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Patrick George/Getty Images Companies are using AI to prevent and detect everything from routine employee theft to insider trading. Many banks and large corporations employ artificial intelligence to detect and prevent fraud and money laundering. Social media companies use machine learning to block illicit content such as child pornography. Businesses are constantly experimenting with new […]

Lee Powers/Getty Images Luxury goods are instrumental to status signaling — our hope that people will recognize the insignia on a suitcase, or the stitching on a pair of jeans, and see us a certain way. For the $262 billion luxury market, tapping into consumers’ fundamental need for respect or admiration from others is a very […]

pm images/Getty Images From time to time, every leader has to deliver news that is hard for employees to hear. Even when businesses are doing well, organizational and structural change is to be expected, and acquisitions, reorganizations, or policy changes can affect people’s jobs in ways that create feelings of fear, anger, or sorrow. Each employee […]

Is miscommunication a constant problem at your workplace? In this episode of HBR’s advice podcast, Dear HBR:, cohosts Alison Beard and Dan McGinn answer your questions with the help of Holly Weeks, a lecturer at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and the author of Failure to Communicate. They talk through what to do when […]

ses/Getty Images By any measure, Elon Musk is exceptionally successful. Having cofounded and sold PayPal, he quickly moved on to launching a range of ventures with world-changing aspirations for how we generate energy, transport ourselves and our goods, interface with machines, and explore our solar system. These ventures are unified in their vision — really […]

ses/Getty Images By any measure, Elon Musk is exceptionally successful. Having cofounded and sold PayPal, he quickly moved on to launching a range of ventures with world-changing aspirations for how we generate energy, transport ourselves and our goods, interface with machines, and explore our solar system. These ventures are unified in their vision — really […]

ses/Getty Images By any measure, Elon Musk is exceptionally successful. Having cofounded and sold PayPal, he quickly moved on to launching a range of ventures with world-changing aspirations for how we generate energy, transport ourselves and our goods, interface with machines, and explore our solar system. These ventures are unified in their vision — really […]

ses/Getty Images By any measure, Elon Musk is exceptionally successful. Having cofounded and sold PayPal, he quickly moved on to launching a range of ventures with world-changing aspirations for how we generate energy, transport ourselves and our goods, interface with machines, and explore our solar system. These ventures are unified in their vision — really […]

Andy Roberts/Getty Images The overarching goal of most business schools is to train future leaders to lead. But how well schools meet this goal, and to what extent their teaching influences their students’ leadership, is an open question. Does business school education really shape students’ minds and behaviors many years later, when they’ve reached decision-making […]

Yagi Studio/Getty Images It was going to be the factory of the future. Dubbed the “Alien Dreadnought,” Tesla’s new manufacturing facility in Fremont, California, was designed to be fully automated — no humans need apply. If all went well, AI-powered robots would enable the company to achieve a weekly production of 5,000 Model 3 electric […]

Caspar Benson/Getty Images Working parents sometimes struggle with the feeling that they are either letting down their family or not meeting their career goals. It can be hard to strike the right balance. As with most of the challenges we face at work, having an open and honest conversation is one of the first steps toward finding […]

Klaus Meinhardt/Getty Images The gap in wealth in the United States between the ultrawealthy and everyone else has reached its widest point in decades. One way to narrow the divide is through the use of worker buyouts, in which ownership of a company transfers from a single person or a small number of people to […]

Pgiam/Getty Images When Liz was offered a job as a product manager at a growing biotech firm, she was ecstatic. She had spent considerable time on her job search, found a company and a position that felt like a perfect fit, nailed her interviews, and negotiated smartly. But once Liz had both feet in the […]

Pgiam/Getty Images When Liz was offered a job as a product manager at a growing biotech firm, she was ecstatic. She had spent considerable time on her job search, found a company and a position that felt like a perfect fit, nailed her interviews, and negotiated smartly. But once Liz had both feet in the […]

Pgiam/Getty Images When Liz was offered a job as a product manager at a growing biotech firm, she was ecstatic. She had spent considerable time on her job search, found a company and a position that felt like a perfect fit, nailed her interviews, and negotiated smartly. But once Liz had both feet in the […]

Juj Winn/Getty Images Last year I decided it was time to shake things up at our investment management company.  After 12 years as president and then CEO, I thought it was time to shift some of my responsibilities to my partners. Research suggests that organizations and their boards are poorly prepared for CEO transitions. The […]

