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Jorg Greuel/Getty Images We’ve all experienced some version of this problem: Ask “how many customers do we have?” and the marketing team provides one answer, sales a second, and accounting a third. Each department trusts its own system, but when the task at hand requires that data be shared across silos, the company’s various systems […]

jessica solomatenko/Getty Images It turns out that the word “innovation” is not a Harry Potter-esque magical incantation that, once spoken, renders companies more inventive, creative, and entrepreneurial. The word can be uttered by a CEO speaking to employees or Wall Street analysts. It can be emblazoned on the door to a new innovation center in […]

JW LTD/Getty Images Companies are using AI in all kinds of innovative ways to advance their businesses. If you’ve ever searched Netflix to watch a movie, AI (a recommendation algorithm) was no doubt used in your decision about what to watch.  If you’ve shopped on Amazon, your decision about what to buy was also influenced […]

JW LTD/Getty Images Companies are using AI in all kinds of innovative ways to advance their businesses. If you’ve ever searched Netflix to watch a movie, AI (a recommendation algorithm) was no doubt used in your decision about what to watch.  If you’ve shopped on Amazon, your decision about what to buy was also influenced […]

JW LTD/Getty Images Companies are using AI in all kinds of innovative ways to advance their businesses. If you’ve ever searched Netflix to watch a movie, AI (a recommendation algorithm) was no doubt used in your decision about what to watch.  If you’ve shopped on Amazon, your decision about what to buy was also influenced […]

JW LTD/Getty Images Companies are using AI in all kinds of innovative ways to advance their businesses. If you’ve ever searched Netflix to watch a movie, AI (a recommendation algorithm) was no doubt used in your decision about what to watch.  If you’ve shopped on Amazon, your decision about what to buy was also influenced […]

JW LTD/Getty Images Companies are using AI in all kinds of innovative ways to advance their businesses. If you’ve ever searched Netflix to watch a movie, AI (a recommendation algorithm) was no doubt used in your decision about what to watch.  If you’ve shopped on Amazon, your decision about what to buy was also influenced […]

Carlos Osorio/Getty Images Young management consultants may be novices, but they’re sold as experts. Conversely, even experienced consultants, who legitimately present themselves as experts, still feel like novices when they embark on a new project. The challenge with effective consulting is that it depends on in-depth situational knowledge that consultants simply can’t have when they […]

Yuji Sakai/Getty Images “We lose $800 billion a year on trade, every year,” President Trump said in March when he announced his new tariff plan, referring to the size of the U.S. trade deficit in goods. Trump has lamented the U.S. trade deficit repeatedly, tweeting that as a result of it, “our jobs and wealth […]

timsa/Getty Images A male friend of ours recently had a realization. He was walking through the bar at a private golf club, looking for a colleague he was meeting for dinner. The dark-paneled bar was filled with men and they all seemed to know each other. Will wasn’t a member of the club, and he […]

Patricia Toth McCormick/Getty Images Want to catch tax cheats? The government of Rwanda does — and it’s finding them by studying anomalies in revenue-collection data. Want to understand how American culture is changing? So does a budding sociologist in Indiana. He’s using data science to find patterns in the massive amounts of text people use […]

pchyburrs/Getty Images Academic studies in the social sciences often find very different results. Even in disciplines like medicine, where one might imagine there to be a direct, physical relationship between the intervention being tested and its consequences, results can vary — but many think the situation is worse in the social sciences. This is because the relationship […]

pchyburrs/Getty Images Academic studies in the social sciences often find very different results. Even in disciplines like medicine, where one might imagine there to be a direct, physical relationship between the intervention being tested and its consequences, results can vary — but many think the situation is worse in the social sciences. This is because the relationship […]

pchyburrs/Getty Images Academic studies in the social sciences often find very different results. Even in disciplines like medicine, where one might imagine there to be a direct, physical relationship between the intervention being tested and its consequences, results can vary — but many think the situation is worse in the social sciences. This is because the relationship […]

pchyburrs/Getty Images Academic studies in the social sciences often find very different results. Even in disciplines like medicine, where one might imagine there to be a direct, physical relationship between the intervention being tested and its consequences, results can vary — but many think the situation is worse in the social sciences. This is because the relationship […]

