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John Kuczala/Getty Images Employers are continually upping the ante on academic credentials. Nearly a third of jobs that once required only a high-school diploma now demand a four-year college degree, while one in four jobs that used to require a bachelor’s degree now require a master’s degree. Meanwhile, 75% of Americans believe that higher education […]

Mário Tavares / EyeEm/Getty Images We all want to be fearless public speakers. We dream of confidently striding onto the stage to give a speech or presentation, breaking the ice with the perfect joke, captivating the audience with compelling stories, handling the most difficult questions with ease, and exiting to cheers and applause. But the […]

TOSHINORI TARUI/Getty Images Do you believe that sustainability is important for your company, but that it’s “someone else’s problem?” You aren’t alone; while most organizations talk the talk of sustainability — doing things like integrating environmental and societal concerns into their business models — very few walk the walk. Unsurprisingly, carbon emissions by the world’s largest companies […]

Kenneth Andersson for HBR When I was 25, during my annual review my (male) boss confirmed lots of positive things, such as how I exceeded my $26 million goal in sales. But he ended the meeting with his one big negative: “You need to smile more.” I was stunned. He explained that all the senior […]

Michael Banks/Getty Images Advancement toward gender equality at work has slowed since the 1990s for three major reasons: people’s attitudes stopped becoming more gender egalitarian, occupations stopped gender integrating, and the gender wage gap began decreasing at slower rates. Sociologist Paula England has called this phenomenon an “uneven and stalled” gender revolution, and there have been dozens […]

Jetta Productions/Walter Hodges/Getty Images I spend much of my time with senior executives from organizations in, shall we say, not the most glamorous fields: community banks, electrical distributors, heartland manufacturers, and, perhaps least glamorous of all, insurance companies. These executives are rightly proud of what their organizations do, and they can get people like me […]

Japan, one of the world’s richest business markets, once had a reputation as a difficult business environment for some foreign companies. So why have many of the world’s best-known life science companies successfully expanded into Japan in recent years? From Finland to Israel, from Australia to Portugal, from the U.S. to the U.K, small and large corporations […]

Japan, one of the world’s richest business markets, once had a reputation as a difficult business environment for some foreign companies. So why have many of the world’s best-known life science companies successfully expanded into Japan in recent years? From Finland to Israel, from Australia to Portugal, from the U.S. to the U.K, small and large corporations […]

Vincent Tsui When Joe Whittinghill came into his role as general manager for talent, learning, and insight at Microsoft, the tech giant’s leadership model was characteristically thorough. There were eight competencies leaders needed to succeed, 10 behaviors that marked inclusive diversity, five things employees had to do in order to flourish, and over 100 skills you […]

Jamie Jones/Getty Images Reentering the workforce after taking a leave of absence can be difficult, but is it harder for workers who lost their jobs and have been unemployed or workers who took time away to care for children? My research shows it’s the latter who have it worse. In a recent research study, I found […]

vincent tsui for hbr A little over a century ago, Henry Ford doubled the minimum pay of his workers to $5 an hour. When other employers followed suit, it became clear that Ford had sparked a chain reaction. Higher pay throughout the industry helped lead to more sales, creating a virtuous cycle of growth and […]

Roman Kharlamov/Getty Images “Oh, I pretty much know my strengths and my weaknesses.” If we had a dollar for every time we’d heard this from an executive we were coaching, we could have retired a long time ago. When probed, they often proclaim that while they might not recognize all their strengths, they are confident […]

Jorg Greuel/Getty Images Strike up a conversation about work values, and it won’t be long before someone brings up a pyramid — a famous psychologist’s best-known theory. Abraham Maslow’s big idea was that we all have a hierarchy of needs: once our basic physiological and safety needs are fulfilled, we seek love and belongingness, then […]

jennifer maravillas for hbr Software businesses are disrupting generations-old industries, from agriculture to entertainment. Programming wizards are amassing billion-dollar fortunes, and this may be just the beginning. Even average tech employees in their mid-twenties are raking in 6-figure paychecks. Unfortunately, a huge section of the workforce cannot capitalize on these opportunities. In 2015, there were […]

Joel Gerone/EyeEm/Getty Images As a leader, what traits should you cultivate in your employees? Grit – the ability to persevere in the face of challenges? Sure. A willingness to accept some sacrifices and work hard toward a successful future are essential for the members of any team. But I believe there’s another component that matters […]