David Leahy/Getty Images Doctors are sometimes blamed for the ills of the U.S. health care system, but our five-year research project in India and the U.S. revealed the opposite. Almost every high-performing health care organization we studied was led by a medical professional (something that academic research has also found). What we found, while collecting case studies for […]

By Tae Yoo, Senior Vice President, Corporate Affairs & Corporate Social Responsibility, Cisco When you think back to the first time an experience inspired you to take action, you’d likely point to your adolescent years. An engaging teacher, a passionate parent, an enthralling book, or a movie that you watched time and time again. In […]

Katherine Phillips, a professor at Columbia Business School, discusses research showing that African-Americans are often reluctant to tell their white colleagues about their personal lives — and that it hurts their careers. She says people should expect and welcome differences at work, and she gives practical advice for strengthening connections among colleagues of different racial […]

Alicia Llop/Getty Images Why is it that when a group of managers gets together for a strategic planning session they often emerge with a document that’s devoid of “strategy”, and often not even a plan? I have one such document in front of me as I write this. It starts with a “vision” statement, moves […]

HBR Staff/Victor Cardoner/Getty Images Marriott recently teamed up with Amazon to offer a hospitality version of the e-commerce giant’s Echo devices in select hotel rooms. Now, when guests want to order room service or housekeeping, they can simply ask Alexa, the voice of their disembodied personal concierge. Travelers with an Alexa device at home can […]

HBR Staff/Victor Cardoner/Getty Images Marriott recently teamed up with Amazon to offer a hospitality version of the e-commerce giant’s Echo devices in select hotel rooms. Now, when guests want to order room service or housekeeping, they can simply ask Alexa, the voice of their disembodied personal concierge. Travelers with an Alexa device at home can […]

HBR Staff/Victor Cardoner/Getty Images Marriott recently teamed up with Amazon to offer a hospitality version of the e-commerce giant’s Echo devices in select hotel rooms. Now, when guests want to order room service or housekeeping, they can simply ask Alexa, the voice of their disembodied personal concierge. Travelers with an Alexa device at home can […]

HBR Staff/Victor Cardoner/Getty Images Marriott recently teamed up with Amazon to offer a hospitality version of the e-commerce giant’s Echo devices in select hotel rooms. Now, when guests want to order room service or housekeeping, they can simply ask Alexa, the voice of their disembodied personal concierge. Travelers with an Alexa device at home can […]

HBR Staff/Victor Cardoner/Getty Images Marriott recently teamed up with Amazon to offer a hospitality version of the e-commerce giant’s Echo devices in select hotel rooms. Now, when guests want to order room service or housekeeping, they can simply ask Alexa, the voice of their disembodied personal concierge. Travelers with an Alexa device at home can […]

Franz Aberham/Getty Images As cities compete for Amazon’s second headquarters, many flexed their tax incentive packages and real estate options in hopes of luring the tech giant to select their city. It’s tempting to think the right financial perks is all it takes for a company to successfully expand to a new city. In fact, […]

KATERYNA/KONSCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY/Getty Images In early June, at the invitation of the European Commission to Brussels (Belgium), I toured some fascinating AI and blockchain-based projects, which the Commission is funding. Across industrial sectors, from healthcare to energy, from construction to retail, engineers are creating new technologies with potentially disruptive implications for the current architectural order […]

pm images/Getty Images There is no shortage of advice for those who aspire to be effective leaders. One piece of advice may be particularly enticing: if you want to be a successful leader, ensure that you are seen as a leader and not a follower. To do this, goes the usual advice, you should seek […]

Russell Johnson/EyeEm/Getty Images Do your to-do lists stretch on and on — and on? Do you dread checking email on Friday afternoons, worried about seeing messages piling up when you’re just trying to get out the door? Or maybe you’ve noticed that anxiety is preventing you from concentrating on whatever you’re currently doing. You might feel […]

Russell Johnson/EyeEm/Getty Images Do your to-do lists stretch on and on — and on? Do you dread checking email on Friday afternoons, worried about seeing messages piling up when you’re just trying to get out the door? Or maybe you’ve noticed that anxiety is preventing you from concentrating on whatever you’re currently doing. You might feel […]

Russell Johnson/EyeEm/Getty Images Do your to-do lists stretch on and on — and on? Do you dread checking email on Friday afternoons, worried about seeing messages piling up when you’re just trying to get out the door? Or maybe you’ve noticed that anxiety is preventing you from concentrating on whatever you’re currently doing. You might feel […]

Russell Johnson/EyeEm/Getty Images Do your to-do lists stretch on and on — and on? Do you dread checking email on Friday afternoons, worried about seeing messages piling up when you’re just trying to get out the door? Or maybe you’ve noticed that anxiety is preventing you from concentrating on whatever you’re currently doing. You might feel […]

