Managing in the Gray: Five Timeless Questions for Resolving Your Toughest Problems at Work

Description

It's a manager's job to make the tough calls, but the hardest part of being a manager is resolving those "gray areas"-situations where analysis of the numbers, facts, and data fails to provide a clear answer. These gray areas test not only a manager's skills, but their humanity. You have to choose, commit, and act, and to live with the consequences. Harder still, you have to be able to explain yourself and your decisions to others. How do you get it right, both as a manager and as a human being? Bestselling author Joseph Badaracco presents a five-question framework that helps people balance the analytical side of being a manager with the human side and find an answer when analysis falls short: (1) What are the net, net consequences? (2) What are my core obligations? (3) What will work in the world as it is? (4) What do we really stand for? and (5) What is my best judgment and best self? Managing in the Gray reflects and distills the timeless wisdom of many of the most powerful, penetrating, and noble minds throughout history-philosophers ranging from Aristotle to Nietzsche, religious leaders like Confucius and Jesus, political thinkers like Thomas Jefferson, even poets and artists-and is a powerful guide to managers for resolving their toughest problems at work, the ones that keep them up at night.

Joseph L. Badaracco is the John Shad Professor of Business Ethics at Harvard Business School, where he has taught courses on leadership, strategy, corporate responsibility, and management in the school's MBA and executive programs. His books on these subjects include Defining Moments and the New York Times bestseller Leading Quietly.

"... the book is a ray of sunshine amid the deluge of management and business books focused on technology's transformation of work...Managing in the Gray reminds us that many aspects of work will be unchanged and that human problems will persist." -- The Financial Times Badaracco... has been writing about leadership integrity, responsibility, and ethics since the 1980s. He does so in a nuanced and empathetic manner that clearly recognizes the challenges and conflicts routinely faced by well-meaning managers as they strive to make decisions. -- strategy+business magazine, "Best Business Books of 2016," Management "Managing in the Gray provides you with the questions and tools for judgment you need to develop good processes that will help you make it through the gray areas of management. He doesn't provide any easy answers, because there aren't any. Instead, he gives us a "guide for action" and a reminder that, while the world can be messy and unforgiving, we don't have to be." -- 800 CEO READ, Editor's Choice "A fascinating book...clearly written and each question is addressed both philosophically and practically." -- The Globe & Mail "... an outlook that is simultaneously sobering and uplifting." -- BizEd magazine "These are big questions that every leader could benefit from. However they're not just for leaders. Strong, resilient brands are the result of everyone in the organisation thinking and acting as people first. And one of the best ways to unleash our "peopledom" is to ask and talk about big questions together. Books that truly help do this deep work are hard to find. I think Managing the Gray will join the ranks of the few I regularly reference and recommend." -- Smart Company Magazine, Australia ADVANCE PRAISE for Managing in the Gray: Clayton Christensen, Professor, Harvard Business School; author, The Innovator's Dilemma and How Will You Measure Your Life?-- "This wonderful book is a graduate course in the science of thinking. It is rigorous and enjoyable." Jamie Dimon, Chairman and CEO, JPMorgan Chase & Co.-- "Anyone will learn from the critical questions and useful tools of deliberation and judgment revealed in Managing in the Gray." Debora Spar, President, Barnard College-- "Badaracco advises managers on not just how to think about vexing problems, but also how to fix them." Kazuhiro Tsuga, President, Panasonic-- "All business leaders, whatever their managerial problems, will find much to stimulate their thinking in this book." Kevin Sharer, former Chairman and CEO, Amgen; Senior Lecturer, Harvard Business School-- "Managing in the Gray provides a practical, nuanced, and comprehensive framework to grapple with the toughest questions of life and business." Gail McGovern, President and CEO, American Red Cross-- "Badaracco provides a useful and profound guide to dealing with problems that fall into gray areas. Interesting, practical, and compelling."