Andrew Lichtenstein/Getty Images I recently moderated a panel at a conference and asked the group of successful executives to describe someone who has been instrumental in their careers. Two panelists eagerly jumped in with stories of bosses who had mentored, encouraged, and opened doors for them. Then, hesitantly at first, the last person shared a […]

Lya_Cattel/Getty Images As the saying goes, “History does not repeat itself, but it rhymes.” After a long exile, tariffs are back, and they’re being levied on billions of dollars of traded goods, ranging from steel and aluminum to Harley-Davidson motorcycles. They’re part of a trade war between the U.S. and China, and between the U.S. and […]

Ryan McVay/Getty Images With U.S. household credit card debt at an all-time high of more than $1 trillion, delinquent payments can be more costly than ever. For companies, delinquencies can mean massive collection costs and write-offs of entire accounts. For consumers, delinquency can mean late fees, increased interest rates, downgraded credit scores, the loss of […]

Is a recent firing weighing on you? In this episode of HBR’s advice podcast, Dear HBR:, cohosts Alison Beard and Dan McGinn answer your questions with the help of Susan David, a psychologist, lecturer at Harvard Medical School, and the author of Emotional Agility. They talk through what to do when your coworker has been […]

SinghaphanAllB/Getty Images When is it possible for David to beat Goliath in the platform economy? On March 25 mighty Uber bowed out of Southeast Asia by selling its operation in several countries to local rival Grab. The news came as a surprise to many observers. Grab, which launched its service in 2012 with 40 drivers […]

Orlagh Murphy/Getty Images A quiet revolution is taking place. In contrast to much of the press coverage of artificial intelligence, this revolution is not about the ascendance of a sentient android army. Rather, it is characterized by a steady increase in the automation of traditionally human-based decision processes throughout organizations all over the country. While advancements […]

Orlagh Murphy/Getty Images A quiet revolution is taking place. In contrast to much of the press coverage of artificial intelligence, this revolution is not about the ascendance of a sentient android army. Rather, it is characterized by a steady increase in the automation of traditionally human-based decision processes throughout organizations all over the country. While advancements […]

Orlagh Murphy/Getty Images A quiet revolution is taking place. In contrast to much of the press coverage of artificial intelligence, this revolution is not about the ascendance of a sentient android army. Rather, it is characterized by a steady increase in the automation of traditionally human-based decision processes throughout organizations all over the country. While advancements […]

Orlagh Murphy/Getty Images A quiet revolution is taking place. In contrast to much of the press coverage of artificial intelligence, this revolution is not about the ascendance of a sentient android army. Rather, it is characterized by a steady increase in the automation of traditionally human-based decision processes throughout organizations all over the country. While advancements […]

Orlagh Murphy/Getty Images A quiet revolution is taking place. In contrast to much of the press coverage of artificial intelligence, this revolution is not about the ascendance of a sentient android army. Rather, it is characterized by a steady increase in the automation of traditionally human-based decision processes throughout organizations all over the country. While advancements […]

hbrstaff/birdimages/Getty Images Productive: “Achieving or producing a significant amount of result.” Enough: “As much or as many as required.” As a time management coach, I’m keenly aware that you could answer the question “Am I productive enough?” using a variety of methods. I’m also familiar with the fact that individuals fall on a productivity spectrum. […]

hbrstaff/birdimages/Getty Images Productive: “Achieving or producing a significant amount of result.” Enough: “As much or as many as required.” As a time management coach, I’m keenly aware that you could answer the question “Am I productive enough?” using a variety of methods. I’m also familiar with the fact that individuals fall on a productivity spectrum. […]

hbrstaff/birdimages/Getty Images Productive: “Achieving or producing a significant amount of result.” Enough: “As much or as many as required.” As a time management coach, I’m keenly aware that you could answer the question “Am I productive enough?” using a variety of methods. I’m also familiar with the fact that individuals fall on a productivity spectrum. […]

Zachary Scott/Getty Images Public speaking is so stressful for so many people that it is routinely used as a stress manipulation in psychological studies. Tell undergrads they have 10 minutes to prepare a speech that will be evaluated by experts, and their levels of the stress hormone cortisol shoot through the roof. Yet success in many […]

