1160 Posts found for Source: McKinsey Quarterly

Fifty percent of launches don’t hit their targets. Launch champions follow these four rules.

Content: Article | Authors: Alessandro Buffoni, Alex Krieg, Alice de Angelis, Volker Grüntges | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Innovation, Management

Experts say three [coaching] practices that appear to deliver results are to change the language of feedback; to provide constant, crowdsourced vignettes of what worked and what didn’t; and to focus performance discussions more on what’s needed for the future than what happened in the past.

Content: Quotation | Authors: Asmus Komm, Boris Ewenstein, Bryan Hancock | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Coaching, Human Resources, Management

When seeking to understand and address these [organizational] mind-sets, we like to use the image of an iceberg popularized by MIT academics Otto Scharmer and Katrin Kaufer. Above the surface (the tip of the iceberg) is the visible behavior repeated and reinforced by the organization every day. Under the surface are employees’ thoughts and feelings (both conscious and unconscious); their values and beliefs (the things … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Chris Gagnon, Elizabeth John, Rob Theunissen | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subject: Organizational Behavior

Given all the data and practical experience that supports working on [organizational] health, companies’ obsession with the P&L alone continues to puzzle us. It’s right that leaders manage their P&L meticulously, but why not do the same for their health? In fact, why not measure health frequently throughout the year, since it’s a leading indicator of performance, whereas financial results are a lagging one? Similarly, … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Chris Gagnon, Elizabeth John, Rob Theunissen | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Finance, Management, Organizational Behavior

We think of organizational health as more than just culture or employee engagement. It’s the organization’s ability to align around a common vision, execute against that vision effectively, and renew itself through innovation and creative thinking. Put another way, health is how the ship is run, no matter who is at the helm and what waves rock the vessel.

Content: Quotation | Authors: Chris Gagnon, Elizabeth John, Rob Theunissen | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

More companies are committing to gender equality. But progress will remain slow unless we confront blind spots on diversity—particularly regarding women of color, and employee perceptions of the status quo.

Content: Article | Authors: Alexis Krivkovich, Irina Starikova, Kelsey Robinson, Lareina Yee, Rachel Valentino | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subject: Women in Business

For faster progress, companies need to draw on the power of design, rethink their assumptions, and use data to inform decision making.

Content: Multimedia Content | Author: Iris Bohnet | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Human Resources, Women in Business

If you have a society that is well educated, healthy, has good housing conditions, safety, and a good quality of life, isn’t it obvious that there would be a more competitive, highly productive society?

Content: Quotation | Author: Dezsö J. Horváth | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subject: Economics

Standard cost-cutting programs typically start with a directive to reduce the previous year’s spending levels. As a result, executives naturally focus on the largest expense categories—the tallest trees in the forest. Xero-based budgeting (ZBB) instead asks everyone to rebuild their budgets from the bottom up, with no carryover from the preceding year. This process identifies many small pockets of waste that add up to big … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Allison Watson, Carey Mignerey, Kyle Hawke, Matt Jochim | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Finance, Management

Companies can vastly raise the odds of success if they take the time to build the needed capabilities.

Content: Article | Authors: Amy Radermacher, Cinzia Lacopeta, Elena Dumitrescu, Erhard Feige | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subject: Training & Development

More than 80 years ago, Nobel laureate Ronald Coase argued that companies establish their boundaries on the basis of transaction costs like these: when the cost of transacting for a product or service on the open market exceeds the cost of managing and coordinating the incremental activity needed to create that product or service internally, the company will perform the activity in-house. As digitization reduces … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Miklos Dietz, Nicolaus Henke, Venkat Atluri | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Economics, Strategy

A decade into our research, we highlight key findings—and invite 16 global leaders to look at how to increase gender diversity in corporations and imagine the inclusive company of the future.

Content: Article | Authors: Alix de Zelicourt, Cecile Kossoff, Eric Labaye, Georges Desvaux, Sandra Sancier-Sultan, Sandrine Devillard | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subject: Women in Business

The change-management literature has long focused on the need to overcome resistance. But resistance can imply intent, when in reality people often revert to old behavior out of habit or instinct, reflecting old mind-sets that may persist even after an apparently successful initial transformation.

Content: Quotation | Authors: Alessandra Fantoni, Jacek Fabianowicz, Randy Cook, Stefan de Raedemaecker | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Change Management, Organizational Behavior

Typically, focusing too intently on particular tools points to a deeper issue: people haven’t fully assimilated the ideas underlying the tools, whose point is to reinforce a continuous-improvement culture, not to create experts in the tools.

Content: Quotation | Authors: Alessandra Fantoni, Jacek Fabianowicz, Randy Cook, Stefan de Raedemaecker | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subject: Management

The elements of a good performance-management system are simple, but integrating them into a business’s fundamental operating system is more difficult than it seems.

Content: Article | Authors: Frédéric Gascon, John Douglas, Raffaele Carpi | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Management, Operations

Some observers might consider organizational silos—so named for parallel parts of the org chart that don’t intersect—a structural issue rather than a cultural one. But silos are more than just lines and boxes. The narrow, parochial mentality of workers who hesitate to share information or collaborate across functions and departments can be corrosive to organizational culture.

Content: Quotation | Authors: Julie Goran, Laura LaBerge, Ramesh Srinivasan | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subject: Organizational Behavior

The critical question for executives concerned with their organization’s risk appetite is whether they are trusting their employees, at all levels, to make big enough bets without subjecting them to red tape.

Content: Quotation | Authors: Julie Goran, Laura LaBerge, Ramesh Srinivasan | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior, Risk Management

One of the things about failure is that it’s asymmetrical with respect to time. When you look back and see failure, you say, ‘It made me what I am!’ But looking forward, you think, ‘I don’t know what is going to happen and I don’t want to fail.’ The difficulty is that when you’re running an experiment, it’s forward looking. We have to try extra … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Ed Catmull | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Leadership, Management, Organizational Behavior, Personality / Behavior, Success / Failure

Why do companies need to be more nimble? McKinsey’s Aaron De Smet and Chris Gagnon explain what’s driving organizational agility, why it matters, and what to do.

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

Ultimately, it is the economy-wide productivity consequences of technological innovation, not innovation per se, that lifts living standards. Innovation can co-exist side-by-side with low productivity (conversely, productivity growth is sometimes possible in the absence of innovation, when resources move to the more productive sectors).

Content: Quotation | Author: Dani Rodrik | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subject: Economics