Kenneth Frazier, the CEO of the pharmaceutical company known as MSD outside of North America, discusses his upbringing and how it influences his leadership as chief executive. He is one of the few African-American CEOs in the Fortune 500, and shot to prominence after resigning from a council advising the Trump White House. Frazier discusses […]

Fanatic Studio/Getty Images The year 2018 is barely underway and, already, digital trust initiatives have captured headlines. Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg has said his platform will de-prioritize third-party publisher content to keep users focused on more “meaningful” posts from family and friends. Google has led off the new year by blocking websites that mask their country […]

pop jop/Getty Images In Pixar’s WALL-E, oversized humans recline on levitating barcaloungers and are dressed, primped, polished, and served, entirely by robots. Fiction? Maybe not, at least according to a wave of media coverage pointing to a dizzying array of service innovations on the horizon. Look no further than the public debut of Amazon Go, […]

bettmann/Getty Images Wherever you live or work, stress is on the rise. According to the International Labour Organization, workers in developed and developing countries are facing increasing strain at work. The onslaught of mounting stressors include global challenges, such as climate change, terrorism, and political turmoil – as well as personal and professional challenges, such […]

Self-driving vehicles, once a science fiction technology, are rapidly becoming a reality that promises to transform our lives –   making it safer and more efficient to move people and goods, while reinventing our thinking about transportation. Arizona, one of the leading cities for autonomous vehicles, is the proving ground for this transformative innovation. This fleet […]

lok fung/Getty Images To be effective in organizations today, you must be able to influence people. Your title alone isn’t always enough to sway others, nor do you always have a formal position. So, what’s the best way to position yourself as an informal leader? How do you motivate colleagues to support your initiatives and […]

lok fung/Getty Images To be effective in organizations today, you must be able to influence people. Your title alone isn’t always enough to sway others, nor do you always have a formal position. So, what’s the best way to position yourself as an informal leader? How do you motivate colleagues to support your initiatives and […]

emma mayfield photography/Getty Images Meetings are notoriously one of organizational life’s most insufferable realities. U.S. companies spend more than $37 billion dollars a year on them. Employees in American companies spend more than one-third of their time in them. And 71% of senior managers view them as unproductive. In one global consumer products company that […]

boris sv/Getty Images A major debate has unfolded around India’s economic prospects. On the one hand, you have Prime Minister Modi declaring at the 2018 World Economic Forum that India’s economy, already the fifth largest in the world, will double to $5 trillion by 2025. On the other hand, you have the media pointing out […]

Osman Rana/Hayon Thapaliya/Unsplash Cyberattacks are on the rise, with over 1,000 data breaches occurring at U.S. organizations in 2016 alone, most often through hacking or external theft. And it isn’t only violated firms that are hurt by these incidents. Studying hundreds of data breaches, our research has found that they create significant ripples that affect other companies […]

Osman Rana/Hayon Thapaliya/Unsplash Cyberattacks are on the rise, with over 1,000 data breaches occurring at U.S. organizations in 2016 alone, most often through hacking or external theft. And it isn’t only violated firms that are hurt by these incidents. Studying hundreds of data breaches, our research has found that they create significant ripples that affect other companies […]

Andrew Nguyen/HBR Staff In 2016 John Stumpf, then the CEO of Wells Fargo, was called before Congress to explain a massive scandal. For more than four hours, Stumpf fielded a range of questions about why the bank, which had over $1.8 trillion in assets, had created 2 million false accounts, and, after the fraud was discovered, […]

PASIEKA/Getty Images For six consecutive years NewVantage Partners has conducted an annual survey on how executives in large corporations view data. Each year the response rate increases, and the reported urgency of making effective use of data increases as well. This year the results are both more encouraging and more worrisome than in the past. […]

Scott DeRue, the dean of University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, says the old model of business school education is gone. It’s no longer good enough to sequester yourself on campus for two years before heading out into the world of commerce. DeRue discusses how the perceived value of an MBA education is changing […]

Daniel Goleman and Richard Davidson show how it can improve resilience. from HBR.org http://ift.tt/2HdVJDU

  It’s the conundrum of the digital age: almost as soon as your company has fully implemented a new digital initiative, it’s on the verge of becoming obsolete. Should you just move faster? Hire a more digitally savvy workforce and force them to move at lightning speed? Maybe. But the first step—and the most important—is […]

