Defining Moments: When Managers Must Choose Between Right and Right [Hardcover]

Joseph L. Badaracco Jr. (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 1997

How do you lead the launch of a product you know will be extremely controversial? What should you do if a single parent on your staff is falling behind in his or her work? How should you respond if you are offered an opportunity at work solely because of your race or gender? This is a book about work choices and life choices, and the critical points - or defining moments - at which the two become one. A refreshing antidote to traditional feel-good, inspirational business ethics, it examines the right-versus-right conflicts that every business manager faces and presents an unorthodox yet practical way for you to think about and resolve them. When making hard professional decisions, managers often use personal values as a touchstone. Badaracco asserts, however, that resolving such dilemmas is not as simple as the "do the right thing" school of ethics would have you believe."Defining Moments" reveals an alternative approach that will help you tackle the more complex and troubling question of what to do when doing the right thing requires doing something else wrong, or leaving another right thing undone. Drawing on philosophy, literature, and three case studies that reveal the increasing complexity today's managers face as their careers advance, "Defining Moments" provides tangible examples, actionable steps, and a flexible framework that you can use to make the choices that will shape not only your career, but your character. Compelling, readable, and absent of ethical jargon, this book gets to the core of what makes being a manager so difficult. For new and seasoned managers alike, "Defining Moments" explores what it means - and whether it's even possible - to be a successful manager and a thoughtful, responsible human being.

Editorial Reviews

Review

This solid, penetrating work, obviously deeply felt by the author, is likely to be well received by boomer managers. --Library Journal

"The book is well-crafted, readable and interactive. --USA Today -- USA Today

From the Back Cover

"So much of making sound decisions comes from asking smart questions. Defining Moments asks all the right questions in a way that will help any manager who wants to reach judgments that are morally sensitive and professionally sensible." --George Stephanopoulos, Visiting Professor at Columbia University, political analyst for ABC, and former adviser to the Clinton Administration

Defining Moments outlines a refreshingly realistic approach to ethics in management. Badaracco shows how managers can choose, without sacrificing their values, between multiple acceptable solutions--not the one right answer that most ethicists claim exists. It is a book to be put into practice, not just read and set aside. --Andrall Pearson, Chairman & CEO, Pepsico Food Division

Critical decisions between shades of right are inescapable in our professional and personal lives and do create defining moments' for each of us. Badracco brings a clarity to the decision process that I did not think possible. --Gail Long, Senior Vice President, Group Executive, Large Corporate, BankBoston

Finally, here's a book that helps us prioritize our personal and institutional loyalties and responsibilities in decision making, wend our way through real-life moral mazes, and develop our character in the process. A crystal-clear, practical writer, Badaracco provides a new and unorthodox approach to issues of great complexity. He offers pragmatic assistance to real people weighing conflicting duties, ends, and virtues of business life. --William McLennan, University Chaplain, Tufts University

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 160 pages
• Publisher: Harvard Business Review Press; 1 edition (September 1, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0875848036
• ISBN-13: 978-0875848037
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #24,779 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #40 in Books > Business & Investing > Business Life > Ethics

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best book on the subject., July 12, 2000

By 

Rita Risser - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Defining Moments: When Managers Must Choose Between Right and Right (Hardcover)

As an attorney who teaches business ethics inside corporations, I've read many books on this subject. This is the best. It focuses on the way real world ethical dilemmas arise -- not in decisions between right and wrong, but between two options, both of which are "right." This is a short, practical, readable book that really makes you think.

28 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Tackling the Dilemmas of Ethical Choices, June 18, 2001

By 

Patrick Merlevede (Eeklo, Vlaanderen (Belgium, Europe)) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Defining Moments: When Managers Must Choose Between Right and Right (Hardcover)

A few weeks ago a customer of mine asked my assistance to help his organisation to write an ethical code. I knew he had been "working" on this topic for the last 2 years and that he had been applying some of the principles I teach in my emotional intelligence classes. Apparently, this hadn't been enough to solve his problem, but it was enough to come back to me to seek my advice. This was one of the books I bought to document myself on the issue.

This book was a good resource by providing me different points of views concerning the question, and by pointing out that it's not a simple matter of making a choice (for instance, one lead by intuition and emotions, as is recommended sometimes). The cases presented point to several kinds of dilemmas: the personal ones (choosing between what's right for you and for the organisation), the managerial ones (choosing between the organisation and the people that ore working for it) and the social ones (choosing between the organisation and the larger social system it's a part of). The book also points out different sources we have for basing our decisions on.

The problem remains that values and principles often point into different directions. Ethical choice techniques such as the "sleep-test", the "golden rule" and other sources of inspiration do not solve this.

Learning from that, it becomes clear why one should not expect to find the answers to your ethical problems in this book. Finding "the" answer is "impossible". In a "defining moment", you will have to examine which values you are committed to, these values will be put to test (will you go for their implications) and they will shape your future. I believe (with the author) that there are no easy answers to the *real* issues we are faced with. That's why this book shows in what way you have to search for your answer. Reading this book will at least allow you to ask the right questions and to look at various aspects in order to make a personal choice.

If I would have read this book earlier, my own book would certainly have included a reference to it.

What will I tell my customer? Well, writing the "code" won't be enough, in stead we should focus on teaching people how to make an ethical choice.

Patrick E.C. Merlevede, M.Sc is the main author of "7 Steps to Emotional Intelligence"

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Book on Ethics (for everyone), May 8, 2001

By 

Damon Timm (United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Defining Moments: When Managers Must Choose Between Right and Right (Hardcover)

While this book may seem catered towards business management issues (and the examples given in the text are), the ideas, values and approaches presented within the text are universal. I, myself, am not a "business person" or "manager" and found this book extremely enlightening and helpful, and can apply the values and examples to my own life and work.

The basic premise of the book revolves around (what Badaracco calls) the "defining moments" of an individual's life; these are instances in which a person is faced with a decision that has no clear "right vs. wrong" answer (which he calls a "right vs. right" question), yet the decision the individual makes will define who the person is in times that follow. He uses three different examples of real-life quandaries that managers have faced in the past (as well as their conclusions). Badaracco does not tell his audience how they should act in a given situation, but instead, gives the audience the introspective tools needed to make better decisions that support who they are as an individual.

Again, terrific book and well worth anyone's time who is interested in the ethical decision making process.