Russell Johnson/EyeEm/Getty Images Do your to-do lists stretch on and on — and on? Do you dread checking email on Friday afternoons, worried about seeing messages piling up when you’re just trying to get out the door? Or maybe you’ve noticed that anxiety is preventing you from concentrating on whatever you’re currently doing. You might feel […]

Richard Ross/Getty Images Hardly a day goes by without the announcement of an incredible new frontier in Artificial Intelligence (AI). From fintech to edtech, what was once fantastically improbable is now a commercial reality. There is no question that big data and AI will bring about important advances in the realm of management, especially as […]

SuperStock/Getty Images At some point in your career, you likely encountered a manager you believed was unfair. You probably thought to yourself, “When I’m a manager, I’m never going to be like that!” Now that you’ve been promoted to a management position, you’re probably dedicating significant amounts of time and energy to making unbiased decisions, […]

Dorling Kindersley/Getty Images On July 25, 2018, Facebook lost market capitalization of more than $100 billion in just two hours of trading after it announced its quarterly performance, despite exceeding analysts’ earnings forecasts. What caused this slump? It failed to meet its revenue and subscriber growth targets. This example illustrates that investors consider information beyond just […]

Walker and Walker/Getty Images Innovation is famously difficult — many projects end up losing money, frustrating employees, and going nowhere. And yet corporations and governments spend billions of dollars annually pursuing innovation. This huge spending would generate more value for businesses and societies if the innovation success rate were just a little higher. Is there a […]

Walker and Walker/Getty Images Innovation is famously difficult — many projects end up losing money, frustrating employees, and going nowhere. And yet corporations and governments spend billions of dollars annually pursuing innovation. This huge spending would generate more value for businesses and societies if the innovation success rate were just a little higher. Is there a […]

Walker and Walker/Getty Images Innovation is famously difficult — many projects end up losing money, frustrating employees, and going nowhere. And yet corporations and governments spend billions of dollars annually pursuing innovation. This huge spending would generate more value for businesses and societies if the innovation success rate were just a little higher. Is there a […]

Walker and Walker/Getty Images Innovation is famously difficult — many projects end up losing money, frustrating employees, and going nowhere. And yet corporations and governments spend billions of dollars annually pursuing innovation. This huge spending would generate more value for businesses and societies if the innovation success rate were just a little higher. Is there a […]

Walker and Walker/Getty Images Innovation is famously difficult — many projects end up losing money, frustrating employees, and going nowhere. And yet corporations and governments spend billions of dollars annually pursuing innovation. This huge spending would generate more value for businesses and societies if the innovation success rate were just a little higher. Is there a […]

Lynn Koenig/Getty Images We all have times when we wonder, “Am I at the right company? Am I in the right job? And is this all there is?” These questions are especially agonizing for mid-career professionals who may be searching for fulfillment while juggling demands at home and intense financial pressures to earn. How should you address a mid-career crisis? What actions […]

Taylor Callery/Getty Images Articles about artificial intelligence often begin with an intention to shock readers, referencing classic works of science fiction or alarming statistics about impending job losses. But I think we get closer to the heart of AI in 2018 when we think about small and mundane ways in which AI makes work just […]

Taylor Callery/Getty Images Articles about artificial intelligence often begin with an intention to shock readers, referencing classic works of science fiction or alarming statistics about impending job losses. But I think we get closer to the heart of AI in 2018 when we think about small and mundane ways in which AI makes work just […]

Taylor Callery/Getty Images Articles about artificial intelligence often begin with an intention to shock readers, referencing classic works of science fiction or alarming statistics about impending job losses. But I think we get closer to the heart of AI in 2018 when we think about small and mundane ways in which AI makes work just […]

Taylor Callery/Getty Images Articles about artificial intelligence often begin with an intention to shock readers, referencing classic works of science fiction or alarming statistics about impending job losses. But I think we get closer to the heart of AI in 2018 when we think about small and mundane ways in which AI makes work just […]

Lynn Koenig/Getty Images We all have times when we wonder, “Am I at the right company? Am I in the right job? And is this all there is?” These questions are especially agonizing for mid-career professionals who may be searching for fulfillment while juggling demands at home and intense financial pressures to earn. How should you address a mid-career crisis? What actions […]