Hayon Thapaliya The percentage of U.S. GDP spent on health care continues to rise, reaching 17.9% in 2017. At the same time, health insurance premiums have increased as much as 60% in the individual market in some states. The federal and state insurance exchanges have failed to rein in costs. Now, with the rollback of […]

hbr staff/john swope/life/Getty Images Every now and then, firms make mistakes that leave their customers unsatisfied: a restaurant misplaces an order, a hotel’s air conditioning breaks down, or a dry cleaner damages a garment. With increasing frequency, disappointed customers share these negative experiences by writing online reviews, and many potential customers take these reviews into […]

GABRIEL BOUYS/Staff/Getty Images/Hayon Thapaliya Entrepreneurs often seek external capital to accelerate their growth. This is especially true in hotly contested markets where fast growth can be the difference between success or failure. And yet this outside funding may come with strings attached, which can (and perhaps should) give entrepreneurs pause. Founders will likely find their influence diluted, […]

Cachetejack/Getty Images It’s nice to have a friend at work who cares about you and looks out for your best interests. Research has even shown that it contributes to your engagement. The benefits of having a friend at work are clear, but what about the downsides? What happens when your friend starts to let things slip? […]

Ben Birchall/PA Images/Getty Images One of the most common questions I get asked by senior managers is “How can we find more innovative people?” I know the type they have in mind — someone energetic and dynamic, full of ideas and able to present them powerfully. It seems like everybody these days is looking for […]

Ben Birchall/PA Images/Getty Images One of the most common questions I get asked by senior managers is “How can we find more innovative people?” I know the type they have in mind — someone energetic and dynamic, full of ideas and able to present them powerfully. It seems like everybody these days is looking for […]

Martin Konopka/EyeEm/Getty Images Recently, I was flying home from the Conference for Women, where I had been invited to speak. I was carefully holding a copy of the conference program on my lap — my mom likes to save them, and I wanted to be a good son and bring her back an unwrinkled copy. The guy […]

CSA Images/ Color Printstock Collection/Hayon Thapaliya/Getty Images Contracting is a common activity, but it is one that few companies do efficiently or effectively. In fact, it has been estimated that inefficient contracting causes firms to lose between 5% to 40% of value on a given deal,  depending on circumstances. But recent technological developments like artificial […]

Ryan McVay/Getty Images Jana Partners, the activist hedge fund, isn’t known as a tree-hugging hippie sort of firm. Yet, last month it joined with the California State Teachers’ Retirement System to send a letter to Apple’s board warning about the effects of the company’s devices on children. The same month, Blackrock CEO Larry Fink sent […]

george silk/life/Getty Images The word crisis suggests something that happens infrequently. But these days, crises have become a regular state of affairs. Brands that you’d think would be fairly immune to scandal have found themselves embroiled in controversy. And those that deal with public relations challenges regularly have still been caught off guard by a […]

What should you do when you become the boss? HBR’s new advice podcast Dear HBR: has the answers. In this bonus episode, Dear HBR: co-hosts Alison Beard and Dan McGinn answer your questions with the help of Harvard Business School professor Alison Wood Brooks, an expert on behavioral insights. They talk through what to do […]

Alberto Manuel Urosa Toledano/Getty Images If 2017 was the year that tech became a lightning rod for dissatisfaction over everything from the last U.S. presidential election to the possibility of a smartphone-driven dystopia, 2018 already looks to be that much worse. Innovation and its discontents are nothing new, of course, going back at least to the […]

Sophie Blackall/Getty Images One of the great frustrations of being a middle manager is that senior leaders make decisions that go against what you would have done had it been up to you. Sometimes you are part of the decision process, and other times the decision is simply handed down. Either way, you are now […]

CSA Images/Printstock Collection/Getty Images Eminent industry leaders worry that the biggest risk tied to artificial intelligence is the militaristic downfall of humanity. But there’s a smaller community of people committed to addressing two more tangible risks: AI created with harmful biases built into its core, and AI that does not reflect the diversity of the […]

