682 Posts found for Source: Harvard Business Review

In most U.S. industries, the biggest firms have a higher market share than they did three decades ago. One study found that 75% of U.S. industries have become more concentrated since the 1990s and that the average size of the largest players in the economy has tripled. A potential concern with this rise in industry concentration is that it reduces workers’ employment options, and thus … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Wenting Ma | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subject: Economics

Peter Cappelli, professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business and director of its Center for Human Resources, says managers at companies large and small are doing hiring all wrong. A confluence of changes, from the onslaught of online tools to a rise in recruitment outsourcing, have promised more efficiency but actually made us less effective at finding the best candidates. Cappelli says … [ Read more ]

Content: Thought Leader | Author: Peter Cappelli | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subject: Human Resources

One piece of feedback that the executives I coach receive over and over again from their direct reports is: “She doesn’t give enough helpful feedback.”

When I ask these direct reports about the impact this has on them, I find that, in the absence of understanding why they’re getting so little feedback, they often make up their own explanations.

Here are three of the most common stories … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Deborah Grayson Riegel | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Communication, Human Resources, Management, Organizational Behavior

Strong management teams spend less time obsessing over the current income statement and more time focusing on a different report: the forecast. Not all forecasts are built alike, however. We find that a great forecast has five attributes.

Content: Article | Authors: C. Fritz Foley, Mark Khavkin | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subject: Finance

Though AI and other advanced technologies have been applied to improve forecasting accuracy, sales leaders still get blindsided by forecasts that turn out to be embarrassingly overinflated. That’s because the root causes of most inaccuracies are not faulty algorithms but all-too-human behavior. Here are five of the most harmful such behaviors and some techniques that can go a long way toward redesigning systems in ways … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Bob Suh | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Management, Marketing / Sales, Organizational Behavior

A root cause of resistance to change is that employees identify with and care for their organizations. People fear that after the change, the organization will no longer be the organization they value and identify with — and the higher the uncertainty surrounding the change, the more they anticipate such threats to the organizational identity they hold dear. Change leadership that emphasizes what is good … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Merlijn Venus | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subject: Change Management

Companies that implement more structured management practices pay their employees more equally. We found that companies that reported more structured management practices according to the Management and Organizational Practices Survey (MOPS) paid their employees more equally, as measured by the difference between pay for workers at the 90th (top) and 10th (bottom) percentiles within each firm.

Content: Article | Authors: Cristina Tello-Trillo, Melanie Wallskog, Nicholas Bloom, Scott Ohlmacher | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Compensation, Human Resources

While it’s true that what gets measured gets managed, measurement should not be confused with management.

Content: Quotation | Author: Beth Jones | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subject: Management

A wealth of research shows that female leaders, much more than their male counterparts, face the need to be warm and nice (what society traditionally expects from women), as well as competent or tough (what society traditionally expects from men and leaders). The problem is that these qualities are often seen as opposites. This creates a “catch-22” and “double bind” for women leaders.

To alleviate this … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Alyson Meister, Ronit Kark, Wei Zheng | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subject: Women in Business

Companies should do two things to harness the power of analytics in their marketing functions. First, rather than create data and then decide what to do with it, firms should decide what to do first, and then which data they need to do it. This means better integrating marketing and IT, and developing systems around the information needs of the senior management team instead of … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Carl F. Mela, Christine Moorman | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: IT / Technology / E-Business, Marketing / Sales

A great deal of research has been devoted to identifying the key determinants of engagement. Why is it that some people are more engaged — excited, moved, energized by their jobs — than others? Traditionally, this research has focused on the contextual or external drivers of engagement, such as the characteristics of the job, the culture of the organization, or the quality of its leaders. … [ Read more ]

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

There are three elements to a culture: behaviors, systems, and practices, all guided by an overarching set of values. A great culture is what you get when all three of these are aligned, and line up with the organization’s espoused values. When gaps start to appear, that’s when you start to see problems — and see great employees leave.

Content: Quotation | Author: Melissa Daimler | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Culture, Organizational Behavior

One of the biggest challenges facing management scientists has been the struggle to produce knowledge that is both academically rigorous and applicable to practicing managers. There are two problems that contribute to this challenge.

The first is what we called the “Lost in Translation” problem, which refers to the fact that almost no managers turn to academic journals for advice on how to improve their skills … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Debra L. Shapiro | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subject: MBA Related

A culture is simply the collection of beliefs on which people build their behavior. Learning organizations – Peter Senge’s term — classically focus on intellectually oriented issues such as knowledge and expertise. That’s plainly critical, but a true growth culture also focuses on deeper issues connected to how people feel, and how they behave as a result. In a growth culture, people build their … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Tony Schwartz | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Culture, Organizational Behavior

The overarching goal of most business schools is to train future leaders to lead. But how well schools meet this goal, and to what extent their teaching influences their students’ leadership, is an open question. Does business school education really shape students’ minds and behaviors many years later, when they’ve reached decision-making positions at major corporations and financial institutions?

We explore this question by looking at … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Jiwook Jung | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subject: MBA Related

There is a fault line where tensions often erupt in mergers. This fault line is what we call tightness versus looseness. When tight and loose cultures merge, there is a good chance that they will clash.

Tight company cultures value consistency and routine. They have little tolerance for rebellious behavior, and use strict rules and processes to uphold cultural traditions. Loose cultures are much more fluid. … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Michele Gelfand | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subject: Mergers & Acquisitions

To make a good decision, you need to have a sense of two things: how different choices change the likelihood of different outcomes and how desirable each of those outcomes is.

Content: Quotation | Author: Walter Frick | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Decision Making, Management

For many leaders, delegating feels like something they know they should do, but don’t do. When the senior leaders of an organization can’t or won’t delegate, the culture suffers. Before leaders can successfully and effectively delegate, they need to understand their own resistance. Once a leader has begun to shift his or her mindset, it’s time to start shifting behaviors. In my own work … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Deborah Grayson Riegel | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subject: Management

CARVER is a system for assessing and ranking threats and opportunities. Developed during World War II, CARVER (then one letter shorter and known as CARVE) can be both offensive and defensive, meaning it can be used for identifying your competitors’ weaknesses and for internal auditing. In addition, many security experts consider it the definitive assessment tool for protecting critical assets.

Since it draws on both qualitative … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Luke Bencie | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subject: Risk Management

In overcoming resistance to change and building support for change, leaders need to communicate an appealing vision of change in combination with a vision of continuity. Unless they are able to ensure people that what defines the organization’s identity — “what makes us who we are” — will be preserved despite the changes, leaders may have to brace themselves for a wave of resistance.

Content: Article | Author: Merlijn Venus | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subject: Change Management