Josh Bersin: The secrets of crafting enduring organizations

Why the most enduring organizations stop chasing trends and start designing systems that prioritize people over processes.

The Four Biggest Organizational Cost Challenges—and How to Solve Them

Companies repeatedly launch cost reduction programs—with mixed results. To cut costs sustainably, they need to redesign the organization and change the underlying behaviors that lead to cost creep.

The diversity and inclusion revolution: Eight powerful truths

While most business leaders now believe having a diverse and inclusive culture is critical to performance, they don’t always know how to achieve that goal. Here are eight powerful truths that can help turn aspirations into reality.

A Guide to Building a Unified Culture After a Merger or Acquisition

Mergers and acquisitions, though powerful tools for growth, often fall short of expectations. One reason is a lack of focus on the integration experience of acquired employees. While companies tend to invest heavily in pre-deal due diligence, they frequently overlook the day-to-day realities faced by incoming employees—who often feel undervalued, unsupported, and overwhelmed—ultimately threatening deal success, long-term productivity, and retention. These challenges are preventable through planning … [ Read more ]

5 Questions to Help Your Team Make Better Decisions

In fast-paced, complex business environments, it’s often hard to carve out the time for thoughtful, thorough analysis. Leaders might recognize that better questions lead to better decisions, but they aren’t sure exactly what to ask. These five questions can help. 1) What would happen if we did nothing? 2) What could make us regret this decision? 3) What alternatives did we overlook? 4) How will we … [ Read more ]

Pay transparency can come with unexpected consequences

A new study finds that revealing employee pay unexpectedly influences workplace dynamics in ways never demonstrated before.

Beyond office walls and balance sheets: Culture and the alternative workforce

Managing organizational culture, often a challenge, is getting even harder with the rise of the alternative workforce. How can leaders bring independent contractors, telecommuters, and gig workers into their organization’s culture when so many of the traditional levers don’t apply?

Take 5: How to Tell a Great Story

Storytelling is a key business skill. Here’s how to make your narratives more persuasive.

7 Questions to Decode Your Manager’s Priorities

It’s well known that understanding your boss’s priorities is crucial for career success. Yet many professionals find themselves guessing what their manager really wants or needs. The result? Misaligned efforts, wasted time, and missed opportunities for both you and your leadership. The problem isn’t just busy bosses or poor communication — it’s that we often don’t ask the good questions to get inside our manager’s head. … [ Read more ]

Supporting Frontline Workers Is a Boon to the Bottom Line

With proper attention and investment, frontline workers constitute a motivated workforce that can unleash an organization’s highest potential.

3 Types of Silos That Stifle Collaboration—and How to Dismantle Them

The silo effect, characterized by limited communication between specialized business departments, can negatively impact communication and collaboration in organizations. In particular, there are three types of silos: systemic, elitist, and protectionist, each requiring specific strategies for resolution. These targeted solutions—aligning goals, improving communication, and fostering secure data sharing—can help dismantle silos and foster a more collaborative environment.

Amid Rapid-Fire Workplace Change, Pulse Surveys Emerge

Companies should seek ways to track real-time employee experiences and gain insights into issues affecting employees’ work lives and their organizations’ performance. Leaders realize that engaging employees takes more than sending out an annual survey. Instead, it requires a year-long people strategy aimed at clarifying expectations and maximizing performance. To that end, leaders want a way to gather employee feedback throughout the year. Thus, the … [ Read more ]

B2B Organic Growth Demands a Strong Organizational Identity

In Gallup’s experience, companies that want to create or sustain a strong culture can only do so by focusing on the larger dynamic: their organizational identity.

Organizational identity is made up of three interrelated elements: purpose, brand and culture.

  • Purpose: Why does our organization exist, and why are we here?
  • Brand: How are we known to the world?
  • Culture: How do we live, and how do we accomplish

[ Read more ]

What Drives Managers to Sabotage Talented Employees

Intense competition in the workplace may lead managers to sabotage talented employees to protect their own job security, says research by Hashim Zaman and Karim Lakhani.

Crossing the mental Rubicon: Don’t let decisiveness backfire

We demand that leaders be decisive, but research in social psychology and behavioral economics suggests that decisiveness is not an unequivocal good. Studies on “mindset” reveal that, when contemplating an important decision, prematurely focusing on execution can exacerbate decision-making biases and lead to overconfidence and excessive risk-taking.

How to Bring Out the Best in Your People and Company

Connecting with others and belonging are basic human needs that are essential to being our best selves.

When we leave an experience where we presented our imperfect selves yet felt belonging, we feel energized and at our best. When we leave an experience where we presented our imperfect selves and were ignored or ridiculed, we feel deeply disconnected and disengaged.

This is as true at work as … [ Read more ]

4 Listening Skills Leaders Need to Master

Leaders who listen well create company cultures where people feel heard, valued, and engaged. In addition, employees who experience high-quality listening report greater levels of job satisfaction and psychological safety. If you’re interested in sharpening your listening skills, try using these four techniques: (1) Listen until the end — don’t jump in or interrupt the speaker; (2) Listen to summarize the problem, not to solve … [ Read more ]

Go, teams: When teams get healthier, the whole organization benefits

Creating effective teams depends on multiple factors, including high levels of trust and communication, and understanding team context. A new approach helps elevate performance and create value.

Why Workers Should Evaluate Their Managers

Implementing bottom-up feedback can improve management and productivity, according to research by Wharton’s Shing-Yi Wang.