1160 Posts found for Source: McKinsey Quarterly

McKinsey’s survey of global executives finds that corporate culture and a lack of convinced engagement by male executives are critical problems for women.

Content: Article | Authors: Charlotte Werner, Sandra Sancier-Sultan, Sandrine Devillard | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subject: Women in Business

McKinsey’s former managing director Ian Davis explores the phenomenon of long-lived companies and the values and practices they share.

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

After more than 50 years of trying, the search for an ideal model of the global organization remains elusive. But intriguing new experiments are under way.

Content: Article | Authors: Aaron De Smet, Suzanne Heywood, Wouter Aghina | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: International, Management, Organizational Behavior

The founder of McKinsey’s Strategy Practice, a London Business School professor, and a chief strategist turned professor describe pain points and possibilities for strategists on the leading edge.

Content: Article | Authors: Dan Simpson, Frederick W. Gluck, Michael G. Jacobides | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subject: Strategy

If demography is destiny, global growth is headed for a slowdown. History, however, suggests that productivity could ride to the rescue.

Editor’s Note: an obvously topical article, but one which contains some interesting generalized observations and concepts, so definitely worth a read.

Content: Article | Authors: Jaana K. Remes, James Manyika, Jonathan R. Woetzel | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subject: Economics

Despite its ability to generate prosperity, capitalism is under attack. By shaking up our long-held assumptions about how and why the system works, we can improve it.

Content: Article | Authors: Eric Beinhocker, Nick Hanauer | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subject: Economics

Posing five questions can help start a challenging management conversation.

Content: Article | Author: Lareina Yee | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Human Resources, Management, Organizational Behavior, Women in Business

Companies adept at using digital tools along the consumer decision journey are gaining a sizable lead over competitors.

Content: Article | Author: Jacques Bughin | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: IT / Technology / E-Business, Marketing / Sales

It takes a mix of leaders and talent to pursue a variety of growth strategies simultaneously. Few executives can do it all.

Content: Article | Authors: Asmus B. Komm, Katharina Herrmann, Sven Smit | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Best Practices, Human Resources, Leadership, Management

A fine-grained approach to growth is essential for making the right choices about where to compete.

Content: Article | Authors: Mehrdad Baghai, S. Patrick Viguerie, Sven Smit | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Best Practices, Management, Strategy

A lot of organizations do behavioral interviews, where they’re backward looking and asking about your history, what you’ve accomplished, what challenges you’ve overcome. And those don’t turn out to be very effective if you look at the evidence, because they suffer from an apples-and-oranges problem: it’s very hard to compare two people’s work histories.

Instead, what you want to do is ask, “What would you do … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Adam Grant | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Human Resources, Organizational Behavior

Strategic decisions should be the ultimate output of a strategic-planning program. That is, the strategic plan should clearly set forth the critical issues currently facing a company or division in terms of alternative courses of current action. If there are more than five or six issues, they are probably the wrong ones. If the decisions do not involve major risks or investments and/or changes in … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Louis V. Gerstner | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subject: Strategy

Too often a company’s executive motivation system flies in the face of strategic decision making. This occurs for two reasons. First, good managers tend to be promoted so fast that they never have to live with the medium- to long-run outcome of their plans. Second, incentive compensation is often tied either to short-term earnings performance or to stock-price movements, neither of which has anything to … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Louis V. Gerstner | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Compensation, Corporate Governance, Management, Motivation

One simple but powerful approach some multibusiness managers are using today is to sort their individual businesses into three broad portfolio categories: sources of growth (future earnings); sources of current and intermediate earnings; and sources of immediate cash flow. One of my colleagues has suggested that these categories relate directly to the so-called product lifecycle curve which can also, for these purposes, be termed a … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Louis V. Gerstner | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Finance, Management

Does following best practice in strategy, marketing, operations, and organization generally make it possible for companies to increase their revenues consistently—or does that kind of growth usually require something more?

Content: Article | Authors: Caroline M. Thompson, S. Patrick Viguerie, Sven Smit | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Best Practices, Finance, Management, Strategy

Of all the skills of leadership, listening is one of the most valuable—and one of the least understood. Most captains of industry listen only sometimes, and they remain ordinary leaders. But a few, the great ones, never stop listening. They are hear-aholics, ever alert, bending their ears while they work and while they play, while they eat and while they sleep. They listen to advisers, … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subject: Leadership

Judgment is the ability to combine hard data, questionable data, and intuitive guesses to arrive at a conclusion that events prove to be correct. Judgment-in-action includes effective problem solving, the design of strategies, the setting of priorities, and intuitive as well as rational judgments. Most important, perhaps, it includes the capacity to appraise the potentialities of co-workers and opponents.

Content: Quotation | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Decision Making, Judgement, Management, Personal Development

In different ways, many leaders have told us they’ve needed to develop a facility for viewing the world through two lenses: a telescope, to consider opportunities far into the future, and a microscope, to scrutinize challenges of the moment at intense magnification. Most of us are naturally more comfortable with one lens or the other; we are “farsighted” or “nearsighted,” but rarely both. In times … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subject: Leadership

New research makes it increasingly clear that companies with more diverse workforces perform better financially.

Content: Article | Authors: Dennis Layton, Sara Prince, Vivian Hunt | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Best Practices, Human Resources, Organizational Behavior, Women in Business

Great leaders and teams are masters of the obvious—a rare talent.

Content: Quotation | Author: Jeffrey Pfeffer | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Leadership, Management, Organizational Behavior, Teamwork