Illustration by James Yang Language is a uniquely human capability and the manifestation of our intelligence. But through AI — specifically natural language processing (NLP) — we are providing machines with language capabilities, opening up a new realm of possibilities for how we’ll work with them. Today you can walk into a darkened living room […]

Zachary Scott/Getty Images Public speaking is so stressful for so many people that it is routinely used as a stress manipulation in psychological studies. Tell undergrads they have 10 minutes to prepare a speech that will be evaluated by experts, and their levels of the stress hormone cortisol shoot through the roof. Yet success in many […]

Zachary Scott/Getty Images Public speaking is so stressful for so many people that it is routinely used as a stress manipulation in psychological studies. Tell undergrads they have 10 minutes to prepare a speech that will be evaluated by experts, and their levels of the stress hormone cortisol shoot through the roof. Yet success in many […]

Zachary Scott/Getty Images Public speaking is so stressful for so many people that it is routinely used as a stress manipulation in psychological studies. Tell undergrads they have 10 minutes to prepare a speech that will be evaluated by experts, and their levels of the stress hormone cortisol shoot through the roof. Yet success in many […]

Zachary Scott/Getty Images Public speaking is so stressful for so many people that it is routinely used as a stress manipulation in psychological studies. Tell undergrads they have 10 minutes to prepare a speech that will be evaluated by experts, and their levels of the stress hormone cortisol shoot through the roof. Yet success in many […]

Peter Dazeley/Getty Images Culturally diverse teams, research shows, can help deliver better outcomes in today’s organizations. This is largely a good thing: Diverse teams have the potential to be more creative because of the breadth of information, ideas, and perspectives that members can bring to the table. But these teams often suffer from conflicting norms […]

Walker and Walker/Getty Images At the law firm Allen & Overy, the idea of replacing traditional, annual performance appraisals with a technology-enabled continuous feedback system did not come from human resources. It came from a leader within the practice. Wanting something that encouraged more-frequent conversations between associates and partners, the senior lawyer read about what […]

Gerry Anderson, the CEO of DTE Energy, and Robert Quinn and Anjan Thakor, professors at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business and the Olin Business School at Washington University, respectively, discuss how an aspirational mission can motivate employees and improve performance. Anderson talks about his own experience. Quinn and Thakor explain their research […]

RichVintage/Getty Images “Go find your passion,’’ Henry directed his children when they reached their late teens and early twenties. “Find your interests outside our family business and pursue them.’’ As inspiring as those words may have been, Henry, the patriarch of a successful automotive parts business, wasn’t simply freeing his children to follow their dreams. […]

Alice Mollon/Getty Images In any organization, people apply unspoken rules and understood norms to get collective work done — in other words, they collaborate. Over the past 15 years, my team and I have observed and facilitated thousands of meetings and helped hundreds of teams come together to do work, and we have found that collaboration […]

Alice Mollon/Getty Images In any organization, people apply unspoken rules and understood norms to get collective work done — in other words, they collaborate. Over the past 15 years, my team and I have observed and facilitated thousands of meetings and helped hundreds of teams come together to do work, and we have found that collaboration […]

Alice Mollon/Getty Images In any organization, people apply unspoken rules and understood norms to get collective work done — in other words, they collaborate. Over the past 15 years, my team and I have observed and facilitated thousands of meetings and helped hundreds of teams come together to do work, and we have found that collaboration […]

Alice Mollon/Getty Images In any organization, people apply unspoken rules and understood norms to get collective work done — in other words, they collaborate. Over the past 15 years, my team and I have observed and facilitated thousands of meetings and helped hundreds of teams come together to do work, and we have found that collaboration […]

Alice Mollon/Getty Images In any organization, people apply unspoken rules and understood norms to get collective work done — in other words, they collaborate. Over the past 15 years, my team and I have observed and facilitated thousands of meetings and helped hundreds of teams come together to do work, and we have found that collaboration […]

