Business Insight for MBAs and Managers

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Most Recent Business Quotations

“Feedback” is a loaded term. Not only do you tighten up when you ask for “feedback,” so does the feedback giver. Swapping it out for “advice” is more inviting and indicates you value your colleague’s counsel. Instead of saying “Can I have some feedback on what I could have done better?” say “Do you have any advice on how I can improve on X?”
— Shivani Berry

Author: Shivani Berry | Source: "First Round Review" | Subjects: Career, Management, Personal Development

Lots of advice centers around getting better at giving feedback to others, but we rarely focus on how to attract useful feedback about ourselves — even though it’s in our own best interest to do so. What’s more is we often unintentionally repel the rare feedback that does come our way by getting defensive or shutting down.

Knowing what other people think about you can be … [ Read more ]
— Shivani Berry

Author: Shivani Berry | Source: "First Round Review" | Subjects: Career, Personal Development

While post-completion audits for large projects are common in many companies, the feedback into decision making typically happens only sporadically. Advanced companies review not only projects but also past decisions. The head of corporate strategy at a large industrial conglomerate puts it this way: “We made our biggest losses from moves not made. So we also explicitly review opportunity cost mistakes.”
— Ulrich Pidun, Sebastian Stange

Authors: Sebastian Stange, Ulrich Pidun | Source: "Boston Consulting Group (BCG)" | Subjects: Management, Project Management

In most firms, incentives are tied to company or business unit performance. The consequences of large investment decisions typically take too long to materialize to have an impact on an executive’s bonus or promotion. This can lead to moral hazard, especially when managers expect to move on after a couple of years in a position.

We recommend tying personal targets and incentives to the success of … [ Read more ]
— Ulrich Pidun, Sebastian Stange

Authors: Sebastian Stange, Ulrich Pidun | Source: "Boston Consulting Group (BCG)" | Subjects: Accountability, Compensation, Human Resources, Organizational Behavior

Understanding the underlying risks should be a particular focus in project selection. Research has shown time and again that human beings are weak at risk assessment, but some techniques can help. A good starting point can be to frame the discussion in terms of a base question: What do we need to believe in to make this an attractive investment? This framing can help uncover … [ Read more ]
— Ulrich Pidun, Sebastian Stange

Authors: Sebastian Stange, Ulrich Pidun | Source: "Boston Consulting Group (BCG)" | Subjects: Management, Project Management, Risk Management

Most Popular Business Quotations

In principle, patents open up innovations in two ways. First, they confer only temporary rights; once patents expire or are abandoned, the intellectual property they are designed to protect passes into the public domain. Second, they require the details of the invention to be disclosed so they can be replicated. This permits follow-on innovation, which is essential for industrial progress. More recently, as the patent system … [ Read more ]
— The Economist

As for the genius of innovation, clearly the one percent spark of inspiration is nurtured by a positive culture. But the 99 percent perspiration ingredient comes from employees who love what they do, as well as where they do it, and who invest in that Holy Grail of productivity called “discretionary … [ Read more ]
— Stephanie Quappe, David Samso Aparici, Jon Warshawsky

Money never comes first in self-expression of any kind.
— William J. Reilly

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, and comes short again and again, because there is no … [ Read more ]
— Theodore Roosevelt

The uncomfortable fact for many green marketers--and targets of that marketing--is that genuinely going green would mean giving up most of the products and services that clutter our consumer culture. It would mean simplifying, valuing time and people over stuff. How can most products avoid the sin of the hidden trade-off? With a simple label: "You don't really need this."
— David Roberts

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Statistics   [12 posts]
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Automotive   [1 post]
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