682 Posts found for Source: Harvard Business Review

Transparency is often just as effective as a rigidly applied rule book and is usually more flexible and less expensive to administer.

Content: Quotation | Author: Gary Hamel | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Corporate Governance, Management, Organizational Behavior

Our education systems and workplaces plunge us into deep mental ruts. They reward competencies that are self-reinforcing, not diversifying, and they encourage people to acquire domain expertise rather than to ask stupid questions and learn new things. We need to find our way out of these ruts and rekindle the creativity that many of us left behind in childhood.

Content: Quotation | Author: Steve Jurvetson | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subject: Education

HBR interviews Clayton Christensen about how disruptive innovation and business model reinvention are linked.

Content: Multimedia Content | Author: Clayton M. Christensen | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subject: Strategy

Almost all companies grossly underutilize their data assets. Even firms that mine their data for strategic insights barely scratch the surface. Yet, the marketplace value of data is huge and growing. In my work with and research on hundreds of companies across multiple industries, I’ve identified nine distinct strategies that organizations can employ to put their data to work in their marketplaces.

Content: Article | Author: Thomas C. Redman | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subject: IT / Technology / E-Business

Big companies are good at innovating within silos, but woefully bad at combining creative energies across divisions to build new businesses. The problem, we believe, is structural: Business-unit boundaries exist precisely because they create efficient structures for executing strategy. But silo focus and ruthless efficiency come at the cost of cross-divisional collaboration, so some innovation opportunities are either poorly executed or not seen at all. … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Adam M. Kleinbaum, Michael L. Tushman | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Innovation, Management, Organizational Behavior

As a neuropsychiatrist who studies the differences between male and female brains, I’m often asked whether such differences play a role in professional achievement—and particularly, in men’s dominance of the highest ranks of many fields. Male and female brains are more alike than not, and business’s famous glass ceiling has nothing to do with raw intellect. Yet the distinct demands that are put on men’s … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Louann Brizendine MD | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subject: Women in Business

One way to generate a precise customer value proposition is to think about the four most common barriers keeping people from getting particular jobs done: insufficient wealth, access, skill, or time.

Content: Quotation | Authors: Clayton M. Christensen, Henning Kagermann, Mark Johnson | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Customer Related, Marketing / Sales

We need to think about failure in a more fine-grained way. Failures in organizations fall into three quite different types: unsuccessful trials, system breakdowns, and process deviations. All must be analyzed and dealt with, but the first category, which offers the richest potential for creative learning, involves overcoming deeply ingrained norms that stigmatize failure and thereby inhibit experimentation.

Content: Quotation | Author: Amy Edmondson | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior, Success / Failure

Jim March, professor emeritus at Stanford University…pointed out that our understanding of how to manage creativity is impeded by the lack of a theory of novelty, and proposed the beginnings of one. Three conditions seemed to him to be necessary for novelty—slack, hubris, and optimism—which suggest mechanisms that organizations could employ. Slack in an organizational setting means sufficient time and resources for exploration. Increasing hubris … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Jim March, Mukti Khaire, Teresa M. Amabile | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Creativity, Innovation, Organizational Behavior

We came up with five elements that would foster innovation… One, innovation has to start with insights about the customer. Without identifying a need, you can’t come up with new products or processes. Two, great products today have great designs. …Three, you have to encourage experimentation. You must hire people who don’t listen to you… You have to create a sandbox where people can play—and … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Anand G. Mahindra | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subject: Innovation

I started thinking about how to manage transformations in 1981. I read every book on transformation and distilled their essence by identifying common themes and eliminating outliers. On the basis of this intellectual exercise and personal experience, I created a four-step transformation loop. I use acronyms all the time, so I call this ESEE—because “easy” is the one thing change isn’t.

The first E stands for … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Anand G. Mahindra | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subject: Change Management

An exclusive focus on execution-as-efficiency leads companies to delay, discourage, or understaff investments in areas where learning is critical. It’s a given that switching to a new approach can lower performance in the short run. The fastest hunt-and-peck typist must endure a short-term hit to performance while learning to touch-type, just as the tennis player suffers initially when shifting to a new, better serve. These … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Amy Edmondson | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Learning, Training & Development

Abundance has satisfied, and even over-satisfied, the material needs of millions—boosting the significance of beauty and emotion and accelerating individuals’ search for meaning.

Content: Quotation | Author: Daniel Pink | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Customer Related, Marketing / Sales, Personality / Behavior

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A sense of history is essential to anyone who wants to be a leader, because history is both about people and about cause and effect. The American historian Samuel Eliot Morison liked to say that history teaches us how to behave–that is, what to do and what not to do in a variety of situations. History is the human story.

History also shows how the … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: History, Leadership

Spotting talent is one of the essential elements of great leadership.

Content: Quotation | Authors: David McCullough, David P. Snyder | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subject: Leadership

Good leaders judge people by how they handle failure. Good leaders don’t tolerate self-pity in themselves or others. The star performer who has never failed, never fallen flat on his face or been humiliated publicly, may not have what it takes when the going gets rough.

Content: Quotation | Author: David McCullough | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subject: Leadership

Some of your customers aren’t paying their bills. Others are so high-maintenance that the cost of serving them is eroding your profits. Before you show them the door, try this five-step process to manage these problem customers.

Content: Article | Authors: Feisal Murshed, Matthew Sarkees, Vikas Mittal | Sources: BNET, Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Customer Related, Marketing / Sales

The holy grails of supply chain management are high speed and low cost — or are they? Though necessary, they aren’t sufficient to give companies a sustainable competitive advantage over rivals. Here’s what else your company needs.

Content: Article | Author: Hau L. Lee | Sources: BNET, Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Best Practices, Operations

It takes years for your company’s best people to acquire their expertise — but only seconds for them to leave. And when they go, they take their deep smarts — or intuition — with them. Here’s how to make sure you keep wisdom in-house.

Content: Article | Sources: BNET, Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Best Practices, Knowledge Management