Managing In The Gray

It’s a manager’s job to make the tough calls, but the hardest part of being a manager is resolving those "gray areas”--situations where analysis of the numbers, facts, and data fails to provide a clear answer. These gray areas test not only a manager’s skills, but their humanity. You have to choose, commit, and act, and to live with the consequences. Harder still, you have to be able to explain yourself and your decisions to others. How do you get it right,both as a manager and as a human being? Bestselling author Joseph Badaracco presents a five-question framework that helps people balance the analytical side of being a manager with the human side and find an answer when analysis falls short: (1) What are the net, net consequences? (2) What are my core obligations? (3) What will work in the world as it is? (4) What do we really stand for? and (5) What is my best judgment and best self? Managing in the Gray reflects and distills the timeless wisdom of many of the most powerful, penetrating, and noble minds throughout history--philosophers ranging from Aristotle to Nietzsche, religious leaders like Confucius and Jesus, political thinkers like Thomas Jefferson, even poets and artists--and is a powerful guide to managers for resolving their toughest problems at work, the ones that keep them up at night.

How to Resolve the Really Hard Problems Every manager makes tough calls—it 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 time—they’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.

An important resource for scholarly research, grey literature is relevant to every discipline. It’s also often more current than commercial publications. Unfortunately, though it provides a richness of content, this type of scholarly resource is often overlooked when conducting research. This book aims to change that, describing the importance of grey literature and offering a holistic approach to successfully integrating it into library collections. Readers will learn an overview of grey literature that discusses its importance to researchers, scholars, and students; collections policies for selection and deselection, complete with a suggested workflow; information about vendors, OA, and other aspects of acquisitions; guidance on cataloging, such as collection categories in the public-facing catalog, and preservation; and methods for promoting grey literature in library collections, including institutional repositories; and tips for marketing, branding, outreach, and best communication practices for colleagues, administrators, and patrons.

Why getting results should be every nonprofit manager's first priority A nonprofit manager's fundamental job is to get results, sustained over time, rather than boost morale or promote staff development. This is a shift from the tenor of many management books, particularly in the nonprofit world. Managing to Change the World is designed to teach new and experienced nonprofit managers the fundamental skills of effective management, including: managing specific tasks and broader responsibilities; setting clear goals and holding people accountable to them; creating a results-oriented culture; hiring, developing, and retaining a staff of superstars. Offers nonprofit managers a clear guide to the most effective management skills Shows how to address performance problems, dismiss staffers who fall short, and the right way to exercising authority Gives guidance for managing time wisely and offers suggestions for staying in sync with your boss and managing up This important resource contains 41 resources and downloadable tools that can be implemented immediately.

Learn Everything You Can From Every Type of Boss Managers come in all varieties, and unfortunately you don't get to choose your preference. Too often, we find ourselves working for people who are tough to work for, difficult to "decode," or brilliant but inaccessible. Managing Your Manager is the answer to dealing with a problematic supervisor. Placing manager "types" into real-world categories--from the Bully, Scientist, and Star to the Geek, Parent, and Con Artist--it provides everything you need to make your work life more satisfying and productive. Managing Your Manager gives you the tools to: Categorize your boss based on telling traits Create a solid working relationship Avoid common pitfalls associated with certain types Become a strong leader based on lessons learned from various bosses Managers of all types can provide invaluable learning experiences that can enhance your career. Managing Your Manager empowers you with the knowledge, skills, and savvy for dealing with any type of boss and excelling in your job.

US cities are faced with the joint challenge of our climate crisis and the lack of housing that is affordable and healthy. Our housing stock contributes significantly to the changing climate, with residential buildings accounting for 20 percent of greenhouse gas emissions. US housing is not only unhealthy for the planet, it is putting the physical and financial health of residents at risk. Our housing system means that a renter working 40 hours a week and earning minimum wage cannot afford a two-bedroom apartment in any US county. In Gray to Green Communities, green affordable housing expert Dana Bourland argues that we need to move away from a gray housing model to a green model, which considers the health and well-being of residents, their communities, and the planet. She demonstrates that we do not have to choose between protecting our planet and providing housing affordable to all. Bourland draws from her experience leading the Green Communities Program at Enterprise Community Partners, a national community development intermediary. Her work resulted in the first standard for green affordable housing which was designed to deliver measurable health, economic, and environmental benefits. The book opens with the potential of green affordable housing, followed by the problems that it is helping to solve, challenges in the approach that need to be overcome, and recommendations for the future of green affordable housing. Gray to Green Communities brings together the stories of those who benefit from living in green affordable housing and examples of Green Communities’ developments from across the country. Bourland posits that over the next decade we can deliver on the human right to housing while reaching a level of carbon emissions reductions agreed upon by scientists and demanded by youth. Gray to Green Communities will empower and inspire anyone interested in the future of housing and our planet.