BLOG

steven moore for hbr Of the many contributions Jack Welch has made to business wisdom, one of his most famous was “Be #1 or #2 in every market.” That advice served GE well in shaping its portfolio of businesses and its strategy for many years, but it’s not clear to us that it is as […]

steven moore for hbr Of the many contributions Jack Welch has made to business wisdom, one of his most famous was “Be #1 or #2 in every market.” That advice served GE well in shaping its portfolio of businesses and its strategy for many years, but it’s not clear to us that it is as […]

Here’s a better way to measure it. from HBR.org http://ift.tt/2FWkbsb

Here’s a better way to measure it. from HBR.org http://ift.tt/2FWkbsb

Here’s a better way to measure it. from HBR.org http://ift.tt/2FWkbsb

Here’s a better way to measure it. from HBR.org http://ift.tt/2FWkbsb

Ilka & Franz/Getty Images What makes a brand successful in the digital age? A joint study by SAP, Siegel+Gale, and Shift Thinking suggests that digital brands don’t just do things differently; they also think differently. Where traditional brands focus on positioning their brands in the minds of their customers, digital brands focus on positioning their […]

steven moore for hbr Of the many contributions Jack Welch has made to business wisdom, one of his most famous was “Be #1 or #2 in every market.” That advice served GE well in shaping its portfolio of businesses and its strategy for many years, but it’s not clear to us that it is as […]

viktor vasicsek/unsplash Do you still use Yahoo? Do you still remember MySpace? Compaq? Kodak? The cases of startups with superior ideas dethroning well-established incumbents are legion. This is the beauty of “creative destruction” – the term coined by innovation prophet Joseph Schumpeter almost a century ago. Incumbents have to keep innovating, lest they be overtaken […]

Jose A. Bernat Bacete/Getty Images The risks posed by intelligent devices will soon surpass the magnitude of those associated with natural disasters. Tens of billions of connected sensors are being embedded in everything ranging from industrial robots and safety systems to self-driving cars and refrigerators. At the same time, the capabilities of artificial intelligence (AI) […]

Jay Conger, a leadership professor at Claremont McKenna College, goes behind the scenes to show how you can get on, and stay on, your company’s fast track. He demystifies how companies (often very secretly) develop and update their list of high-potential employees. And he discusses five critical “X factors” his research has shown are common […]

Nadezda Kozulina/Getty Images Working as a senior executive can be a lonely job. You have to deliver tough messages. You can’t always be transparent about your own challenges. And you must keep key decisions confidential until the timing is right. There’s no way to escape the necessary burdens of authority. And, from time to time, you […]

Luerat Satichob/Getty Images We’ve all heard of the No-Fly List. Managed by the FBI’s Terrorist Screening Center, the list bans people on it from boarding commercial aircraft within, into, or out of the United States. The No-Fly List is only one tactic that the U.S. uses in its fight against terrorism, but since its inception […]

Colormos/Getty Images Samar Minallah Khan, the feminist Pakistani anthropologist and filmmaker, was enraged. Local tribal leaders were trading little girls as compensation for their male family members’ crimes. These leaders, responsible for settling legal disputes in their villages, act as local judges. A longstanding practice was to address major crimes by “compensating” a harmed family […]

jamie jones/Getty Images It is clear from some of its recent moves that Amazon sees the 18% of U.S. GDP dedicated to health care as fertile ground for expansion. Consider its decision to pursue the market for pharmaceutical distribution, or the recent announcement that it will be teaming up with Berkshire Hathaway and JP Morgan Chase to create joint solutions for […]

Artur Debat/Getty Images It’s no secret that organizations have been increasingly turning to advanced analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) to improve decision making across business processes—from research and design to supply chain and risk management. Along the way, there’s been plenty of literature and executive hand-wringing over hiring and deploying ever-scarce data scientists to make […]

Tim Robberts/Getty Images Remember your new year’s resolutions? Are you still doing them? If the answer is “no,” most likely you fell into the trap that stops most individuals from accomplishing their resolutions: not consciously taking old activities out of their schedule to make room for the new. It’s the equivalent of trying to stuff more […]

CSA Images/Getty Images Practically every organization today has a set of core values that ideally function as the “operating instructions” of the company.  The goal of articulating the essential and enduring principles of your organization is to inform, inspire, and instruct the day-to-day behaviors of everyone who works at your company. But this rarely happens, […]

