532 Posts found for Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge

Corporate strategy can guide acquisitions, divestitures, and market and product development efforts outside the scope of individual business units. But the importance of corporate strategy is often overrated…That’s because operational excellence at the business-unit level is fundamental to our prescription for success.

Content: Quotation | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subjects: Execution, Strategy

[stories] fulfill a profound human need to grasp the patterns of living-not merely as an intellectual exercise, but within a very personal, emotional experience.

Content: Quotation | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subjects: Communication, Management

“Negotiation is increasingly a way of life for effective managers,” say HBS professor James Sebenius and colleague David Lax. Their new book, 3-D Negotiation, describes how you can shape important deals through tactics, deal design, and set-up, and why three dimensions are more powerful than one. Here’s a Q&A and book excerpt.

Content: Article | Author: Martha Lagace | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subject: Negotiation

Compensation committees are under pressure to keep CEO pay high, even as shareholders and the media agitate for moderation. The solution? Boards of directors need better competitive information and an ear to what shareholders are saying, says Jay Lorsch.

Content: Article | Author: Jay W. Lorsch | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subject: Corporate Governance

Professor Jerry Green and coauthor Laurence J. Kotlikoff agree with the long-made argument that the deficit and related fiscal measures are basically labeling conventions with no intrinsic meaning. So why, they wonder, aren’t economists getting the message?

Content: Article | Author: Julia Hanna | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subject: Economics

Following the adoption of a collective bargaining agreement in 2005, National Hockey League GMs had one month to absorb the new rules and put a team together. How to best negotiate in an uncertain environment? Michael Wheeler advises looking to military science for winning strategies.

Content: Article | Author: Michael Wheeler | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subjects: Negotiation, Strategy

Do CEOs deserve “star” compensation? The idea that CEO pay is driven by the invisible hand of market forces is a myth from which chief executives have long benefited, say Harvard professors Lucian Bebchuk and Rakesh Khurana.

Content: Article | Authors: Lucian A. Bebchuk, Rakesh Khurana | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subject: Corporate Governance

Most of us trust our intuition more than we should, especially when the pressure is on in negotiations. Professors Max Bazerman and Deepak Malhotra on negotiating more rationally. From Negotiation. Key concepts include:
* Too much trust in intuition can lead to irrational decisions.
* Employ “System 2” thinking to apply logic even in times of stress and indecision.
* In negotiations, schedule more time … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Deepak Malhotra, Max H. Bazerman | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subject: Negotiation

A strategic off-site’s success is largely determined by what happens before it convenes. To make sure the meeting generates tangible results, its designer must do three things. First, answer the most basic questions: Who should be there? Talking about what, when, and why? Second, compile and distribute relevant data. Third, create a structure for the meeting that will compel progress.

Content: Article | Authors: Bob Frisch, Logan Chandler | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subjects: Productivity / Work Tips, Strategy

Each product, operation, and activity should be justified every two or three years, wrote Peter F. Drucker in 1963. But that’s a hard step for managers to take.

Content: Article | Author: Peter F. Drucker | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subject: Management

Most channels are constructed from the supplier out, rather than from the customer in. In other words, the product or service is designed first and it is only then that the supplier thinks about ways to get the product/service out to the customer. If the company achieves its sales goals, it lulls the company into the assumption that the channels must be right. For all … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subjects: Customer Related, Marketing / Sales

Do statistics tell the entire story? Managers must make effective use of the numbers they generate. Here are five tips to help ensure that you can rely on the numbers.

Content: Article | Sources: Harvard Business School (HBS), Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subject: Statistics

Precise thinking and business discipline are essential for business success. Yet, for too many managers in too many companies, “self-evident truths,” that really are vague generalities, get in the way. Jonathan Byrnes calls these “business myths” and exposes ten of the worst offenders in this article.

Content: Article | Author: Jonathan Byrnes | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subjects: General, Management

Business literature is packed with advice about worker motivation-but sometimes managers are the problem, not the inspiration. Here are seven practices to fire up the troops.

Content: Article | Authors: David Sirota, Louis A. Mischkind, Michael Irwin Meltzer | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

Companies suffer from “embedded unprofitability,” says Jonathan Byrnes. Time for CFOs to build grassroots profitability management processes into their companies’ core management activities.

Content: Article | Author: Jonathan Byrnes | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subjects: Finance, Management

To move up the ladder, it’s important that your method of making decisions develops as you do. This excerpt from Harvard Business Review reports on research drawn from a comprehensive Korn/Ferry International database.

Content: Article | Authors: Gary Hourihan, Kenneth R. Brousseau, Michael J. Driver, Rikard Larsson | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subject: Management

There are nine “deadly sins” that can mess up any merger. Most mergers fail at the execution stage-and execution can be fixed.

Content: Article | Authors: Gerald Adolph, J. Neely, Karla Elrod | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge

With regard to national security, pollution, energy policy, education, global warming, and other commons issues, it’s hard to see how individual self-interest can add up to the community-wide base we need to remain a competitive nation in the twenty-first century.

Content: Quotation | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subjects: Economics, Social Responsibility (ESG)

In a new book, Stanford professors Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert I. Sutton assail popular yet shaky-maybe even harmful-management practices. Our excerpt starts with a hot trend: benchmarking.

Content: Article | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

We’re all taught the Lord Acton saying that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. But the more time I spend looking into power, the less I feel that is always true. What I do feel is invariably correct–what power always does–is reveal. Power reveals. When a leader gets enough power, when he doesn’t need anybody anymore–when he’s president of the United States or CEO … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subject: Power / Authority