Defining Moments

by Joseph L. Badaracco Jr.

Book Overview

"Defining moments," according to Badaracco, occur when managers face business problems that trigger difficult, deeply personal questions. In deciding how to act, managers reveal their inner values, test their commitment to those values, and ultimately shape their characters. Badaracco builds a framework for approaching these dilemmas around three cases of increasing complexity, reflecting the escalating responsibilities managers face as they advance...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0875848036
• ISBN13: 9780875848037
• Release Date: September 1997
• Publisher: Harvard Business Review Press
• Length: 160 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.4" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Surprisingly important book for new managers.

I read this a few years after I had been in senior management and wished deeply that I had discovered it earlier. One of the great challenges facing new managers is decision making where the choices all involve some positive and negative aspects. There are also many organization pressures that force individuals to consider suboptimal paths to "be a team player." It's a slippery slope and one that is hard to navigate without a great deal of thought and a clarity of personal professional purpose. This is a small book that easily engages the reader in a fascinating path to understanding these core management issues. Management, especially senior management, starts to look like politics and turns into a soup of interests and circumstances that make the "right" decision hard to discern and possibly even harder to live with. Given the impact to size ratio and high quality of the writing I'd make this book a must-read in the category.

Tackling the Dilemmas of Ethical Choices

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"

Excellent Book on Ethics (for everyone)

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.

Best book on the subject.

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.

"Defining Moments" A management mirror

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to sit in a management development class with Aristotle, Machiavelli and Nietsche all firing questions at you? I had a blast reading through the challenging case studies in this book. The author takes you "crop dusting" through personal right/right decisions that make you realize all of the aspects of your personal value system matched up against your oganizational mission. He then cruises up to about 30,000 feet with an employee/manager problem that exemplifies the scope and impact of your decisions as a manager. Just when you thought it was OK to have a beer in first class, he puts on the afterburners for a climb up to 100,000 feet with a perplexing global impact decision that faced a drug company and it's chief executive officer. As a front line operations manager with about 6 years of management experience - I have even greater respect for my peers and my organization and the decisions we make. However, I have even greater respect for the intelligent CEO's who are torn by unbelieveable decisions and come through smelling like a rose. This book is a mirror that reflects your responsibility as a manager and a tool in helping you balance the scales between managing people and profits. You will sleep much easier with your business decisions after considering the questions that our forementioned friends will fire at you.