1159 Posts found for Source: McKinsey Quarterly

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

McKinsey analysis of more than 2,200 large global companies reveals the importance of monitoring both economic-profit growth and revenue growth.

Content: Article | Authors: Peter Stumpner, Tim Koller, Vartika Gupta | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subject: Finance

When I was chief of naval operations, we gathered the senior leadership together to discuss the importance of taking a real break. The science is clear! Then we made it a policy that everybody would take 10–14 continuous days of vacation each year—off the grid. And we monitored that closely. So, come August, if a leader hadn’t taken their days, we had a pretty serious … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Admiral John Richardson | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Human Resources, Organizational Behavior

Two decades of research show that, while large deals still have their place, programmatic M&A strategies continue to create gains in excess total returns to shareholders, at lower levels of risk.

Content: Article | Authors: Jeff Rudnicki, Liz Wol, Patrick McCurdy, Paul Daume, Tobias Lundberg | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Best Practices, Mergers & Acquisitions

Deciding how many employees to involve in an organization’s transformation shouldn’t be a guessing game. New research can help.

Content: Article | Authors: Dominic Skerritt, Laura London, Stephanie Madner | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Change Management, Organizational Behavior

We are not taught how to take advantage of a diverse thought—diverse in the sense that your thought conflicts with mine—rather than saying, “I have an idea. Yours is different than mine. I must make sure mine triumphs,” which is generally what we’re taught to do, to advocate for our point of view. We’re not going to get where we need to be on diversity … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Roger L. Martin | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Diversity, Human Resources, Management, Organizational Behavior

Organizations that define their purpose and use it to guide their activities see a clear upside in improving company reputation, alerting management to risks early, establishing the organization as a leader in raising industry standards, and enhancing business performance.

Content: Quotation | Authors: Bruce Simpson, Celia Huber, Larissa Mark, Sebastian Leape | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

Culture is important in all deal types but particularly when you bring two large groups of people together. Then, the potential friction would be much more visible. And you need to understand the culture of both companies. It is not enough to say, is the target company compatible with us? You need to understand it in a more nuanced way. What are their ways of … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Becky Kaetzler | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subject: Mergers & Acquisitions