682 Posts found for Source: Harvard Business Review

A vast body of research shows that the hiring process is biased and unfair. Unconscious racism, ageism, and sexism play a big role in whom we hire. But there are steps you can take to recognize and reduce these biases. So where should you start? And how can you help others on your team do the same?

Content: Article | Author: Rebecca Knight | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subject: Human Resources

If stepping into a new leadership role has you feeling a little nervous, multiply that feeling by ten to estimate the apprehension rippling through your new team. While you may be wondering whether you are up for the challenge, the people anticipating your arrival are wondering, “What’s going to happen to me?”

As you manage first impressions, existential anxiety can be paralyzing to the workforce. So … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Karen Cates | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Leadership, Management, Organizational Behavior, Personal Development

Narcissists can be disastrous for groups and organizations alike, because they typically want complete transformation even when the system is not broken. But when those narcissists are communal, it can temper much of the downside of narcissism. Instead of avoiding narcissists, organizations may be better served in selecting the right type of narcissist. Our research suggests that finding communal narcissists could bring the best of … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Randall S. Peterson | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Human Resources, Organizational Behavior, Personality / Behavior, Teamwork

Narcissists can be valuable when change is necessary and systemic, but more trouble than they’re worth at almost any other time.

Content: Quotation | Author: Randall S. Peterson | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Human Resources, Organizational Behavior, Personality / Behavior

How pervasive is bureaucracy in your organization? How much time and energy does it suck up? To what extent does it undermine resilience and innovation? Which processes are more trouble than they’re worth? To find out, take the assessment below. At the end of it, you’ll see how your results compare to other readers’.

Content: Article | Author: Gary Hamel | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

our approach to prediction seems stuck in the past. Most business forecasts fail to include measurable outcomes and are not recorded, so it is hard to know if we are even getting better at them.

Research from organizational psychologist Philip Tetlock, the co-author of Superforecasting, suggests an alternative. Studying forecasting tournaments where anonymous experts predicted future events, Tetlock found that some forecasters could … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Danny Hernandez | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Decision Making, Management, Productivity / Work Tips

Engagement is often an ambiguous term. Depending on how it’s measured, engagement could represent job satisfaction, emotional investment in the cause, willingness to invest discretionary effort, or advocating for the company as a good place to work. While many studies suggest that increased employee engagement leads to improved business results in aggregate, a deeper look at the data suggests that this may not always be … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Ryan Fuller | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Human Resources, Organizational Behavior

Many new executives inadvertently set themselves up for failure within the first few months of their tenure through their own actions. As an executive hired from outside the firm, you’ll naturally want to add value and assure your employers and employees that you are the right hire. But based on my work helping executives transitioning into new organizations, I’ve discovered common traps new executives tend … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Sabina Nawaz | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Career, Leadership, Management, Organizational Behavior, Personal Development

75% of organizations struggle to implement strategy. Improve your odds of success with this 7-minute video slide deck.

Content: Multimedia Content | Author: Donald Sull | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Management, Strategy

Although we found that many factors can matter for happiness at work – type of occupation, level of education, tenure, and industry are also significant, for instance – they don’t even come close to mattering as much as the boss’s technical competence. Moreover, we saw that when employees stayed in the same job but got a new boss, if the new boss was technically competent, … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Benjamin Artz | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Human Resources, Management, Organizational Behavior

Executives can view political moves as dirty and will try to distance themselves from those activities. However, what they find hard to acknowledge is that such activities can be for the welfare of the organization and its members. Thus, the first step to feeling comfortable with politics requires that executives are equipped with a reliable map of the political landscape and an understanding of the … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Michael Jarrett | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Career, Management, Organizational Behavior

For managers and marketers alike, the power to calculate what customers might be worth is alluring. That’s what makes customer lifetime value (CLV) so popular in so many industries. CLV brings both quantitative rigor and long-term perspective to customer acquisition and relationships. For all its impressive strengths, however, CLV suffers from a crippling flaw that blurs its declared focus.

Content: Article | Author: Michael Schrage | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Customer Related, Marketing / Sales

I believe there are some essential questions that are useful across a variety of contexts, including, and perhaps especially, the workplace. In fact, I gave a commencement speech last year on this topic, suggesting to students from the Harvard Graduate School of Education that there are really only five essential questions in life. Although the audience was future educators, I believe these questions are equally … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: James E. Ryan | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subject: Leadership

In business management, it is easy to fall victim to the buzzwords or trends of the day when historical understanding and consciousness are lacking. When that happens, authors and thinkers purport to create something new, when they are really only serving old wine in new wineskins. This recalls the comments of the philosopher George Santayana that history will repeat itself for those who do not … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Hermann Simon | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: History, Innovation

As [Peter Drucker] saw it, the winners of the IT revolution are not the hardware or software developers of today, but rather the companies which have access to knowledge and content.

Content: Quotation | Author: Hermann Simon | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: IT / Technology / E-Business, Knowledge Management

History does not repeat itself, nor does it follow given laws, as Karl Marx or Oswald Spengler have suggested. Nevertheless, it can be said that the human being has changed very little during the known course of history. We gain, therefore, valuable insight when we interpret current developments and the future in light of historical analogies.

Content: Quotation | Author: Hermann Simon | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: History, Personality / Behavior

During my 15 years of managing talent as dean of the Rotman School of Management, and previously as cohead of Monitor, I have managed some of the best and brightest in professorial talent and the strategy consulting industry worldwide. Over this combined quarter-century of experience, I developed three rules for managing top-end talent.

Content: Article | Author: Roger L. Martin | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

Michael Mankins, Bain & Company partner and head of the firm’s Organization practice, explains how organizations unintentionally fail to manage their employees’ time and energy. He also lays out what managers can do to reduce what he calls organizational drag.

Content: Thought Leader | Authors: Michael C. Mankins, Sarah Green Carmichael | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

The New York Stock Exchange requires that the boards of all publicly traded corporations conduct a self-evaluation at least annually to determine whether they are functioning effectively. Our research suggests that many board evaluations are inadequate. How can boards better evaluate the performance of directors? Any thorough evaluation should assess the following.

Content: Article | Author: David Larcker | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subject: Corporate Governance

A high-potential employee is usually in the top 5% of employees in an organization. These people are thought to be the organization’s most capable, most motivated, and most likely to ascend to positions of responsibility and power. To help these employees prepare for leadership roles in a thoughtful, efficient manner, companies often institute formal high-potential (HIPO) programs. And yet, according to our data, more than … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Jack Zenger | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subject: Human Resources