Frank Schwere/Getty Images Like any psychological concept that booms in popularity, growth mindset — the dual belief that skills and abilities can be improved, and that developing your skills and abilities is the purpose of the work you do — is ripe for misinterpretation. Hoping to learn how organizations put growth mindset to use in […]

Tanased Heamathulin/EyeEm/Getty Images If we were designing a labor market from scratch today, it’s unlikely we’d create one that rewards only full-time employees. It wouldn’t make sense given the many ways that people choose to — or must — work: independently, part-time, on the side, as a contractor or freelancer, or on-demand. An estimated 30-40% of today’s […]

Clarity and consistency are key. from HBR.org https://ift.tt/2JMUbAR

markus spiske/unsplash In 2014, Stanford professor Clifford Nass faced a student revolt. Nass’s students claimed that those in one section of his technology interface course received higher grades on the final exam than counterparts in another. Unfortunately, they were right: two different teaching assistants had graded the two different sections’ exams, and one had been […]

H. Armstrong Roberts/ClassicStock/Getty Images Although religion is a central aspect of life for many people across the globe, there is scant research on how religion affects non-religious routines like grocery shopping. But using both field and laboratory data, we recently found that grocery spending decreases as religiosity rises. For companies in industries with razor-thin margins, […]

H. Armstrong Roberts/ClassicStock/Getty Images Although religion is a central aspect of life for many people across the globe, there is scant research on how religion affects non-religious routines like grocery shopping. But using both field and laboratory data, we recently found that grocery spending decreases as religiosity rises. For companies in industries with razor-thin margins, […]

H. Armstrong Roberts/ClassicStock/Getty Images Although religion is a central aspect of life for many people across the globe, there is scant research on how religion affects non-religious routines like grocery shopping. But using both field and laboratory data, we recently found that grocery spending decreases as religiosity rises. For companies in industries with razor-thin margins, […]

H. Armstrong Roberts/ClassicStock/Getty Images Although religion is a central aspect of life for many people across the globe, there is scant research on how religion affects non-religious routines like grocery shopping. But using both field and laboratory data, we recently found that grocery spending decreases as religiosity rises. For companies in industries with razor-thin margins, […]

H. Armstrong Roberts/ClassicStock/Getty Images Although religion is a central aspect of life for many people across the globe, there is scant research on how religion affects non-religious routines like grocery shopping. But using both field and laboratory data, we recently found that grocery spending decreases as religiosity rises. For companies in industries with razor-thin margins, […]

Klaus Vedfelt/Getty Images Human beings have an astonishing ability to learn, but our motivation to do so tends to decrease with age, particularly in adulthood. As children, we are naturally curious and free to explore the world around us. As adults, we are much more interested in preserving what we learned, to the point of […]

Classen Rafael/EyeEm/Getty Images Despite good intentions—and widespread acceptance of the importance of innovation—efforts to innovate at large companies often lack a clear mission and framework, and as a result, they go off the rails. At one large European energy company we consulted with, no less than four separate corporate functions were supposed to be working […]

Oliver Burston/Getty Images While overall adoption of artificial intelligence remains low among businesses (about 20% upon our last study), senior executives know that AI isn’t just hype. Organizations across sectors are looking closely at the technology to see what it can do for their business. As they should—we estimate that 40% of all the potential […]

Martin Konopka/EyeEm/Getty Images The use of virtual file-sharing platforms like Dropbox, Google Docs, and others has become ubiquitous in business, academic, and other settings. But is your team using such collaborative platforms as effectively as they could be? Whether working on cancer cures or the latest consumer-tech products, how teams collaborate affects their performance and […]

Jan Stromme/Getty Images CEOs are known for their confidence. It is, after all, one of the reasons they’ve made it to the top. And yet, that confidence sometimes flags, as we at leadership advisory firm Egon Zehnder learned from a survey  of 402 CEOs from 11 countries—executives who together run companies with  $2.6 trillion in […]

Jan Stromme/Getty Images CEOs are known for their confidence. It is, after all, one of the reasons they’ve made it to the top. And yet, that confidence sometimes flags, as we at leadership advisory firm Egon Zehnder learned from a survey  of 402 CEOs from 11 countries—executives who together run companies with  $2.6 trillion in […]