Harry Haysom/Getty Images When Amazon opened its cashier-less concept grocery store to the public in Seattle on January 22, the company’s stock rose 2.5% – slightly more than the 2.4% increase after Amazon announced that it was buying Whole Foods this past June. Does Amazon Go signal that smartphone apps and virtual carts will replace […]

yagi studio/Getty Images Theories and practices of management often spring from the opportunities created by new technologies. Interchangeable parts spurred ideas about structuring assembly lines and logistics. The complex calculations of the field known as Operations Research were enabled by mainframe computing. Client-server technology begat enterprise resource planning systems, and the consequent system-wide visibility that was […]

yagi studio/Getty Images Theories and practices of management often spring from the opportunities created by new technologies. Interchangeable parts spurred ideas about structuring assembly lines and logistics. The complex calculations of the field known as Operations Research were enabled by mainframe computing. Client-server technology begat enterprise resource planning systems, and the consequent system-wide visibility that was […]

yagi studio/Getty Images Theories and practices of management often spring from the opportunities created by new technologies. Interchangeable parts spurred ideas about structuring assembly lines and logistics. The complex calculations of the field known as Operations Research were enabled by mainframe computing. Client-server technology begat enterprise resource planning systems, and the consequent system-wide visibility that was […]

yagi studio/Getty Images Theories and practices of management often spring from the opportunities created by new technologies. Interchangeable parts spurred ideas about structuring assembly lines and logistics. The complex calculations of the field known as Operations Research were enabled by mainframe computing. Client-server technology begat enterprise resource planning systems, and the consequent system-wide visibility that was […]

miragec/Getty Images Top leaders tend to focus more on status updates than on contingency planning. They devote far more time to internal execution and competitive risks than to external risks that can change the playing field. This means that many emerging market risks get cut from the senior leadership agenda. At Frontier Strategy Group, we […]

steven moore for hbr Of the many contributions Jack Welch has made to business wisdom, one of his most famous was “Be #1 or #2 in every market.” That advice served GE well in shaping its portfolio of businesses and its strategy for many years, but it’s not clear to us that it is as […]

steven moore for hbr Of the many contributions Jack Welch has made to business wisdom, one of his most famous was “Be #1 or #2 in every market.” That advice served GE well in shaping its portfolio of businesses and its strategy for many years, but it’s not clear to us that it is as […]

Here’s a better way to measure it. from HBR.org http://ift.tt/2FWkbsb

Here’s a better way to measure it. from HBR.org http://ift.tt/2FWkbsb

Here’s a better way to measure it. from HBR.org http://ift.tt/2FWkbsb

Here’s a better way to measure it. from HBR.org http://ift.tt/2FWkbsb

Ilka & Franz/Getty Images What makes a brand successful in the digital age? A joint study by SAP, Siegel+Gale, and Shift Thinking suggests that digital brands don’t just do things differently; they also think differently. Where traditional brands focus on positioning their brands in the minds of their customers, digital brands focus on positioning their […]

steven moore for hbr Of the many contributions Jack Welch has made to business wisdom, one of his most famous was “Be #1 or #2 in every market.” That advice served GE well in shaping its portfolio of businesses and its strategy for many years, but it’s not clear to us that it is as […]

viktor vasicsek/unsplash Do you still use Yahoo? Do you still remember MySpace? Compaq? Kodak? The cases of startups with superior ideas dethroning well-established incumbents are legion. This is the beauty of “creative destruction” – the term coined by innovation prophet Joseph Schumpeter almost a century ago. Incumbents have to keep innovating, lest they be overtaken […]

Jose A. Bernat Bacete/Getty Images The risks posed by intelligent devices will soon surpass the magnitude of those associated with natural disasters. Tens of billions of connected sensors are being embedded in everything ranging from industrial robots and safety systems to self-driving cars and refrigerators. At the same time, the capabilities of artificial intelligence (AI) […]

Jay Conger, a leadership professor at Claremont McKenna College, goes behind the scenes to show how you can get on, and stay on, your company’s fast track. He demystifies how companies (often very secretly) develop and update their list of high-potential employees. And he discusses five critical “X factors” his research has shown are common […]

Nadezda Kozulina/Getty Images Working as a senior executive can be a lonely job. You have to deliver tough messages. You can’t always be transparent about your own challenges. And you must keep key decisions confidential until the timing is right. There’s no way to escape the necessary burdens of authority. And, from time to time, you […]

Luerat Satichob/Getty Images We’ve all heard of the No-Fly List. Managed by the FBI’s Terrorist Screening Center, the list bans people on it from boarding commercial aircraft within, into, or out of the United States. The No-Fly List is only one tactic that the U.S. uses in its fight against terrorism, but since its inception […]

