Why do successful companies let down their corporate walls, exposing their organizations and strategies to competitors? The answer, according to Joseph Badaracco is that corporations enter into strategic alliances to capitalize on knowledge: migratory knowledge, often technical in nature, which can be transferred easily between people or organizations in a formula or product, and embedded knowledge, which defines how a particular company organizes itself to do business. In today's business environment companies need to utilize each type of knowledge to sustain their competitive advantage. The challenge for today's manager is to balance the opportunities offered by open boundaries and free flowing information against the need to protect the corporations's unique advantages. Managing strategic alliances effectively will determine corporate success in the years ahead.

The Knowledge Link: How Firms Compete Through Strategic Alliances

Business & Money

Badaracco Jr., Joseph L.

Management & Leadership

Harvard Business Review Press

Leadership and the Quest for Integrity

What distinguishes leaders from ordinary managers? The authors present three distinct philosophies of leadership - political, directive, and values-driven - advocating each in turn to challenge the reader's own assumptions. Through extensive interviews with executives, the authors show how leaders who hold certain prejudices or predispositions can resolve classic managerial dilemmas.

Ellsworth, Richard R.

Business Culture

"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 in their careers. The first story presents a young man whose choice will affect him only as an individual; the second, a department head, whose decision will influence his organization; the third, a corporate executive, whose actions will have much larger, societal ramifications. To guide the decision-making process, Badaracco draws on the insights of four philosophers--Aristotle, Machiavelli, Nietzsche, and James--because they offer practical rather than theoretical advice. He thus bridges the gap between classroom philosophy and corporate pragmatism. The result is a flexible framework that managers can draw on to resolve issues of conflicting responsibility in practical ways.

Defining Moments: When Managers Must Choose Between Right and Right

Leadership is struggle The question of how to lead successfully and responsibly is crucially important in our uncertain, high-pressure, turbulent world. In this book, Harvard Business School Professor Joseph Badaracco answers this question in practical and, at times, provocative ways. Leaders today are surrounded by what Badaracco calls the new invisible hand”powerful, pervasive markets that touch and shape almost everything. As a result, understanding the inevitability and importance of struggle is critical. And leaders must go a step further to create what Badaracco calls the good struggle” in order to meet their goals at work, as well as their goals in life. The Good Struggle helps you meet the relentless challenges of being a leader today by identifying the most important questions you should be asking yourself. New answers to these questions can be found by watching leaders in dynamic settings, especially entrepreneurs. The conditions entrepreneurs have always facedintense competition, scarce resources, and unforgiving marketsare true now for the rest of us, and they offer valuable, practical lessons about struggling and succeeding in volatile and uncertain environments. If the joy of life is in the struggle,” as one thoughtful entrepreneur put it, The Good Struggle can help you find meaning in your work, stay focused on what matters despite the turbulence around you, and keep you on the path to leading successfully and responsibly.

The Good Struggle: Responsible Leadership in an Unforgiving World

Most of us think of leaders as courageous risk takers, orchestrators of major events. In a word: heroes. Although such figures are inspiring, Joseph Badaracco argues that their larger-than-life accomplishments are not what makes the world work. What does, he says, is the sum of millions of small yet consequential decisions that individuals working far from the limelight make every day. Badaracco calls them "quiet leaders"--people who choose responsible, behind-the-scenes action over public heroism to resolve tough leadership challenges. Quiet leaders don't fit the stereotype of the bold and gutsy leader, and they don't want to. What they want is to do the "right thing"--for their organizations, their coworkers, and themselves--but inconspicuously and without casualties. Drawing from extensive research, Badaracco presents eight practical yet counter-intuitive guidelines for situations in which right and wrong seem like moving targets. Compelling stories illustrate how these "nonheroes" succeed by managing their political capital, buying themselves time, bending the rules, and more. From the executive suite to the office cubicle--Leading Quietly shows how patient, everyday efforts can add up to a better company and a better world.

Leading Quietly

The business environment has become increasingly precarious, thus raising the stakes for nearly every managerial move. This collection includes articles on how to lead in a downturn economy, overcome a growth crisis, stay resilient through difficult periods, and more.

Harvard Business Review on Leading in Turbulent Times (Harvard Business Review Paperback Series)

Harvard Business School

Adrian Slywotzky

Harvard Business School Pr

The hardest tests for leaders challenge their character as much as their skills, and a growing body of research shows that the self-knowledge gained from such tests is critical to leaders’ success. In Questions of Character, Joseph L. Badaracco outlines eight fundamental challenges that test a leader’s character, and proposes exploring them through the lens of literature. Badaracco argues that serious fiction provides us with memorable characters facing compelling challenges similar to those that confront business leaders. Through rich analysis of the main characters in The Death of a Salesman, The Secret Sharer, The Last Tycoon, and other stories, Badaracco addresses complex issues leaders face, such as the soundness of their vision, their readiness to take on responsibility, the depth of their compassion, and their ability to manage success. Presenting classic leadership dilemmas in a novel and valuable light, Questions of Character helps leaders and aspiring leaders prepare for the opportunities and tests before them.

Questions of Character: Illuminating the Heart of Leadership Through Literature

Harvard Business School Press

How to Resolve the Really Hard Problems Every manager makes tough callsit comes with the job. And the hardest decisions are the gray areas”situations where you and your team have worked hard to find an answer, you’ve done the best analysis you can, and you still don’t know what to do. But you have to make a decision. You have to choose, commit, act, and live with the consequences and persuade others to follow your lead. Gray areas test your skills as a manager, your judgment, and even your humanity. How do you get these decisions right? In Managing in the Gray, Joseph Badaracco offers a powerful, practical, and even radical way to resolve these problems. Picking up where conventional tools of analysis leave off, this book provides tools for judgment in the form of five revealing questions. Asking yourself these five questions provides a simple yet profound way to broaden your thinking, sharpen your judgment, and develop a fresh perspective. What makes these questions so valuable is that they have truly stood the test of timethey’ve guided countless men and women, across many centuries and cultures, to resolve the hardest questions of work, responsibility, and life. You can use the five-question framework on your own or with others on your team to help you cut through complexities, understand critical trade-offs, and develop workable solutions for even the grayest issues.

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

When Business and Personal Values Collide Defining moments” occur when managers face business decisions that trigger conflicts with their personal values. These moments test a person’s commitment to those values and ultimately shape their character. But these are also the decisions that can make or break a career. Is there a thoughtful, yet pragmatic, way to make the right choice? Bestselling author Joseph Badaracco shows how to approach these dilemmas using three case examples that, when taken together, represent the escalating responsibilities and personal tests managers face as they advance in their careers. The first story presents a young manager whose choice will affect him only as an individual; the second, a department head whose decision will influence his organization; the third, a corporate executive whose actions will have much larger, societal ramifications. To guide the decision-making process, the book draws on the insights of four philosophersAristotle, Machiavelli, Nietzsche, and Jameswho offer distinctly practical, rather than theoretical, advice. Defining Moments is the ultimate manager’s guide for resolving issues of conflicting responsibility in practical ways.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Badaracco Jr., Joseph L.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Badaracco Jr., Joseph L.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Badaracco Jr., Joseph L.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Knowledge Link: How Firms Compete Through Strategic Alliances

Leadership and the Quest for Integrity

Defining Moments: When Managers Must Choose Between Right and Right

The Good Struggle: Responsible Leadership in an Unforgiving World

Leading Quietly

Harvard Business Review on Leading in Turbulent Times (Harvard Business Review Paperback Series)

Questions of Character: Illuminating the Heart of Leadership Through Literature

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

Defining Moments: When Managers Must Choose Between Right and Right