Valerio Gualandi/EyeEm/Getty Images Most people I know have a to-do list so long that it’s not clear that there’s an end to it. Some tasks, even quite important ones, linger unfinished for a long time, and it’s easy to start feeling guilty or ashamed about what you have not yet completed. People experience guilt and […]

PhotoAlto/Matthieu Spohn/Getty Images A recent survey by Deloitte of “aggressive adopters” of cognitive technologies found that 76% believe that they will “substantially transform” their companies within the next three years. There probably hasn’t been this much excitement about a new technology since the dotcom boom years in the late 1990s. The possibilities would seem to […]

Hayon Thapaliya/HBR Staff If you ran a fancy restaurant, would you want the chef also to clean dishes and mop the floor? Of course not. You’d hire others to do these things and let the chef focus on producing delicious food. This simple idea — that one should match the skill level of the individual […]

HBR Staff The world’s 230 million knowledge workers are frazzled. Modern life is an interminable cacophony of emails, notifications, messages, alerts, feeds, data and information. 70% of us look at our phones within 30 minutes of waking up. All this causes stress. With multiple notifications on multiple apps on multiple pages of our devices, where […]

spiderstock/Getty Images One of the biggest challenges facing management scientists has been the struggle to produce knowledge that is both academically rigorous and applicable to practicing managers. In an Academy of Management Journal editorial, we described two problems that contribute to this challenge. The first is what we called the “Lost in Translation” problem, which […]

Klaus Vedfelt/Getty Images No, it’s not just you. If you’ve ever doubted that you had your boss’s full attention while her laptop is open in front of her, stop doubting. In spite of her protests that “I’m listening, go ahead…,” she wasn’t. Decades ago, research settled the question of whether you and I can do […]

Paul Garbett for HBR No, it’s not just you. If you’ve ever doubted that you had your boss’s full attention while her laptop is open in front of her, stop doubting. In spite of her protests that “I’m listening, go ahead…,” she wasn’t. Decades ago, research settled the question of whether you and I can […]

Hayon Thapaliya/HBR Staff We know that controlling what we pay attention to is the key to living an intentional life.  According to an informal poll of my clients, one of the biggest impediments to attention management is “O.P.P.” — other people’s problems. This is a particular problem for my clients in leadership who find it difficult […]

Hill Street Studios/Getty Images Public speaking affects people in different ways. Some people get jittery and anxious before they talk; they need to spend time calming themselves down before they go onstage. Other people want to make sure they have extra energy when they’re in front of an audience. These people need to spend time […]

Westend61/Getty Images In countries like India, South Africa, Italy, and the United States, institutional trust is declining. People have less faith in businesses, governments, and the media. But this is not a global trend. The 2018 Edelman Trust Barometer reveals that China, the UAE, and Sweden are experiencing dramatic gains in their faith in institutions […]

Noam Galai/Contributor/Getty Images I’ve been following Netflix since 2005, when I first visited its headquarters in Silicon Valley and interviewed Reed Hastings, its founder and CEO. I don’t think I’ve learned more about strategy, technology, and culture from any other company I’ve studied. It’s a stretch to claim that everything I know about business I […]

Noam Galai/Contributor/Getty Images I’ve been following Netflix since 2005, when I first visited its headquarters in Silicon Valley and interviewed Reed Hastings, its founder and CEO. I don’t think I’ve learned more about strategy, technology, and culture from any other company I’ve studied. It’s a stretch to claim that everything I know about business I […]

Kristie Rogers, an assistant professor of management at Marquette University, has identified a free and abundant resource most leaders aren’t giving employees enough of: respect. She explains the two types of workplace respect, how to communicate them, and what happens when you don’t foster both. Rogers is the author of the article “Do Your Employees […]

HBR Staff/YASUYOSHI CHIBA/Getty Images During Jeff Immelt’s tenure as CEO of General Electric, from 2001 until 2017, the company’s stock price fell by over 30%, a decline of roughly $150 billion in shareholder value. Since Immelt’s departure, GE’s stock is down another 30%, as its new CEO, John Flannery, has struggled to cope with the […]