Emma Innocenti/Getty Images Um. Ah. So. You Know. Like. Right? Well. When we find ourselves rattled while speaking — whether we’re nervous, distracted, or at a loss for what comes next — it’s easy to lean on filler words. These may give us a moment to collect our thoughts before we press on, and in […]

dlanor s./unsplash Machine learning is increasingly being used to predict individuals’ attitudes, behaviors, and preferences across an array of applications — from personalized marketing to precision medicine. Unsurprisingly, given the speed of change and ever-increasing complexity, there have been several recent high-profile examples of “machine learning gone wrong.” A chatbot trained using Twitter was shut down after […]

dlanor s./unsplash Machine learning is increasingly being used to predict individuals’ attitudes, behaviors, and preferences across an array of applications — from personalized marketing to precision medicine. Unsurprisingly, given the speed of change and ever-increasing complexity, there have been several recent high-profile examples of “machine learning gone wrong.” A chatbot trained using Twitter was shut down after […]

dlanor s./unsplash Machine learning is increasingly being used to predict individuals’ attitudes, behaviors, and preferences across an array of applications — from personalized marketing to precision medicine. Unsurprisingly, given the speed of change and ever-increasing complexity, there have been several recent high-profile examples of “machine learning gone wrong.” A chatbot trained using Twitter was shut down after […]

dlanor s./unsplash Machine learning is increasingly being used to predict individuals’ attitudes, behaviors, and preferences across an array of applications — from personalized marketing to precision medicine. Unsurprisingly, given the speed of change and ever-increasing complexity, there have been several recent high-profile examples of “machine learning gone wrong.” A chatbot trained using Twitter was shut down after […]

Roger Martin, a professor at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Business, offers two main reasons General Electric has lost its competitiveness. GE’s stock has been removed from the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Martin blames pressures from activist investors as well as a short-sighted mergers and acquisitions strategy. He’s the author of “GE’s Fall […]

Kenny Williamson/Getty Images No organization wants to burn out its employees. And yet, according to new research, companies’ efforts to prevent prolonged stress among their staffs are falling short. When Deloitte recently surveyed 1,000 full-time employees in the United States, we found that that 77% had experienced burnout at their current jobs, and more than […]

Ted Soqui/Getty Images You’ve applied for a job. Your resume has passed the first screen; maybe you’ve been interviewed, once, twice, or even more. You might feel you are in the homestretch, with a job offer on the near horizon. Then, a new hurdle appears in your path to a new role. Enter the job […]

Melissa Ross/Getty Images Amazon’s highly visible search for a second headquarters has offered one tremendous public benefit: it has raised public awareness of what bad economic development is. Even Saturday Night Live satirized the lengths to which local officials will go to woo a major company, which include offering massive amounts of taxpayer subsidies, despite […]

Wunderfool/Getty Images In January of 2018, Annette Zimmermann, vice president of research at Gartner, proclaimed: “By 2022, your personal device will know more about your emotional state than your own family.” Just two months later, a landmark study from the University of Ohio claimed that their algorithm was now better at detecting emotions than people […]

Wunderfool/Getty Images In January of 2018, Annette Zimmermann, vice president of research at Gartner, proclaimed: “By 2022, your personal device will know more about your emotional state than your own family.” Just two months later, a landmark study from the University of Ohio claimed that their algorithm was now better at detecting emotions than people […]

Wunderfool/Getty Images In January of 2018, Annette Zimmermann, vice president of research at Gartner, proclaimed: “By 2022, your personal device will know more about your emotional state than your own family.” Just two months later, a landmark study from the University of Ohio claimed that their algorithm was now better at detecting emotions than people […]

Wunderfool/Getty Images In January of 2018, Annette Zimmermann, vice president of research at Gartner, proclaimed: “By 2022, your personal device will know more about your emotional state than your own family.” Just two months later, a landmark study from the University of Ohio claimed that their algorithm was now better at detecting emotions than people […]

Shana Novak/Getty Images In a world in which men dominate leadership roles, should we focus on changing the systems and structures that favor men at women’s expense? Or should we emphasize the tactics individual women can use to get ahead? Our research explored this question. The first message, that it’s processes and organizations that need […]

Jorg Greuel/Getty Images We’ve all experienced some version of this problem: Ask “how many customers do we have?” and the marketing team provides one answer, sales a second, and accounting a third. Each department trusts its own system, but when the task at hand requires that data be shared across silos, the company’s various systems […]

jessica solomatenko/Getty Images It turns out that the word “innovation” is not a Harry Potter-esque magical incantation that, once spoken, renders companies more inventive, creative, and entrepreneurial. The word can be uttered by a CEO speaking to employees or Wall Street analysts. It can be emblazoned on the door to a new innovation center in […]