PhotoAlto/Jorge Goncalves/Getty Images Can we please agree that there is no such thing as a corporate entrepreneur? The term corporate entrepreneur devalues what real entrepreneurs do, and it creates a haze of hokum around people trying to innovate in large companies that sets them up to fail. There is an ocean of difference between people […]

making_ultimate/Getty Images We live in a world where productivity, a key pillar of long-term economic growth, has crumbled. In the United States, Europe, and other advanced economies, productivity growth has slowed so drastically in the past decade that economists debate whether we have entered a new era of stagnation—and this at a time when we […]

During my conversations with CEOs, it always comes to a point where they say: “I want to leave a legacy.”  Any CEO would be satisfied with the business legacy left by Ingvar Kamprad, the IKEA founder who died last weekend.  The store he founded, with its iconic blue and yellow logo and functional, minimalist furniture, […]

Paul Reid/Getty Images Dorothea loved her new workplace and was highly motivated to perform. Her managers were delighted with her high engagement, professionalism, and dedication. She worked long hours to ensure that her staff was properly managed, that her deadlines were met, and that her team’s work was nothing short of outstanding. In the first […]

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Hayon Thapaliya/Getty Images Just the announcement that Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffett, and Jaime Dimon will be entering the health care space has sent shock waves for industry incumbents such as CVS, Cigna, and UnitedHealth. It also puts a fundamental question back on the agendas of CEOs in other industries: Will software eat the world, as Marc Andreessen famously quipped? […]

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Hayon Thapaliya/Getty Images Just the announcement that Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffett, and Jaime Dimon will be entering the health care space has sent shock waves for industry incumbents such as CVS, Cigna, and UnitedHealth. It also puts a fundamental question back on the agendas of CEOs in other industries: Will software eat the world, as Marc Andreessen famously quipped? […]

Ralf Hiemisch/Getty Images The subject of sexual misconduct at work is dominating mainstream conversation and board room agendas. This doesn’t just mean men and women who run large global enterprises, Fortune 500 behemoths, film studios, and media platforms. The conversation is happening in small businesses as well. In the U.S. 43% of employees work in organizations with […]

HBR staff/Bettmann Collection/Getty Images Advice on how to improve one’s self is everywhere.  It accounts for about 2.5% of all book sales in the United States. Add in speeches, training programs, TV programs, online-products, coaches, yoga, and the like, self-help is a $10 billion industry per year, and that’s just in the U.S. However, research […]

Jena Ardell/Getty Images “I really became a robot,” a manager at an accounting firm explained. She and her colleagues worked extraordinarily long hours, but, she said, “I thought it was normal. It’s like brainwashing. You are in a kind of mental system where you are under increasing demands, and you say to yourself that it […]

Jena Ardell/Getty Images “I really became a robot,” a manager at an accounting firm explained. She and her colleagues worked extraordinarily long hours, but, she said, “I thought it was normal. It’s like brainwashing. You are in a kind of mental system where you are under increasing demands, and you say to yourself that it […]

Jena Ardell/Getty Images “I really became a robot,” a manager at an accounting firm explained. She and her colleagues worked extraordinarily long hours, but, she said, “I thought it was normal. It’s like brainwashing. You are in a kind of mental system where you are under increasing demands, and you say to yourself that it […]

PETRAS MALUKAS/Stringer/Getty Images When you start leading a new team, one of your first imperatives is to assess the caliber of the talent you are inheriting. At a minimum, you’ll want to focus on three dimensions: (1) Competence — Does each individual match the competence demands of their role? (2) Motivation — Does each member of the team possess […]

Emma Innocenti/Getty Images The new U.S. tax law is likely to increase after-tax cash flows for U.S.-based companies by anywhere from 10% to 20%, depending on their current tax position. As we approach earnings season, investors should listen carefully to what CEOs plan to do with the money. There’s a strong argument that they should […]

Juj Winn/Getty Images In the modern retail environment, it is becoming increasingly difficult to use packaging to stand out. The shelves of stores are packed with fantastic fonts, strategically designed color combinations, and unique product forms all competing to draw the attention of consumers. But is it possible that attempting to stand out in a […]

eversofine/Getty Images A senior executive is presenting a quarterly update. The room is packed with staff eager to hear how the firm is performing and what’s looming on the horizon. The executive begins by taking the stage and working through a thick PowerPoint deck, each slide packed with the latest business buzzwords. As the minutes tick by, I see the audience […]

Don Farrall/Getty Images The increase of women in the paid workforce was arguably the most significant change in the economy in the past century. In the U.S., women’s participation in the labor market has nearly doubled, from 34% of working age women (age 16 and older) in the labor force in 1950 to almost 57% […]

