Muhammad Yunus

A social business is a profit-making company driven by a larger mission. It carries the energy and entrepreneurship of the private sector, raises capital through the market economy, and deals with products, services, customers, markets, expenses, and revenues – but with the profit-maximization principle replaced by the social-benefit principle.

Peanut Butter on the Chin

What The Lucifer Effect, Philip Zimbardo’s landmark book on a prison experiment at Stanford University, tells us about the dangers of corporate conformity.

The 21st-Century MBA

In a world that requires business leaders to address the concerns of all their stakeholders, we must reshape management education to be both practical and aspirational.

The House That Ogilvy Built

The legendary advertising innovator David Ogilvy created an enduring organization using culture, integrity, and charm.

David Ogilvy

If you hire people who are smaller than you are, we shall become a company of dwarfs. If you hire people who are bigger than you are, we shall become a company of giants.

Getting Rid of Grades to Boost Performance

The practice of assigning letter grades to jobs has had perverse consequences. Aligning jobs with accountability is a much better idea.

Brian Dive

Accountability entails being answerable to another person for a product, process, or result that is measurable in terms of quantity, quality, and time. When reviewing an employee’s role in an accountable system, three key questions should be asked: First, why does the job exist? Does it ultimately add value for the customers? (By “customers” we mean anyone who benefits from the organization’s work or products, … [ Read more ]

Making It Easy to Do the Right Thing

In recovering from a crisis, ethical business practice and high performance aren’t opposed.

The Talent Lie

“Putting people first” can be more than a slogan.

A Better Customer Service Connection

In many service industries, customer experience is emerging as a valuable way for companies to differentiate themselves from the competition and to in­crease market share. Most companies understand this, but many are unable to improve interactions with customers enough to make a difference. Why?

Lessons for Business Schools

New books and revisited history illuminate the irrelevance of today’s MBA — and ways to make it compelling again.

Pankaj Ghemawat: The Thought Leader Interview

The seer of “semiglobalization” argues for appreciating regional distinctions.

Launch and Learn

To consistently turn out profitable new offerings, companies must integrate three distinct innovation portfolios.

Start with Sourcing

Procurement lies at the heart of a successful green strategy.

James O’Toole

[Philip Zimbardo’s] observations belie the standard explanation offered by business leaders when people in their organizations are caught misbehaving: Hey, there are a few bad apples in any barrel. Zimbardo argues that, in fact, ethical problems in organizations originate with the “barrel makers” — the leaders who, wittingly or not, create and maintain the systems within which participants are encouraged to do wrong. Hence, instead … [ Read more ]

Twenty Hubs and No HQ

A new form of global organization grounded in “gateway” countries can allow a company to operate profitably around the world.

Phil Rosenzweig

Over the years, I have found that most executives are smart and hardworking, and want to do the right thing. But they are terrible at critical thinking and analytical rigor — usually because they confuse the factors that lead to high performance with attributions based on that performance. They confuse drivers and results. We see this in everything from corporate culture to leadership to employee … [ Read more ]

Phil Rosenzweig

When we ask, “What works in all companies?” we’re looking for an absolute formula in a field — competition in a marketplace setting — that is inherently relative. The answer is, “There isn’t one formula.” If everybody in the industry follows the same prescription, they won’t all be successful. Once we accept this, we’re in the realm of making judgments under uncertainty that are different … [ Read more ]