JW LTD/Getty Images Companies are using AI in all kinds of innovative ways to advance their businesses. If you’ve ever searched Netflix to watch a movie, AI (a recommendation algorithm) was no doubt used in your decision about what to watch.  If you’ve shopped on Amazon, your decision about what to buy was also influenced […]

JW LTD/Getty Images Companies are using AI in all kinds of innovative ways to advance their businesses. If you’ve ever searched Netflix to watch a movie, AI (a recommendation algorithm) was no doubt used in your decision about what to watch.  If you’ve shopped on Amazon, your decision about what to buy was also influenced […]

JW LTD/Getty Images Companies are using AI in all kinds of innovative ways to advance their businesses. If you’ve ever searched Netflix to watch a movie, AI (a recommendation algorithm) was no doubt used in your decision about what to watch.  If you’ve shopped on Amazon, your decision about what to buy was also influenced […]

JW LTD/Getty Images Companies are using AI in all kinds of innovative ways to advance their businesses. If you’ve ever searched Netflix to watch a movie, AI (a recommendation algorithm) was no doubt used in your decision about what to watch.  If you’ve shopped on Amazon, your decision about what to buy was also influenced […]

JW LTD/Getty Images Companies are using AI in all kinds of innovative ways to advance their businesses. If you’ve ever searched Netflix to watch a movie, AI (a recommendation algorithm) was no doubt used in your decision about what to watch.  If you’ve shopped on Amazon, your decision about what to buy was also influenced […]

Carlos Osorio/Getty Images Young management consultants may be novices, but they’re sold as experts. Conversely, even experienced consultants, who legitimately present themselves as experts, still feel like novices when they embark on a new project. The challenge with effective consulting is that it depends on in-depth situational knowledge that consultants simply can’t have when they […]

Yuji Sakai/Getty Images “We lose $800 billion a year on trade, every year,” President Trump said in March when he announced his new tariff plan, referring to the size of the U.S. trade deficit in goods. Trump has lamented the U.S. trade deficit repeatedly, tweeting that as a result of it, “our jobs and wealth […]

timsa/Getty Images A male friend of ours recently had a realization. He was walking through the bar at a private golf club, looking for a colleague he was meeting for dinner. The dark-paneled bar was filled with men and they all seemed to know each other. Will wasn’t a member of the club, and he […]

Patricia Toth McCormick/Getty Images Want to catch tax cheats? The government of Rwanda does — and it’s finding them by studying anomalies in revenue-collection data. Want to understand how American culture is changing? So does a budding sociologist in Indiana. He’s using data science to find patterns in the massive amounts of text people use […]

pchyburrs/Getty Images Academic studies in the social sciences often find very different results. Even in disciplines like medicine, where one might imagine there to be a direct, physical relationship between the intervention being tested and its consequences, results can vary — but many think the situation is worse in the social sciences. This is because the relationship […]

pchyburrs/Getty Images Academic studies in the social sciences often find very different results. Even in disciplines like medicine, where one might imagine there to be a direct, physical relationship between the intervention being tested and its consequences, results can vary — but many think the situation is worse in the social sciences. This is because the relationship […]

pchyburrs/Getty Images Academic studies in the social sciences often find very different results. Even in disciplines like medicine, where one might imagine there to be a direct, physical relationship between the intervention being tested and its consequences, results can vary — but many think the situation is worse in the social sciences. This is because the relationship […]

pchyburrs/Getty Images Academic studies in the social sciences often find very different results. Even in disciplines like medicine, where one might imagine there to be a direct, physical relationship between the intervention being tested and its consequences, results can vary — but many think the situation is worse in the social sciences. This is because the relationship […]

Andrew Lichtenstein/Getty Images I recently moderated a panel at a conference and asked the group of successful executives to describe someone who has been instrumental in their careers. Two panelists eagerly jumped in with stories of bosses who had mentored, encouraged, and opened doors for them. Then, hesitantly at first, the last person shared a […]

Lya_Cattel/Getty Images As the saying goes, “History does not repeat itself, but it rhymes.” After a long exile, tariffs are back, and they’re being levied on billions of dollars of traded goods, ranging from steel and aluminum to Harley-Davidson motorcycles. They’re part of a trade war between the U.S. and China, and between the U.S. and […]

Ryan McVay/Getty Images With U.S. household credit card debt at an all-time high of more than $1 trillion, delinquent payments can be more costly than ever. For companies, delinquencies can mean massive collection costs and write-offs of entire accounts. For consumers, delinquency can mean late fees, increased interest rates, downgraded credit scores, the loss of […]

