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

Many organizations suffer a disconnect between strategy formulation and its execution. The answer? HBS professor Robert S. Kaplan and colleague Andrew Pateman argue for the creation of a new corporate office.

Content: Article | Author: Martha Lagace | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subjects: Organizational Behavior, Strategy

First-line managers should operate the company. Directors should coach the managers and spend an equal amount of time working with their counterpart directors in other functional areas to ensure that each piece of the business is productive and profitable. Vice presidents should coach the directors and spend the majority of their time defining and developing the company as it will need to be in three … [ Read more ]

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

When used as a management tool, rolling forecasts have an edge over many other performance management systems. This excerpt from the new book Reinventing the CFO explains how to make forecasts realistic and effective.

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

“Concessions are often necessary in negotiation” says HBS professor Deepak Malhotra. “But they often go unappreciated and unreciprocated.” Here he explains four strategies for building good will and reciprocity.

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

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Gender is not a good predictor of negotiation performance, but ambiguous situations can trigger different behaviors by men and women. Here is how to neutralize the differences and reduce inequities.

Content: Article | Authors: Dina W. Pradel, Hannah Riley Bowles, Kathleen L. McGinn | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subjects: Negotiation, Women in Business

The logic behind the use of options as managerial incentive is flawed once you consider what behaviors are actually rewarded. Roger Martin, Dean of the University of Toronto’s business school and one of the co-founders of the strategy consulting firm Monitor, noted the problems of mixing the measuring and rewarding of performance in an expectations market – the stock market – with the measuring and … [ Read more ]

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

We all live and die by the numbers-but do we really understand what they mean? Here’s how managers can help all employees understand cash flows and liquidity ratios.

Content: Article | Authors: Joe Knight, John Case, Karen Berman | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subjects: Finance, Management

The mistake that most [finance teams] make is assuming that forecasts are about predicting and controlling future outcomes. The purpose of forecasting is to inform decision making (to help shape future outcomes), not to predict the future. In reality, forecasting is necessary only because organizations cannot react instantly to changing events. That’s why fast reaction is more important than (even accurate) prediction – because accuracy … [ Read more ]

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

What is the single most important thing a CEO can do to maximize his or her company’s performance?

The answer is to creatively, aggressively, and systematically build the capabilities of the company’s middle management team: the vice presidents, directors, and managers.

Middle management excellence, resting on managing at the right level, coordinated profitability management, and managing as teaching, can be systematically developed and constantly improved. It … [ Read more ]

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

Hiring managers have all but ignored standard IQ, but they remain the best predictor of managerial success. Here is how to design an interview that uncovers executive intelligence.

Content: Article | Author: Justin Menkes | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subject: Human Resources

Visionaries buy on the promise of a product; pragmatists buy when the product’s benefits are proven. But pragmatists usually control the bulk of the money. Understanding how a specific set of pragmatists and visionaries relate to one another in the application that the venture chooses to pursue is the key to rapid revenue growth; because, if you do business with the “wrong” visionaries, they’ll lead … [ Read more ]

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

Just like hitting a baseball, timing is everything when talking to your customer. If you don’t provide the right message using the right delivery vehicle at the right time, chances are your customer is going to ignore your hard-crafted pitch. In an article in the November issue of Harvard Business Review, authors Kirthi Kalyanam and Monte Zweben envision a computer-based model called “dialogue marketing” that … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Kirthi Kalyanam, Monte Zweben | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subjects: Customer Related, Marketing / Sales

[Adam] Smith believed that much of human behavior was under the influence of the “passions” – emotions such as fear and anger, and drives such as hunger and sex – but these passions were moderated by an internal “voice of reason,” which he called an “impartial spectator.” The impartial spectator allows one to see one’s own feelings and the pulls of immediate gratification from the … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subject: Personality / Behavior

Forced ranking may be the electrified third rail of human resource management. In an excerpt from a new book, author Dick Grote makes the case for the controversial employee-evaluation system-at least on an interim basis.

Content: Article | Author: Dick Grote | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subject: Human Resources

In a recent Harvard Business Review article, professor Robert Simons wrote about how organizations can design jobs for maximum performance. In this excerpt, Simons discusses what he terms the four basic “spans” of a job-control, accountability, influence, and support-and how managers can adjust those spans as if on sliders to make employees more effective.

Content: Article | Author: Robert Simons | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subject: Management

There seems to be a repeating pattern in which businesses and investors are invariably caught, without warning, in economic downturns and the accompanying bear markets. In cycle after cycle, the abilities of the business and investment communities to perceive the downturn as it occurs are typically so belated that there is little capacity for avoiding its damaging effects.

Much of the problem seems to revolve around … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Joseph H. Ellis | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subject: Economics

Productive learning often takes place in stages. First, the learner is exposed to the core concepts, and then he or she tries to apply them and finds that he or she needs to understand them better. This makes the learner more receptive, and so the process repeats itself. Most effective courses are structured this way. Periodic tests help highlight progress and areas where more work … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subjects: Learning, Training & Development

A person’s performance on any behavioral interview question is dominated by the same three qualities: experience, job knowledge, and social skills. A candidate with a long work history has lots of compelling examples to draw from when asked to recount events that might illustrate a particular competency. A candidate’s job knowledge-specifically, his awareness of industrial and managerial best practices-can make it easier for him to … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subject: Human Resources

Managers can be adept at playing budget games, such as setting goals easily surpassed to win a bonus. The problem: Such fictions lead to far-reaching consequences in your company.

Content: Article | Authors: Lauren Keller Johnson, Richard Steele | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subjects: Finance, Management