Colormos/Getty Images Samar Minallah Khan, the feminist Pakistani anthropologist and filmmaker, was enraged. Local tribal leaders were trading little girls as compensation for their male family members’ crimes. These leaders, responsible for settling legal disputes in their villages, act as local judges. A longstanding practice was to address major crimes by “compensating” a harmed family […]

jamie jones/Getty Images It is clear from some of its recent moves that Amazon sees the 18% of U.S. GDP dedicated to health care as fertile ground for expansion. Consider its decision to pursue the market for pharmaceutical distribution, or the recent announcement that it will be teaming up with Berkshire Hathaway and JP Morgan Chase to create joint solutions for […]

Artur Debat/Getty Images It’s no secret that organizations have been increasingly turning to advanced analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) to improve decision making across business processes—from research and design to supply chain and risk management. Along the way, there’s been plenty of literature and executive hand-wringing over hiring and deploying ever-scarce data scientists to make […]

Tim Robberts/Getty Images Remember your new year’s resolutions? Are you still doing them? If the answer is “no,” most likely you fell into the trap that stops most individuals from accomplishing their resolutions: not consciously taking old activities out of their schedule to make room for the new. It’s the equivalent of trying to stuff more […]

CSA Images/Getty Images Practically every organization today has a set of core values that ideally function as the “operating instructions” of the company.  The goal of articulating the essential and enduring principles of your organization is to inform, inspire, and instruct the day-to-day behaviors of everyone who works at your company. But this rarely happens, […]

PhotoAlto/Jorge Goncalves/Getty Images Can we please agree that there is no such thing as a corporate entrepreneur? The term corporate entrepreneur devalues what real entrepreneurs do, and it creates a haze of hokum around people trying to innovate in large companies that sets them up to fail. There is an ocean of difference between people […]

making_ultimate/Getty Images We live in a world where productivity, a key pillar of long-term economic growth, has crumbled. In the United States, Europe, and other advanced economies, productivity growth has slowed so drastically in the past decade that economists debate whether we have entered a new era of stagnation—and this at a time when we […]

During my conversations with CEOs, it always comes to a point where they say: “I want to leave a legacy.”  Any CEO would be satisfied with the business legacy left by Ingvar Kamprad, the IKEA founder who died last weekend.  The store he founded, with its iconic blue and yellow logo and functional, minimalist furniture, […]

Paul Reid/Getty Images Dorothea loved her new workplace and was highly motivated to perform. Her managers were delighted with her high engagement, professionalism, and dedication. She worked long hours to ensure that her staff was properly managed, that her deadlines were met, and that her team’s work was nothing short of outstanding. In the first […]

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Hayon Thapaliya/Getty Images Just the announcement that Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffett, and Jaime Dimon will be entering the health care space has sent shock waves for industry incumbents such as CVS, Cigna, and UnitedHealth. It also puts a fundamental question back on the agendas of CEOs in other industries: Will software eat the world, as Marc Andreessen famously quipped? […]

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Hayon Thapaliya/Getty Images Just the announcement that Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffett, and Jaime Dimon will be entering the health care space has sent shock waves for industry incumbents such as CVS, Cigna, and UnitedHealth. It also puts a fundamental question back on the agendas of CEOs in other industries: Will software eat the world, as Marc Andreessen famously quipped? […]

Ralf Hiemisch/Getty Images The subject of sexual misconduct at work is dominating mainstream conversation and board room agendas. This doesn’t just mean men and women who run large global enterprises, Fortune 500 behemoths, film studios, and media platforms. The conversation is happening in small businesses as well. In the U.S. 43% of employees work in organizations with […]

HBR staff/Bettmann Collection/Getty Images Advice on how to improve one’s self is everywhere.  It accounts for about 2.5% of all book sales in the United States. Add in speeches, training programs, TV programs, online-products, coaches, yoga, and the like, self-help is a $10 billion industry per year, and that’s just in the U.S. However, research […]

Jena Ardell/Getty Images “I really became a robot,” a manager at an accounting firm explained. She and her colleagues worked extraordinarily long hours, but, she said, “I thought it was normal. It’s like brainwashing. You are in a kind of mental system where you are under increasing demands, and you say to yourself that it […]

