Max Bazerman
Harvard Business School professor and scholar of negotiation, decision-making and ethics; Jesse Isidor Straus Professor of Business Administration; author of Better, Not Perfect (2020).
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Max Bazerman did not write this page.
We collected these quotes from things they published elsewhere, and every quote links to where it was said. They have no account here and have not endorsed this site. Quotes are word for word; the short line under each one is our own restatement, not their wording. Their own site. Is this you? Claim it or ask us to remove it. Or tell us what is wrong here.
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Their wordsTo become a more ethical person, my goal isn’t to maximize value perfectly, but to do better than I have in the past and to do better next year than I’m doing now.
↗Ask a Negotiation Expert: Creating More Value—For All (Program on Negotiation Q&A)pon.harvard.edu 1st of 4 in this piece
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Their wordsIt’s great if you want to trade some of your welfare for the welfare of others who need it more, but you can often create value for others without such sacrifices, simply by making wiser decisions about how you spend your time and what you do at work.
↗Ask a Negotiation Expert: Creating More Value—For All (Program on Negotiation Q&A)pon.harvard.edu 2nd of 4 in this piece
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Our reading
Too many not-for-profits forget that their main objective is creating value for those in need
Their wordsToo many not-for-profits forget that their main objective is to create value for those in need.
↗Ask a Negotiation Expert: Creating More Value—For All (Program on Negotiation Q&A)pon.harvard.edu 3rd of 4 in this piece
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Their wordsNot-for-profits also destroy value when they hire for-profit fundraising companies that take a chunk of the money they raise.
↗Ask a Negotiation Expert: Creating More Value—For All (Program on Negotiation Q&A)pon.harvard.edu 4th of 4 in this piece
- 12 years earlier
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Our reading
Much wrongdoing comes from good people doing bad things without knowing it, not from bad people
Their wordsOur observation is that much of what goes wrong isn't caused by bad people doing bad things; it's caused by good people doing bad things without knowing that they're doing something bad.
↗Evaluating Your Business Ethics (Gallup Business Journal Q&A)news.gallup.com 1st of 4 in this piece
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Their wordsThe fact that we set goals, then want to meet them, certainly increases the likelihood that we'll engage in behavior that we otherwise would have viewed as unethical. That doesn't mean goal setting is bad; it means it has problematic features that we often don't think about.
↗Evaluating Your Business Ethics (Gallup Business Journal Q&A)news.gallup.com 2nd of 4 in this piece
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Our reading
Managers should make corporate ethics clear and avoid sending subtle, conflicting signals
Their wordsStep one is to make it clear what the corporate ethics are and not to send subtle, conflicting signals about what they want.
↗Evaluating Your Business Ethics (Gallup Business Journal Q&A)news.gallup.com 3rd of 4 in this piece
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Their wordsAnother way of looking at it is that by being a better organization, companies can recruit people more effectively. Most people want to work for a high-quality organization rather than a low-quality organization.
↗Evaluating Your Business Ethics (Gallup Business Journal Q&A)news.gallup.com 4th of 4 in this piece
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