Top 13 Quotes & Sayings by Joseph Badaracco

As long as I can remember, I've wanted to be a teacher, but a turning point for me was attending HBS as an MBA student. What I experienced was the power of the case method - that is, how much students can learn, not by listening to lectures, but by engaging in an intense discussion. This can be an exciting way to learn and a powerful one, because it really gets all the synapses to connect.

Don't throw up your hands or abandon your values when you run into political difficulties. Stop, get a sense of the political terrain, and experiment with some ways to move cautiously forward.

Workplace culture within which personal growth and professional development are most likely to thrive is basically, an environment that gives people the chance or even pushes them to try new activities and take on new challenges that build on the skills and experiences they have.

Sometimes, there are no simple or easy solutions to gray area problems. Or, put differently, the "solution" is working intelligently, with many other people, for months or even years - guided by a basic direction and a few central values that really matter to you and others.

To overcome cultural resistance I think it's important to start with strong analysis, so you're sure that you're right about what needs changing or fighting. And then you have to articulate the best case you can and start working patiently to build support and to mobilize allies.

Pay real attention to your basic human instincts when you face gray area decisions, but also try to have a clear sense of when you have done all you can reasonably do.

Tempered intuition is more than beneficial. It's usually critical to resolving gray area problems. In other words, in the end, these problems are resolved by someone in a position of authority saying this is what I think we should do and will do to address this problem.

Sometimes creativity just means the daily work of helping others to see a problem in a different way.

Communication can't always follow the top-down model. With the fluidity of information in business today, leaders need to be masterful listeners; they need to be able to receive as well as send.

Humanism has many meanings, but what attracts me about it is that it encourages men and women to take a broad view of situations and to think about them from on-the-ground perspectives rather than through theoretical and conceptual lenses.

Hoarding knowledge ultimately erodes your power. If you know something important, the way to get power is by sharing it.

I think that, in general, when you want to make a case, It important to be as clear and honest and persuasive as you can be about stating the opposite case, rather than attacking strawmen.

Don't assume that your personal moral compass, however admirable it may be, will always give you the right answer to complicated questions that require in-depth analysis.