Is a recent firing weighing on you? In this episode of HBR’s advice podcast, Dear HBR:, cohosts Alison Beard and Dan McGinn answer your questions with the help of Susan David, a psychologist, lecturer at Harvard Medical School, and the author of Emotional Agility. They talk through what to do when your coworker has been […]

SinghaphanAllB/Getty Images When is it possible for David to beat Goliath in the platform economy? On March 25 mighty Uber bowed out of Southeast Asia by selling its operation in several countries to local rival Grab. The news came as a surprise to many observers. Grab, which launched its service in 2012 with 40 drivers […]

Orlagh Murphy/Getty Images A quiet revolution is taking place. In contrast to much of the press coverage of artificial intelligence, this revolution is not about the ascendance of a sentient android army. Rather, it is characterized by a steady increase in the automation of traditionally human-based decision processes throughout organizations all over the country. While advancements […]

Orlagh Murphy/Getty Images A quiet revolution is taking place. In contrast to much of the press coverage of artificial intelligence, this revolution is not about the ascendance of a sentient android army. Rather, it is characterized by a steady increase in the automation of traditionally human-based decision processes throughout organizations all over the country. While advancements […]

Orlagh Murphy/Getty Images A quiet revolution is taking place. In contrast to much of the press coverage of artificial intelligence, this revolution is not about the ascendance of a sentient android army. Rather, it is characterized by a steady increase in the automation of traditionally human-based decision processes throughout organizations all over the country. While advancements […]

Orlagh Murphy/Getty Images A quiet revolution is taking place. In contrast to much of the press coverage of artificial intelligence, this revolution is not about the ascendance of a sentient android army. Rather, it is characterized by a steady increase in the automation of traditionally human-based decision processes throughout organizations all over the country. While advancements […]

Orlagh Murphy/Getty Images A quiet revolution is taking place. In contrast to much of the press coverage of artificial intelligence, this revolution is not about the ascendance of a sentient android army. Rather, it is characterized by a steady increase in the automation of traditionally human-based decision processes throughout organizations all over the country. While advancements […]

hbrstaff/birdimages/Getty Images Productive: “Achieving or producing a significant amount of result.” Enough: “As much or as many as required.” As a time management coach, I’m keenly aware that you could answer the question “Am I productive enough?” using a variety of methods. I’m also familiar with the fact that individuals fall on a productivity spectrum. […]

hbrstaff/birdimages/Getty Images Productive: “Achieving or producing a significant amount of result.” Enough: “As much or as many as required.” As a time management coach, I’m keenly aware that you could answer the question “Am I productive enough?” using a variety of methods. I’m also familiar with the fact that individuals fall on a productivity spectrum. […]

hbrstaff/birdimages/Getty Images Productive: “Achieving or producing a significant amount of result.” Enough: “As much or as many as required.” As a time management coach, I’m keenly aware that you could answer the question “Am I productive enough?” using a variety of methods. I’m also familiar with the fact that individuals fall on a productivity spectrum. […]

Illustration by James Yang Language is a uniquely human capability and the manifestation of our intelligence. But through AI — specifically natural language processing (NLP) — we are providing machines with language capabilities, opening up a new realm of possibilities for how we’ll work with them. Today you can walk into a darkened living room […]

Zachary Scott/Getty Images Public speaking is so stressful for so many people that it is routinely used as a stress manipulation in psychological studies. Tell undergrads they have 10 minutes to prepare a speech that will be evaluated by experts, and their levels of the stress hormone cortisol shoot through the roof. Yet success in many […]

Zachary Scott/Getty Images Public speaking is so stressful for so many people that it is routinely used as a stress manipulation in psychological studies. Tell undergrads they have 10 minutes to prepare a speech that will be evaluated by experts, and their levels of the stress hormone cortisol shoot through the roof. Yet success in many […]

Zachary Scott/Getty Images Public speaking is so stressful for so many people that it is routinely used as a stress manipulation in psychological studies. Tell undergrads they have 10 minutes to prepare a speech that will be evaluated by experts, and their levels of the stress hormone cortisol shoot through the roof. Yet success in many […]

Zachary Scott/Getty Images Public speaking is so stressful for so many people that it is routinely used as a stress manipulation in psychological studies. Tell undergrads they have 10 minutes to prepare a speech that will be evaluated by experts, and their levels of the stress hormone cortisol shoot through the roof. Yet success in many […]

