675 Posts found for Source: Harvard Business Review

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

Incremental innovations (small, safe changes to your firm’s offerings) make up 85%-90% of companies’ development portfolios. But “little i” projects rarely produce competitive advantage. For that, you need “Big I” innovations–offerings new to your organization or the world. Yes, they’re risky. But avoid them, and you may strangle your company’s growth.

Professor George S. Day recommends a solution: Increase the proportion of major innovations in your … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: George S. Day | Sources: BNET, Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Innovation, Management

I got the [leading from behind] idea from reading Nelson Mandela. I was reading his autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom…and I came across a passage in which Mandela recalls how a leader of his tribe talked about leadership:

“A leader, he said, is like a shepherd. He stays behind the flock, letting the most nimble go out ahead, whereupon the others follow, not realizing that all … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Linda A. Hill | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subject: Leadership

Strategy is not just a plan, not just an idea; it is a way of life for a company. Strategy doesn’t just position a firm in its external landscape; it defines what a firm will be. Watching over strategy day in and day out is not only a CEO’s greatest opportunity to outwit the competition; it is also his or her greatest opportunity to shape … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Cynthia A. Montgomery | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subject: Strategy

If you ask young men what they want to accomplish by the time they are 40, the answers you get fall into two distinct categories. There are those—the great majority—who will respond in terms of what they want to have. This is especially true of graduate students of business administration. There are some men, however, who will answer in terms of the kind of men … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Seymour Tilles | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Goals, Mission, Planning

It sounds simple, but in fact you could capture all of my research findings with the metaphor of a saltshaker. Instead of filling it with salt, fill it with all the ways you can say yes, and that’s what a good relationship is. “Yes,” you say, “that is a good idea.” “Yes, that’s a great point, I never thought of that.” “Yes, let’s do that … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: John M. Gottman | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Organizational Behavior, Personal Development, Personality / Behavior

Unfortunately, most leadership “recipes” arise from examples of good crisis management. This is a mistake, and not only because chaotic situations are mercifully rare…Indeed, a specific danger for leaders following a crisis is that some of them become less successful when the context shifts because they are not able to switch styles to match it.

Moreover, leaders who are highly successful in chaotic contexts can develop … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: David Snowden, Mary E. Boone | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Crisis Management, Leadership

For executives trying to make sense of a rapidly changing business environment, superiority in pattern recognition is perhaps the greatest competitive advantage that can be developed.

Content: Quotation | Authors: Clint Kilts, Roderick Gilkey | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Management, Personal Development, Skills, Strategy