Managing in the Gray

Joseph L. Badaracco

Book | 2016

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

Abstract

Part of a manager's job is making tough calls, and the hardest challenge can be resolving "gray area” problems—situations in which analysis of the numbers, facts, and data fails to provide a clear answer. Gray areas test not only managers’ skills but also their humanity. This book presents a five-question framework—based on the long humanist tradition of thinking about what makes for good decisions and good lives—and offers a way for managers to balance the analytical side of their work with the human side and find a sound way forward when analysis falls short.

Keywords: Business or Company Management; Decision Choices and Conditions;

Format: Print

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Citation:

Badaracco, Joseph L. Managing in the Gray: Five Timeless Questions for Resolving Your Toughest Problems at Work. Harvard Business Review Press, 2016.

This note focuses on managers’ responsibilities—economic, legal, and ethical—to investors. In capitalist and some socialist economies, these responsibilities traditionally have been grounded in fiduciary duties and are typically part of the common law or statutory law or are incorporated in civil codes. But, as this note will show, fiduciary obligations are deeply intertwined with economic and ethical responsibilities.

When we think of human behavior, especially from a moral perspective, we often rely on explanations based on character. We think that good decisions and responsible behavior require people with integrity and strong character and that immoral behavior originates within people with little integrity and weak character. However, important research in recent decades strongly suggests that situational factors often dominate character in ethical decision making—for leaders and for members of their organizations. This note summarizes the recent research, shows its implications for the basic steps in ethical decision making, and provides a basis for in-depth discussion of the character-versus-situation question.

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

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