Alexander Baumann/The International Photo Co./Getty Images Ignorance may be bliss for some, but ask anyone in commerce or finance, and they will make it abundantly clear: Ignorance is risk. For that reason, U.S. markets embrace reasonable regulation to ensure transparency and fairness. Stocks are regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), commodities by the […]

John Fedele/Getty Images Today’s young professionals grew up in an age of mind-boggling technological change, seeing the growth of the internet, the invention of the smartphone, and the development of machine-learning systems. These advances all point toward the total automation of our lives, including the way we work and do business. It’s no wonder, then, […]

Michael Porter and Jim Heppelman explain how augmented reality will change how we work. from HBR.org https://ift.tt/2KY21wU

Walker and Walker/Getty Images Rivalry is everywhere. We see rivalries in sports, business, school, and basically any arena where there is competition.  Whether it is rivalry between people (Bill Gates versus Steve Jobs; Roger Federer versus Rafael Nadal), between organizations (e.g., Ford versus GM), or between nations (e.g., should U.S. soccer fans have rooted for […]

Walker and Walker/Getty Images Rivalry is everywhere. We see rivalries in sports, business, school, and basically any arena where there is competition.  Whether it is rivalry between people (Bill Gates versus Steve Jobs; Roger Federer versus Rafael Nadal), between organizations (e.g., Ford versus GM), or between nations (e.g., should U.S. soccer fans have rooted for […]

Walker and Walker/Getty Images Rivalry is everywhere. We see rivalries in sports, business, school, and basically any arena where there is competition.  Whether it is rivalry between people (Bill Gates versus Steve Jobs; Roger Federer versus Rafael Nadal), between organizations (e.g., Ford versus GM), or between nations (e.g., should U.S. soccer fans have rooted for […]

Walker and Walker/Getty Images Rivalry is everywhere. We see rivalries in sports, business, school, and basically any arena where there is competition.  Whether it is rivalry between people (Bill Gates versus Steve Jobs; Roger Federer versus Rafael Nadal), between organizations (e.g., Ford versus GM), or between nations (e.g., should U.S. soccer fans have rooted for […]

Walker and Walker/Getty Images Rivalry is everywhere. We see rivalries in sports, business, school, and basically any arena where there is competition.  Whether it is rivalry between people (Bill Gates versus Steve Jobs; Roger Federer versus Rafael Nadal), between organizations (e.g., Ford versus GM), or between nations (e.g., should U.S. soccer fans have rooted for […]

H.Armstrong Roberts/ClassicStock/Getty Images When I speak to large groups about leadership, one question I often ask is, “How many of you have ever received a compliment from your boss that actually offended you?” Without exception, more than two-thirds of the people in the room raise their hands. When I probe further on what people found […]

Helen King/Getty Images Here’s a work scenario many of us know too well: You are in a meeting and your manager brings up a project that needs to be assigned. It’s not particularly challenging work, but it’s time-consuming, unlikely to drive revenue, and probably won’t be recognized or included in your performance evaluation. As your […]

Martin Barraud/Getty Images I remember the first time I felt old as a manager — more than 10 years ago now. It was at a lunch with my new team when I mentioned the first “45” I bought with my own money as a kid. One of my direct reports, who was 10 years younger […]

Martin Barraud/Getty Images I remember the first time I felt old as a manager — more than 10 years ago now. It was at a lunch with my new team when I mentioned the first “45” I bought with my own money as a kid. One of my direct reports, who was 10 years younger […]

Martin Barraud/Getty Images I remember the first time I felt old as a manager — more than 10 years ago now. It was at a lunch with my new team, when I mentioned the first “45” I bought with my own money as a kid. One of my direct reports, who was 10 years younger […]

Martin Barraud/Getty Images I remember the first time I felt old as a manager — more than 10 years ago now. It was at a lunch with my new team, when I mentioned the first “45” I bought with my own money as a kid. One of my direct reports, who was 10 years younger […]

Pat LaCroix/Getty Images Brad was leading a difficult turnaround of his company and had decided to fire his head of sales, who was a nice guy but wasn’t performing. Three months later, he still hadn’t fired him. I asked him why. His answer? “I’m a wimp!” Brad (not his real name — I’ve changed some details […]