Zachary Scott/Getty Images Public speaking is so stressful for so many people that it is routinely used as a stress manipulation in psychological studies. Tell undergrads they have 10 minutes to prepare a speech that will be evaluated by experts, and their levels of the stress hormone cortisol shoot through the roof. Yet success in many […]

Peter Dazeley/Getty Images Culturally diverse teams, research shows, can help deliver better outcomes in today’s organizations. This is largely a good thing: Diverse teams have the potential to be more creative because of the breadth of information, ideas, and perspectives that members can bring to the table. But these teams often suffer from conflicting norms […]

Walker and Walker/Getty Images At the law firm Allen & Overy, the idea of replacing traditional, annual performance appraisals with a technology-enabled continuous feedback system did not come from human resources. It came from a leader within the practice. Wanting something that encouraged more-frequent conversations between associates and partners, the senior lawyer read about what […]

Gerry Anderson, the CEO of DTE Energy, and Robert Quinn and Anjan Thakor, professors at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business and the Olin Business School at Washington University, respectively, discuss how an aspirational mission can motivate employees and improve performance. Anderson talks about his own experience. Quinn and Thakor explain their research […]

RichVintage/Getty Images “Go find your passion,’’ Henry directed his children when they reached their late teens and early twenties. “Find your interests outside our family business and pursue them.’’ As inspiring as those words may have been, Henry, the patriarch of a successful automotive parts business, wasn’t simply freeing his children to follow their dreams. […]

Alice Mollon/Getty Images In any organization, people apply unspoken rules and understood norms to get collective work done — in other words, they collaborate. Over the past 15 years, my team and I have observed and facilitated thousands of meetings and helped hundreds of teams come together to do work, and we have found that collaboration […]

Alice Mollon/Getty Images In any organization, people apply unspoken rules and understood norms to get collective work done — in other words, they collaborate. Over the past 15 years, my team and I have observed and facilitated thousands of meetings and helped hundreds of teams come together to do work, and we have found that collaboration […]

Alice Mollon/Getty Images In any organization, people apply unspoken rules and understood norms to get collective work done — in other words, they collaborate. Over the past 15 years, my team and I have observed and facilitated thousands of meetings and helped hundreds of teams come together to do work, and we have found that collaboration […]

Alice Mollon/Getty Images In any organization, people apply unspoken rules and understood norms to get collective work done — in other words, they collaborate. Over the past 15 years, my team and I have observed and facilitated thousands of meetings and helped hundreds of teams come together to do work, and we have found that collaboration […]

Alice Mollon/Getty Images In any organization, people apply unspoken rules and understood norms to get collective work done — in other words, they collaborate. Over the past 15 years, my team and I have observed and facilitated thousands of meetings and helped hundreds of teams come together to do work, and we have found that collaboration […]

Frank Schwere/Getty Images Like any psychological concept that booms in popularity, growth mindset — the dual belief that skills and abilities can be improved, and that developing your skills and abilities is the purpose of the work you do — is ripe for misinterpretation. Hoping to learn how organizations put growth mindset to use in […]

Tanased Heamathulin/EyeEm/Getty Images If we were designing a labor market from scratch today, it’s unlikely we’d create one that rewards only full-time employees. It wouldn’t make sense given the many ways that people choose to — or must — work: independently, part-time, on the side, as a contractor or freelancer, or on-demand. An estimated 30-40% of today’s […]

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markus spiske/unsplash In 2014, Stanford professor Clifford Nass faced a student revolt. Nass’s students claimed that those in one section of his technology interface course received higher grades on the final exam than counterparts in another. Unfortunately, they were right: two different teaching assistants had graded the two different sections’ exams, and one had been […]

H. Armstrong Roberts/ClassicStock/Getty Images Although religion is a central aspect of life for many people across the globe, there is scant research on how religion affects non-religious routines like grocery shopping. But using both field and laboratory data, we recently found that grocery spending decreases as religiosity rises. For companies in industries with razor-thin margins, […]

H. Armstrong Roberts/ClassicStock/Getty Images Although religion is a central aspect of life for many people across the globe, there is scant research on how religion affects non-religious routines like grocery shopping. But using both field and laboratory data, we recently found that grocery spending decreases as religiosity rises. For companies in industries with razor-thin margins, […]

H. Armstrong Roberts/ClassicStock/Getty Images Although religion is a central aspect of life for many people across the globe, there is scant research on how religion affects non-religious routines like grocery shopping. But using both field and laboratory data, we recently found that grocery spending decreases as religiosity rises. For companies in industries with razor-thin margins, […]

