675 Posts found for Source: Harvard Business Review

Advantage is neither transitory nor immortal. Hence, strategy is not an either-or exercise about seeking flexibility OR sustainability. It is about both: seeking sustainable competitive advantage in a world full of far-reaching and tumultuous change.

Content: Article | Author: Roger L. Martin | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subject: Strategy

What questions should corporate innovators use to increase their odds of success? There are some classics out there, such as Peter Drucker’s (“If we weren’t already doing it this way, is this the way we would start?”), Ted Levitt’s timeless contribution (“What business are we really in?”), and the question Andy Grove asked to transform Intel (“If the board brought in a new CEO, what … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Scott Anthony | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subject: Innovation

New evidence shows how a strong customer culture drives future business performance and supports market strategies. Our research, based on a quantitative study across more than 150 businesses, spanning various industries and functions, identifies seven cultural factors that drive customer satisfaction, revenue and profit growth, innovation, and new product success. They can be measured and benchmarked for any organization.

Content: Article | Author: Linden R. Brown | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Best Practices, Customer Related, Organizational Behavior

Rating people on a list of competencies is a flawed method for improving their performance. Obviously we need a new system. And what can we say about the new system that would serve us better? Well, the specifics of the system will depend on the company, but we do know that it must have six characteristics, each of which follows logically from the one preceding. … [ Read more ]

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

The practice of rating individuals’ performance on a numerical scale doesn’t accomplish the task managers expect from it, which is to accelerate the performance of their people. At best, it serves other goals: allocating compensation fairly, and aligning each individual’s goals with the values and strategies of the company. However, even if these were sufficient goals, managers would still be frustrated by how poorly … [ Read more ]

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

The fundamental task of organization design is, as it always has been, helping a leader move from defining strategy to putting in place an organization that enables the strategy to be executed predictably. An effective organization design model guides a manager in answering five fundamental questions in a thoughtful and well-integrated way.

Content: Article | Author: John Beeson | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior, Strategy

The future is already here — it is just not very evenly distributed.

Content: Quotation | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subject: Future

Real competitive advantage is enormously long-lived. …To be sure, first mover advantages can vaporize quickly, but not all first mover advantages are backed by a real competitive advantage. So if I hear the demise of MySpace cited once more as evidence that competitive advantage has become more transient, I will puke. All it proves is the basic rule of business: that which can be … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Roger L. Martin | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Competition, Strategy

Why would you need forced rankings to get rid of bad apples if you were doing your job right as a company or leader? The best don’t wait for yearly evaluations—they deal with it now. It always amazes me that—as much as I admire GE in other ways—that they embraced six sigma (based on Deming-like logic that a system in control will have few if … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Robert I. Sutton | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Human Resources, Management, Organizational Behavior

The fundamental task of organization design is, as it always has been, helping a leader move from defining strategy to putting in place an organization that enables the strategy to be executed predictably. An effective organization design model guides a manager in answering five fundamental questions in a thoughtful and well-integrated way.
1. What is the business’s value proposition and it sources of competitive advantage?
2. Which … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: John Beeson | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior, Strategy

Almost all decisions, big and small, are choices between exploring new possibilities and exploiting old ones.

Content: Quotation | Author: Art Markman | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Motivation, Organizational Behavior, Personality / Behavior

There’s nothing more annoying than a meeting that goes on and on and on. As a manager, it’s your job to make sure people don’t go off on tangents or give endless speeches. But how can you keep people focused without being a taskmaster or squashing creativity?

Content: Article | Author: Amy Gallo | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

Historically, the vast majority of customer feedback was anonymous. It was collected in a “market research mode,” which meant no one could follow up with individual customers to address their issues directly. The flawed logic behind this was built on a belief that customers would not share honest feedback unless their identity was kept secret. That might be true in some circumstances, but in my … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Rob Markey | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subject: Customer Related

One typically sees a number of recurring patterns of behavior that influence an individual’s effectiveness within an organization. I think of these patterns as leadership “archetypes,” reflecting the various roles executives can play in organizations and it is a lack of fit between a leader’s archetype and the context in which he or she operates is a main cause of team and organizational dysfunctionality … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Manfred Kets de Vries | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Leadership, Management, Organizational Behavior

Some companies seem to want to hear from their customers-that’s why they spend so much money on elaborate feedback systems. But the approach many of these companies take seems to ensure nobody in the organization will learn anything from what they hear. And if employees don’t learn anything, how can they take action to make things better? Here are some of the tactics companies use … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Rob Markey | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subject: Customer Related

Companies operating in dissimilar environments should be developing their strategies in markedly different ways. But all too often, they are not. Research featured in Harvard Business Review shows how companies can gain an edge by matching their strategic style to the conditions of their industry, business function, or geographic market.

Content: Article | Authors: Claire Love, Martin Reeves, Philipp Tillmanns | Sources: Boston Consulting Group (BCG), Harvard Business Review | Subject: Strategy

The difference between moderate and great success is mostly luck, not skill. Chance plays a much greater role in our careers than we might wish or even realize. Most of us can live with the upside of this observation: we tend to claim credit for good luck anyway. But the downside — the thought of our careers as the playthings of fate — is almost … [ Read more ]

Content: Career Information | Author: N. Taylor Thompson | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subject: Career Info

Maybe you’ve heard the old cliché – if you’ve got “too many chiefs,” your initiative will fail. Every time I hear it, I wonder, “Why can’t everyone be a chief?”

Content: Article | Author: Tim Kastelle | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subject: Organizational Behavior

Anchoring is the psychological phenomenon that makes a number stick in your mind and influence you — even though you think you’re disregarding it. An anchor is such a powerful influence that only another anchor can overcome it. Re-anchoring combats the anchor of history and convention with another anchor, grounded in a different set of facts.

Content: Article | Authors: Dan P. Lovallo, Olivier Sibony | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subject: Management

An interview with Heidi Grant Halvorson and E. Tory Higgins, authors of Focus: Use Different Ways of Seeing the World to Power Success and Influence.

Content: Multimedia Content | Authors: E. Tory Higgins, Heidi Grant | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subject: Organizational Behavior