John Holcroft/Getty Images Some people’s careers take off, while others’ take longer — or even stall out. Common wisdom says that the former attend elite MBA programs, land high-powered jobs right out of school at prestigious firms, and climb the ladder straight to the top, carefully avoiding risky moves. But our data shows a completely different […]

Taira Kurihara/Getty Images Companies are starting to care more about corporate social responsibility (CSR). Among the largest 250 companies in the world, 92% produced a CSR report in 2015, informing shareholders and the public about the firm’s activities. That’s up from 64% having such a report in 2005. Today, Fortune Global 500 firms spend around […]

anucha sirivisansuwan/Getty Images The basic fact is that technology eliminates jobs, not work. It is the continuous obligation of economic policy to match increases in productive potential with increases in purchasing power and demand. Otherwise the potential created by technical progress runs to waste in idle capacity, unemployment, and deprivation. —National Commission on Technology, Automation and […]

GJON MILI/life/Getty Images Working in online learning, I’ve found that every year around this time there’s a burst of sign-ups from workers seeking new skills. Perhaps it’s a matter of New Year’s resolutions, or a reaction to seeing their friends and colleagues make big career changes each January. Unfortunately, the initial commitment to learning all too […]

In this special episode, HBR IdeaCast host Sarah Green Carmichael introduces Harvard Business Review’s new podcast “Women at Work,” about women’s experiences in the workplace. This episode about being heard tackles three aspects of communication: first, how and why women’s speech patterns differ from men’s; second, how women can be more assertive in meetings; and […]

Matt Lyon/Getty Images The decline in demand for paper hit Stora Enso hard. By 2011 the pulp and paper giant — the world’s oldest corporation, dating back to 1288 — had laid off over one-third of its 30,000 employees. Though profitable again, the company needed to transform itself into a global renewable materials company. Jouko Karvinen, the […]

hans neleman/Getty Images Nondisclosure agreements, or NDAs, which are increasingly common in employment contracts, suppress employee speech and chill creativity. The current revelations surfacing years of harassment in major organizations are merely the tip of the iceberg. New data shows that over one-third of the U.S. workforce is bound by an NDA. These contracts have […]

Bernard Van Berg/EyeEm/Getty Images Mazin Gilbert has an ambitious goal. As vice president of advanced technologies at AT&T, Gilbert wants to make AI technologies widely available throughout the corporation, especially to those who might not have a computer science background and may not even know how to program. Call it the “democratization of AI.” To […]

Juj Winn/Getty Images Diversity is both an issue of fairness and, some say, a driver of innovation and performance. To assess the latter claim, we undertook a large, cross-country study into the relationship between multiple aspects of managerial diversity, the presence of enabling conditions such as leadership support for diversity, and innovation outcomes. We surveyed […]

Grant Faint/Hayon Thapaliya/Getty Images We’ve all been in the awkward situation of meeting someone new and having to build rapport quickly — at networking events, industry conferences, charity events, dinner parties, and other social-professional situations. If you’re like many people — especially most Americans — you break the awkward silence with a pretty standard question: “So, what do […]

H. Armstrong/Roberts Classic Stock/Getty Images In our assessments, surveys, and interviews of over a thousand leaders, many comments stood out, but one in particular was especially powerful and thought-provoking. “Leadership today,” Javier Pladevall, CEO of Audi Volkswagen, Spain, told us, “is about unlearning management and relearning being human.” What Javier means is, the power of […]

Jorg Greuel/Getty Images The topic of industry disruption — “a process whereby a smaller company with fewer resources is able to successfully challenge established incumbent businesses” — is rife with misconceptions. One of the biggest is that it is a mysterious, random, and unpredictable event. Another is that it happens to you in ways that are beyond […]

sarah wright/Getty Images When you exchange pleasantries with a co-worker in the elevator, the two of you are building trust. When you stop by a colleague’s office and see their family photographs on a desk, you learn about that person’s life outside the office and, as a result, usually feel closer. Face-to-face meetings, office parties, […]

TongRo Images Inc./Getty Images In the Black Mirror episode Nosedive, the protagonist, Lacie, lives in a saccharine world of pleasantries in which every personal or business interaction is scored. Everything depends on the social score, and everyone is desperate to move up in the rankings. But the omnipresent rating game has one big catch: ranking […]

Maguma/Getty Images Asking for a promotion can be nerve-wracking. But when you think you’re ready for the next step, it’s important to say so. How do you prepare for that conversation with your boss? What information should you have at the ready? And how exactly do you make your case? What the Experts Say “Asking […]