1166 Posts found for Source: McKinsey Quarterly

Although resilience and adaptability are linked, they are different in important ways. Resilience often entails responding well to an external event, while adaptability moves us from enduring a challenge to thriving beyond it. We don’t just “bounce back” from difficult situations—we “bounce forward” into new realms, learning to be more adaptable as our circumstances evolve and change.

Content: Quotation | Authors: Aaron De Smet, Ashish Kothari, Jacqueline Brassey, Johanne Lavoie, Marino Mugayar-Baldocchi, Sasha Zolley | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subject: Management

Empirical research reveals what it takes to generate value-creating growth today.

Content: Article | Authors: Chris Bradley, Nicholas Northcote, Rebecca Doherty, Tido Röder | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subject: Strategy

If I were to lay out the requirements for a great leader, having a clear cultural aspiration and a plan to drive it through the organization would be really near the top of my list.

Content: Quotation | Author: Chris Gagnon | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Culture, Leadership, Organizational Behavior

The success of hallmark cultures is that they read one of these groups of [business] books that hung together with a consistent philosophy, and they really, really stuck with it. A little bit of best practice here, a little bit of best practice there will get you killed.

Content: Quotation | Author: Chris Gagnon | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Best Practices, Culture, Organizational Behavior

As we get into the [organizational] imperatives, you’ll see most of them are about people: who we are, how we show up, how we see ourselves as part of a larger organization, how we collaborate. How we make decisions, how we show up as talent, and how we use the talent we have.

Content: Quotation | Author: Elizabeth Mygatt | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subject: Organizational Behavior

Every company has to include technology. Technology is there to enable people. But I’ll tell you, what’s really important is people. An organization is designed to organize people and their work and their efforts. Almost all the things that we discuss as keys or imperatives can be enabled by technology, but they’re designed to help people perform. At the heart of this thinking is humanism, … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Chris Gagnon | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: IT / Technology / E-Business, Organizational Behavior

Is your best talent hiding in plain sight? An internal talent marketplace helps match existing employees to open roles—in novel and sometimes unexpected ways.

Content: Article | Authors: Bill Schaninger, Bryan Hancock, Emily Field | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subject: Human Resources

Nonpromotable work profoundly affects women’s careers and lives. In her new book, Lise Vesterlund explains why women so often agree to it—and how they can say no.

Content: Article | Authors: Justine Jablonska, Lise Vesterlund | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Diversity, Human Resources, Women in Business

Too many employers pay too little heed to the needs of the lower earners in their company. Here’s why—and how—they should shift gears.

Content: Article | Authors: Brooke Weddle, Tera Allas | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Human Resources, Management, Motivation, Organizational Behavior

Striking the right balance between decentralized functions and centralized control starts with addressing the needs of business units.

Content: Article | Authors: Aaron De Smet, Caitlin Hewes, Elizabeth Mygatt, Kirk Rieckhoff | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subject: Organizational Behavior

Our latest transformations research confirms that success remains elusive and reliant on a holistic approach. Yet some actions are especially predictive of realizing the financial benefits at stake.

Content: Article | Authors: Bill Schaninger, Brooke Weddle, Kate VanAkin, Michael Bucy | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Change Management, Management

Why do so many great ideas just fail to take off? Executives have plenty of explanations for why their new businesses fail to scale, from poor operations to insufficient talent to simply bad luck. But in many cases, these explanations are based on gut feeling or frustration looking for an outlet, not on a deep understanding of the facts. So we have reviewed more than … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Ari Libarikian, Eike Reus, Jerome Königsfeld, Markus Berger-de León, Ralf Dreischmeier | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Entrepreneurship, Management

Brand building’s measurement problem has obscured its importance. As a result, many CMOs shift too much of their marketing spend toward the easy-to-justify capture of customers at the bottom of the funnel at the expense of the less tangible generation of customer demand and attention at the top. This skew toward bottom-of-the-funnel campaigns has significant implications for long-term value. […] To redress this imbalance, leading … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Jacob Ader, Julien Boudet, Kelsey Robinson, Marc Brodherson | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subject: Marketing / Sales

Whether you have a systematic process or just do health checks as needed throughout the life of the partnership, I am a strong believer that planned reviews are important. They not only help you understand the potential for intervention but set up a smoother relationship with the JV’s management or your partner. Part of the game is making sure everybody is on the same page. … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Eileen Kelly Rinaudo | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subject: Management

Shifts in how businesses create value and how it flows to households highlight the changing role of the corporation.

Content: Article | Authors: Clarisse Magnin-Mallez, Michael Birshan, Sean Brown | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Economics, Social Responsibility (ESG)

As the business environment has become more complex and interconnected in recent years, many companies have mirrored these changes in their organizational structures, creating an ever-more convoluted matrix. Unwittingly, they are betting on organizational complexity to solve market complexity.

This is a losing bet. Future-ready organizations, by contrast, structure themselves in ways that make them fitter, flatter, faster, and far better at unlocking considerable value. Their … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Aaron De Smet, Chris Gagnon, Elizabeth Mygatt | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

Leaders hoping to create a robust performance culture need to start by cooking up their organization’s own unique “secret sauce.” The main ingredient: specific, observable behaviors that employees at all levels of the company adhere to.

Broad themes won’t cut it. Instead, behaviors must be made an integral part of core business activities and specific work tasks, especially for the moments that matter.

Content: Quotation | Authors: Aaron De Smet, Chris Gagnon, Elizabeth Mygatt | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

While all companies have a strategy for how they create value, few can show precisely how the organization will achieve it. Future-ready companies, by contrast, avoid this dilemma by creating a value agenda—a map that disaggregates a company’s ambitions and targets into tangible organizational elements such as business units, regions, product lines, and even key capabilities. Armed with such a depiction, these companies can articulate … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Aaron De Smet, Chris Gagnon, Elizabeth Mygatt | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Best Practices, Management

Ronald Coase argued that corporations exist to avoid the transaction costs of the free market. Yet with transaction costs plummeting (spurred by rising connectivity) this rationale no longer holds up. Why, then, do companies exist?

The answer is identity. People long to belong, and they want to be part of something bigger than themselves. Companies that fixate only on profits will lose ground to organizations that … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Aaron De Smet, Chris Gagnon, Elizabeth Mygatt | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: General, History

Ask executives about their company and you can expect to be shown an organization chart. No wonder. The management concepts that the org chart visualizes—coordination, hierarchy, a matrixed organization—are the ones leaders grew up with and know best, as did generations before them. The original org chart hails from 1854, and was introduced to help run the New York and Erie Railroad during the age of … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Aaron De Smet, Chris Gagnon, Elizabeth Mygatt | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subject: Organizational Behavior