1160 Posts found for Source: McKinsey Quarterly

McKinsey’s leadership staircase is a pyramid of behavior analogous to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. In this hierarchy, like similar ones, some kinds of behavior are always essential. As organizational health improves, quartile to quartile, additional behaviors become apparent. More tellingly, some appear to be differentiators: emphasizing them in different situations can lift the organizational health of a fourth-quartile company to the third quartile, a third-quartile … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Bill Schaninger, Chris Gagnon, Michael Bazigos | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subject: Leadership

Because there are often different owners throughout a company’s M&A process, it can be particularly tricky to put proper incentives in place for each one. So, incentives must balance the promotion of post-integration success with the successful execution of an individual’s role.

Content: Quotation | Authors: Andy West, Rebecca Doherty, Spring Liu | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subject: Mergers & Acquisitions

Automation is not an inspiring topic. It creates the specter of employees losing their jobs. Talking about the tools that will make our lives better, about unleashing potential, is a more uplifting way of looking at it. Leaders have to frame the story differently, as an opportunity, not a threat.

Content: Quotation | Author: Robert Kegan | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subject: Economics

While companies often obsess about the “boxes and lines” of organizational structure, it’s more important—and significantly more difficult—to focus on processes and capabilities.

Content: Quotation | Authors: Driek Desmet, Ewan Duncan, Jay Scanlan, Marc Singer | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

There’s a lot of time spent looking at learning and learning organizations, but we don’t give as much attention to all the ways we prevent ourselves from learning. Not only the ways we do that individually but also the ways organizations get built to cover our weaknesses and call each other to account. All of those activities, which are ways of avoiding discomfort and anxiety … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Robert Kegan | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Learning, Management, Organizational Behavior

You might think about leadership as having to do with the intersection of psychology and business knowledge. All leaders have both an agenda they’re driving and an agenda that’s driving them. The agenda you’re driving is the business part of it. The agenda that’s driving you is the psychology part.

The agenda that you’re driving seems to me highly mutable because it’s dependent on lots of … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Robert Kegan | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Leadership, Personality / Behavior

There is little agreement among companies about which management approaches are most effective; more empirical evidence is required.

Content: Article | Authors: Jürgen Laartz, Oliver Bossert | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subject: IT / Technology / E-Business

Marketing’s most important role in driving digital growth is through insights from a consumer perspective about the opportunities and threats that the organization faces. One way to do that is with a sharp view of where a company is winning or losing in the consumer decision journey. Marketing should be the agent or catalyst for cross-functional coordination in the organization to capitalize on where you’ve … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Marc Singer | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subject: Marketing / Sales

The main lessons of an agile approach are to test in a sandbox of appropriate size and then have a plan for scaling that mitigates risks.

Content: Quotation | Author: Marc Singer | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subject: Management

Humans are extremely creative and flexible. The challenge of course is that sometimes they are tired or angry, and they make mistakes. From a Six Sigma perspective, all humans are considered to be at about a Three Sigma level, meaning that they perform a task with about 93 percent accuracy and 7 percent defects. Autonomation helps human beings perform tasks in a defect-free and safe … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Marc Onetto | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subject: Operations

Investments can have the same internal rate of return for different reasons. A breakdown of this metric in private equity shows why it matters.

Content: Article | Authors: Cindy Levy, Marc H. Goedhart, Paul Morgan | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subject: Finance

I think that private-equity activity tends to come at the end of the corporate cycle, when a company is already in trouble, has been mismanaged, or is an orphan in need of new leadership. So private equity is another outside agent that comes in when management has failed to do what it needs to do.

Content: Quotation | Author: Louis V. Gerstner | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Business Rules, Corporate Governance, Management, Strategy

If the practices and processes inside a company don’t drive the execution of values, then people don’t get it. The question is, do you create a culture of behavior and action that really demonstrates those values and a reward system for those who adhere to them?

Content: Quotation | Author: Louis V. Gerstner | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior, Values

As the automation of physical and knowledge work advances, many jobs will be redefined rather than eliminated—at least in the short term.

Content: Article | Authors: James Manyika, Mehdi Miremadi, Michael Chui | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subject: Economics

To create distinctive customer experiences, large companies need to push the boundaries and adopt next-generation digital thinking and practices in seven key areas.

Content: Article | Authors: Hyo Yeon, Xavier Lhuer, ’Tunde Olanrewaju | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subject: Customer Related

By adopting a digital product management model, companies can get the most from their IT architectures and deliver innovative online customer experiences faster.

Content: Article | Authors: Martin Harrysson, Oliver Bossert, Roger Roberts | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subject: IT / Technology / E-Business

The causes of business demise—of a failure to endure—are well documented at a general level. They include failure to address changes in market demand or competition effectively; human failings such as hubris, exhaustion, or loss of ambition; loss of operational competitiveness; and above all an inability to deal with new, often disruptive, technological innovations. And sometimes, of course, external factors outside a company’s control, such … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Ian Davis | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Business Rules, Management, Organizational Behavior, Strategy

Companies get into trouble—or the financial markets get unduly agitated or frustrated—when there is a mismatch between natural industry cycles and investor, customer, or even employee horizons. A primary task of strategic management is to define the relevant planning cycles and to think about how to manage from one to the next.

Content: Quotation | Author: Ian Davis | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Management, Strategy

Sustainability initiatives won’t create lasting value if they’re poorly managed. Here are four lessons from companies that are doing it right.

Content: Article | Authors: Achim Berg, Martin Stuchtey, Nils Schlag | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subject: Social Responsibility (ESG)

New survey results find that the most effective transformation initiatives draw upon four key actions to change mind-sets and behaviors.

Content: Article | Authors: Bill Schaninger, Ellen Viruleg, Tessa Basford | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Change Management, Organizational Behavior