678 Posts found for Source: Harvard Business Review

The holy grail of today’s workplace is high employee engagement. Many companies are investing heavily to identify what leads to high engagement in order to motivate employees, thereby increasing their happiness and productivity.We think this is important. But based on our research with several large companies, we want to offer a word of caution: senior leadership needs to invest more into creating a culture of … [ Read more ]

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

And what to do instead

Content: Multimedia Content | Authors: Alexandra Kalev, Frank Dobbin | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Human Resources, Organizational Behavior

Without a sound fact and insight base on which to prioritize resources, squeaky wheels get all the grease. Great strategic executives know how to use data to generate new insights about how they and their industries make money. Examining patterns of performance over time — financial, operational, customer, and competitive data — will reveal critical foresight about future opportunities and risks.

Content: Quotation | Author: Ron Carucci | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Management, Strategy

We narrow our decision-making frame when we believe we know what the future will look like. We implicitly assert that everything is locked in except for what we will do, and so we ask this simple, efficient question: “What should we do?”

Should asks people to spot and advocate the one right decision. It treats decision making as a debate. It drives toward closure. We need … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Mark Chussil | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Decision Making, Management, Strategy, Thought

While nimble startups chasing the next trend are exciting, the truth is that companies rarely succeed by adapting to market events. Rather, successful firms prevail by shaping the future. That can’t be done through agility alone, but takes years of preparation to achieve. The truth is that once you find yourself in a position where you need to adapt, it’s usually too late. […] Truly … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Greg Satell | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Innovation, Management, Strategy

One way to approach a perceived internal skills gap is to consider not just what an internal candidate has done, but what they are capable of doing. Be on the lookout for candidates with crossover skills, which could be as simple as considering someone on your company’s public relations team for a content marketing role.

Content: Quotation | Author: Wade Burgess | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subject: Human Resources

Performance management is broken. See how Deloitte overhauled its system in this 7-minute video slide deck.

Content: Multimedia Content | Author: Marcus Buckingham | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Human Resources, Management

There are many models of emotional intelligence, each with its own set of abilities; they are often lumped together as “EQ” in the popular vernacular. We prefer “EI,” which we define as comprising four domains: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management. Nested within each domain are twelve EI competencies, learned and learnable capabilities that allow outstanding performance at work or as a leader.

Content: Article | Author: Daniel Goleman | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior, Personal Development

Most executives today know their enterprises should be aligned. They know their strategies, organizational capabilities, resources, and management systems should all be arranged to support the enterprise’s purpose. The challenge is that executives tend to focus on one of these areas to the exclusion of the others, but what really matters for performance is how they all fit together. Consider the following questions, ideally with … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Jonathan Trevor | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Best Practices, Management

It’s a common complaint among top executives: “I’m spending all my time managing trivial and tactical problems, and I don’t have time to get to the big-picture stuff.” And yet when I ask my executive clients, “If I cleared your calendar for an entire day to free you up to be ‘more strategic,’ what would you actually do?” most have no idea. I often get … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Ron Carucci | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Personal Development, Time Management, Work

Organizations waste too much time – see how Bain helps them manage it like money in this 10-minute video slide deck.

Content: Multimedia Content | Sources: Bain & Company, Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

When evaluating others’ actions, most people focus more on the outcome of decisions than on intentions, a phenomenon that psychologists call outcome bias. A decision […] is often judged to be lower in quality when it leads to a poor, rather than a good, outcome. The outcome bias is costly to organizations. It causes employees and leaders to be blamed for negative outcomes even when … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Francesca Gino | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Decision Making, Organizational Behavior

Is higher EQ always beneficial? Although the downside of higher EQ remains largely unexplored, there are many reasons for being cautious about a one-size-fits-all or higher-is-always-better take on EQ. Most things are better in moderation, and there is a downside to every human trait.

Content: Article | Author: Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Human Resources, Organizational Behavior

As the talent ecosystem evolves to offer more options, talent systems have not kept pace. Typical systems are fragmented between disciplines like HR (which focuses on the internal, “permanent” workforce) and Procurement (which focuses on the external, “contingent” workforce), each with different and competing goals. That leaves most organizations lacking a clear total workforce perspective and no integrated strategy to engage workers at the right … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: John Boudreau | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subject: Human Resources

CEOs have always had to address conflicts between team members. But this task has grown as each new member comes aboard with a strategy to implement and an expectation that their priorities supersede all others. Health & Safety executives admonish peers who don’t put safety first. Talent executives insist colleagues make “people” their priority or risk an exodus of the best and brightest. Digital executives … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Jacques Neatby | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Corporate Governance, Leadership, Management

Most companies understand the importance of having highly effective managers, but few invest heavily in training to help them get there. One reason is that it’s difficult to measure and quantify what good management actually looks like. While there has been a lot of great work done to identify qualitative traits of great managers — they create trust, focus on strengths, instill accountability, avoid politics, … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Ryan Fuller | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Best Practices, Management, Personal Development

Teams, not individuals, are the future of work. As organizations mobilize to solve increasingly complex problems at an ever faster pace, cooperation and trust between employees has become paramount. But how do you move teammates from collegial behavior to true collaboration? By building their empathy and compassion.

Content: Article | Author: David DeSteno | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior, Teamwork

Reorganizations can be a useful management tool for finding new value and are often essential as part of a merger or acquisition integration. Getting this type of reorganization right allows business units from the merging companies to be brought together smoothly, corporate activities to be standardized and streamlined, people to be aligned behind desired outcomes, and integration synergies to be delivered quickly. To help maximize … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Stephen Heidari-Robinson | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subject: Mergers & Acquisitions

Given that group membership is such a deeply rooted part of human nature and organizational success, a central element of leadership is the management of group identities. In short, great leaders are “entrepreneurs of identity.” They embrace our tribal nature and seek to shape the identity of their fellow group members. To cultivate a strong group identity, leaders can take the following steps.

Content: Article | Author: Jay Van Bavel | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Leadership, Management, Organizational Behavior

Our prevailing system of management has destroyed our people. People are born with intrinsic motivation, self-respect, dignity, curiosity to learn, joy in learning. The forces of destruction begin with toddlers — a prize for the best Halloween costume, grades in school, gold stars — and on up through the university. On the job, people, teams, and divisions are ranked, reward for the top, punishment for … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: W. Edwards Deming | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior