Defining Moments: When Managers Must Choose Between Right and Right by Joseph L. Badaracco Jr.

The commercial tells us life is messy.  More than that it can be destructive.  For centuries philosophers, statesmen and clergy have sought to give us theories to handle the vagaries of life with certainty.  But they suffer from not being encompassing, and worse they are generally sterile thought experiments that do not work in the real world.

Joseph Badaracco wrote this book to provide managers practical guidance for making decisions when the courses of action are all the right thing to do within competing values.  He argues that these right versus right decisions are not well addressed by what he calls the “standard answers” of “follow the law, serve the shareholders, consult the company credo, do the right thing…” (Badaracco, 1997, p. ix).