Dealing With Grey Areas
CEO India|October 2016

Grey areas are the hardest problems managers face at work. When you have to deal with a highly uncertain, high-stakes problem, you face a challenge, not just to your skills, but to your humanity. In his new book, Managing in the Gray, author Joseph L Badaracco offers a powerful and practical way to resolve grey area problems. An excerpt.

Dealing With Grey Areas

The more responsibility you take on at work and in life, the more often you face gray area problems, and these problems come in all shapes and sizes. For example, some are large, complex, and infrequent… The CEO of a small biotech company… had learned that a new, much-needed drug might be implicated in a very rare, but deadly brain disease. He had to decide what to do — even though he lacked critical facts or even a clear definition of the problem.

In contrast, other gray area problems are small-scale, but this doesn’t make them easy or unimportant... A senior manager in a medium-sized company… shared an executive assistant with three managers. The assistant had worked at the company for more than thirty years and had a strong record, but her work had been slipping badly for several months. No one knew why. The other managers who relied on her wanted to let her go, but the senior manager was seriously concerned that the standard HR approach — giving the assistant two weeks’ notice and a small severance package — might do her irreversible harm. But these concerns told the senior manager nothing about what she should do about the assistant, the work that wasn’t getting done, or her disagreement with the other managers.

What all gray areas have in common, whether they are major or minor, is how we experience them. When you face a gray area problem, you have usually done a lot of hard work — on your own and often with other people — to understand a problem or a situation. You’ve assembled all the data, information, and expert advice you can reasonably get. You’ve analyzed everything carefully. But critical facts are still missing, and people you know and trust disagree about what to do. And, in your own mind, you keep going back and forth about what is really going on and about the right next steps.

This story is from the October 2016 edition of CEO India.

Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.

This story is from the October 2016 edition of CEO India.

Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.

MORE STORIES FROM CEO INDIAView All
CEO India

Five Ways To Win The Consumer Of 2030, Now

To win the data and technology-enabled “smart consumer” of tomorrow, discover the five things every consumer-facing business must do right now

time-read
7 mins  |
February 2020
CEO India

TWENTY FOR ‘20

WILL THE NEW DECADE BE AS TRANSFORMATIVE AS THE LAST? EY EXAMINES THE QUESTIONS THAT WILL SHAPE THE NEXT DECADE

time-read
9 mins  |
February 2020
ROBOTS ON THE MOVE
CEO India

ROBOTS ON THE MOVE

THE MARKET FOR PROFESSIONAL SERVICE ROBOTS IS POISED TO TAKE OFF WITH A VENGEANCE, FUELED BY NEW DEVELOPMENTS IN 5G TELECOM SERVICES AND AI CHIPS

time-read
9 mins  |
February 2020
CEO India

POST-DIGITAL CULTURE SHOCK

COMPANIES AROUND THE WORLD ARE FOCUSING ON DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION, BUT MANY ARE OVERLOOKING THE CULTURE CHANGE NECESSARY FOR SUCCESS

time-read
5 mins  |
February 2020
FROM LOCAL TO GLOBAL
CEO India

FROM LOCAL TO GLOBAL

Winning sales organisations excel at these five essential capabilities

time-read
8 mins  |
February 2020
Shooting for the Stars
CEO India

Shooting for the Stars

MANFRED BAUMANN SHARES HIS INSIGHTS INTO PROFESSIONAL PORTRAITURE

time-read
4 mins  |
February 2020
FLYING WHILE BLIND
CEO India

FLYING WHILE BLIND

I AM NOT ONLY AN EXPERIENCED TRAVELER; I AM AN EXPERIENCED BLIND PERSON…

time-read
5 mins  |
February 2020
CEO India

THE ALCHEMIST OF HOSPITALITY

Puneet Chhatwal, the CEO and MD of Tata Group’s hospitality arm Indian Hotels Company, talks about how his company is reimagining and repositioning some of its most renowned brands, raising the hospitality bar, with an eye on the evolving customer and emerging concepts and trends

time-read
8 mins  |
February 2020
CEO India

Robots Can Go All The Way To Mars, But They Can't Pick Up The Groceries?

In the popular imagination, robots have been portrayed alternatively as friendly companions or existential threat. But while robots are becoming commonplace in many industries, they are neither C-3PO nor the Terminator. Cambridge researchers are studying the interaction between robots and humans – and teaching them how to do the very difficult things that we find easy.

time-read
5 mins  |
January 2020
How To Create A Growth Mindset?
CEO India

How To Create A Growth Mindset?

A growth-oriented mindset must be cultivated among the employees for business growth and sustenance. It requires a good understanding of people and what drives them

time-read
5 mins  |
January 2020