making?
• Group decision making and this framework??
• Types of consulting you do — general training? Help with a specific big decision?
• My Favorite Mistake guests — often the decision seems like a good one at the time… but later reveals itself to be a “mistake.” How often would you expect this to be the result of a bad decision making process vs. a good process with bad information?

The podcast is sponsored by Stiles Associates, now in their 30th year of business. They are the go-to Lean recruiting firm serving the manufacturing, private equity, and healthcare industries. Learn more.

This podcast is part of the #LeanCommunicators network.