Do the Right Thing

What would you do?

Outsourcing worked well for your company's new COO in his previous company. Now he's pushing it for your company, where you run engineering for the head of Operations. You and your boss believe outsourcing is wrong because it would eliminate one of your company's key competitive advantages - its ability to manufacture custom-built products quickly and at prices that nearly match your competitors' build-to-stock prices. You push back, but the COO disagrees and orders you to make the case for outsourcing. He says the company's CEO/founder supports this new direction absolutely. Though your boss personally opposes outsourcing, he says you have no choice. What would you do?

"Do the Right Thing" is a collection of this and 20 more stories compiled in memory of Don Davis, a long-time teacher in MIT's Leaders for Global Operations (LGO) program. A successful leader himself - for over 20 years he was CEO of The Stanley Works, which he built into a Fortune 500 firm - Davis taught his MIT course, Leadership and Ethics, around a set of leadership principles, his "mantras," that he distilled from his own long experience.

Because he knew the principles were simple in concept but difficult to apply, Davis built his course around stories of knotty leadership problems that he, along with the many prominent guest speakers he brought in, had faced.

In that same spirit, his students in "Do the Right Thing" describe how they went on to management positions at all levels and applied those mantras to resolve nitty-gritty leadership problems themselves.

There are no simple answers here, no easy resolutions for all involved, only tough choices that invite you to learn by asking yourself, "What would I do?"