H. Armstrong Roberts/ClassicStock/Getty Images Although religion is a central aspect of life for many people across the globe, there is scant research on how religion affects non-religious routines like grocery shopping. But using both field and laboratory data, we recently found that grocery spending decreases as religiosity rises. For companies in industries with razor-thin margins, […]

H. Armstrong Roberts/ClassicStock/Getty Images Although religion is a central aspect of life for many people across the globe, there is scant research on how religion affects non-religious routines like grocery shopping. But using both field and laboratory data, we recently found that grocery spending decreases as religiosity rises. For companies in industries with razor-thin margins, […]

Klaus Vedfelt/Getty Images Human beings have an astonishing ability to learn, but our motivation to do so tends to decrease with age, particularly in adulthood. As children, we are naturally curious and free to explore the world around us. As adults, we are much more interested in preserving what we learned, to the point of […]

Classen Rafael/EyeEm/Getty Images Despite good intentions—and widespread acceptance of the importance of innovation—efforts to innovate at large companies often lack a clear mission and framework, and as a result, they go off the rails. At one large European energy company we consulted with, no less than four separate corporate functions were supposed to be working […]

Oliver Burston/Getty Images While overall adoption of artificial intelligence remains low among businesses (about 20% upon our last study), senior executives know that AI isn’t just hype. Organizations across sectors are looking closely at the technology to see what it can do for their business. As they should—we estimate that 40% of all the potential […]

Martin Konopka/EyeEm/Getty Images The use of virtual file-sharing platforms like Dropbox, Google Docs, and others has become ubiquitous in business, academic, and other settings. But is your team using such collaborative platforms as effectively as they could be? Whether working on cancer cures or the latest consumer-tech products, how teams collaborate affects their performance and […]

Jan Stromme/Getty Images CEOs are known for their confidence. It is, after all, one of the reasons they’ve made it to the top. And yet, that confidence sometimes flags, as we at leadership advisory firm Egon Zehnder learned from a survey  of 402 CEOs from 11 countries—executives who together run companies with  $2.6 trillion in […]

Jan Stromme/Getty Images CEOs are known for their confidence. It is, after all, one of the reasons they’ve made it to the top. And yet, that confidence sometimes flags, as we at leadership advisory firm Egon Zehnder learned from a survey  of 402 CEOs from 11 countries—executives who together run companies with  $2.6 trillion in […]

Valerio Gualandi/EyeEm/Getty Images Most people I know have a to-do list so long that it’s not clear that there’s an end to it. Some tasks, even quite important ones, linger unfinished for a long time, and it’s easy to start feeling guilty or ashamed about what you have not yet completed. People experience guilt and […]

PhotoAlto/Matthieu Spohn/Getty Images A recent survey by Deloitte of “aggressive adopters” of cognitive technologies found that 76% believe that they will “substantially transform” their companies within the next three years. There probably hasn’t been this much excitement about a new technology since the dotcom boom years in the late 1990s. The possibilities would seem to […]

Hayon Thapaliya/HBR Staff If you ran a fancy restaurant, would you want the chef also to clean dishes and mop the floor? Of course not. You’d hire others to do these things and let the chef focus on producing delicious food. This simple idea — that one should match the skill level of the individual […]

HBR Staff The world’s 230 million knowledge workers are frazzled. Modern life is an interminable cacophony of emails, notifications, messages, alerts, feeds, data and information. 70% of us look at our phones within 30 minutes of waking up. All this causes stress. With multiple notifications on multiple apps on multiple pages of our devices, where […]

spiderstock/Getty Images One of the biggest challenges facing management scientists has been the struggle to produce knowledge that is both academically rigorous and applicable to practicing managers. In an Academy of Management Journal editorial, we described two problems that contribute to this challenge. The first is what we called the “Lost in Translation” problem, which […]

Klaus Vedfelt/Getty Images No, it’s not just you. If you’ve ever doubted that you had your boss’s full attention while her laptop is open in front of her, stop doubting. In spite of her protests that “I’m listening, go ahead…,” she wasn’t. Decades ago, research settled the question of whether you and I can do […]

Paul Garbett for HBR No, it’s not just you. If you’ve ever doubted that you had your boss’s full attention while her laptop is open in front of her, stop doubting. In spite of her protests that “I’m listening, go ahead…,” she wasn’t. Decades ago, research settled the question of whether you and I can […]

Hayon Thapaliya/HBR Staff We know that controlling what we pay attention to is the key to living an intentional life.  According to an informal poll of my clients, one of the biggest impediments to attention management is “O.P.P.” — other people’s problems. This is a particular problem for my clients in leadership who find it difficult […]