Jena Ardell/Getty Images “I really became a robot,” a manager at an accounting firm explained. She and her colleagues worked extraordinarily long hours, but, she said, “I thought it was normal. It’s like brainwashing. You are in a kind of mental system where you are under increasing demands, and you say to yourself that it […]

Jena Ardell/Getty Images “I really became a robot,” a manager at an accounting firm explained. She and her colleagues worked extraordinarily long hours, but, she said, “I thought it was normal. It’s like brainwashing. You are in a kind of mental system where you are under increasing demands, and you say to yourself that it […]

PETRAS MALUKAS/Stringer/Getty Images When you start leading a new team, one of your first imperatives is to assess the caliber of the talent you are inheriting. At a minimum, you’ll want to focus on three dimensions: (1) Competence — Does each individual match the competence demands of their role? (2) Motivation — Does each member of the team possess […]

Emma Innocenti/Getty Images The new U.S. tax law is likely to increase after-tax cash flows for U.S.-based companies by anywhere from 10% to 20%, depending on their current tax position. As we approach earnings season, investors should listen carefully to what CEOs plan to do with the money. There’s a strong argument that they should […]

Juj Winn/Getty Images In the modern retail environment, it is becoming increasingly difficult to use packaging to stand out. The shelves of stores are packed with fantastic fonts, strategically designed color combinations, and unique product forms all competing to draw the attention of consumers. But is it possible that attempting to stand out in a […]

eversofine/Getty Images A senior executive is presenting a quarterly update. The room is packed with staff eager to hear how the firm is performing and what’s looming on the horizon. The executive begins by taking the stage and working through a thick PowerPoint deck, each slide packed with the latest business buzzwords. As the minutes tick by, I see the audience […]

Don Farrall/Getty Images The increase of women in the paid workforce was arguably the most significant change in the economy in the past century. In the U.S., women’s participation in the labor market has nearly doubled, from 34% of working age women (age 16 and older) in the labor force in 1950 to almost 57% […]

John Holcroft/Getty Images Some people’s careers take off, while others’ take longer — or even stall out. Common wisdom says that the former attend elite MBA programs, land high-powered jobs right out of school at prestigious firms, and climb the ladder straight to the top, carefully avoiding risky moves. But our data shows a completely different […]

Taira Kurihara/Getty Images Companies are starting to care more about corporate social responsibility (CSR). Among the largest 250 companies in the world, 92% produced a CSR report in 2015, informing shareholders and the public about the firm’s activities. That’s up from 64% having such a report in 2005. Today, Fortune Global 500 firms spend around […]

anucha sirivisansuwan/Getty Images The basic fact is that technology eliminates jobs, not work. It is the continuous obligation of economic policy to match increases in productive potential with increases in purchasing power and demand. Otherwise the potential created by technical progress runs to waste in idle capacity, unemployment, and deprivation. —National Commission on Technology, Automation and […]

GJON MILI/life/Getty Images Working in online learning, I’ve found that every year around this time there’s a burst of sign-ups from workers seeking new skills. Perhaps it’s a matter of New Year’s resolutions, or a reaction to seeing their friends and colleagues make big career changes each January. Unfortunately, the initial commitment to learning all too […]

In this special episode, HBR IdeaCast host Sarah Green Carmichael introduces Harvard Business Review’s new podcast “Women at Work,” about women’s experiences in the workplace. This episode about being heard tackles three aspects of communication: first, how and why women’s speech patterns differ from men’s; second, how women can be more assertive in meetings; and […]

Matt Lyon/Getty Images The decline in demand for paper hit Stora Enso hard. By 2011 the pulp and paper giant — the world’s oldest corporation, dating back to 1288 — had laid off over one-third of its 30,000 employees. Though profitable again, the company needed to transform itself into a global renewable materials company. Jouko Karvinen, the […]

hans neleman/Getty Images Nondisclosure agreements, or NDAs, which are increasingly common in employment contracts, suppress employee speech and chill creativity. The current revelations surfacing years of harassment in major organizations are merely the tip of the iceberg. New data shows that over one-third of the U.S. workforce is bound by an NDA. These contracts have […]

Bernard Van Berg/EyeEm/Getty Images Mazin Gilbert has an ambitious goal. As vice president of advanced technologies at AT&T, Gilbert wants to make AI technologies widely available throughout the corporation, especially to those who might not have a computer science background and may not even know how to program. Call it the “democratization of AI.” To […]

Juj Winn/Getty Images Diversity is both an issue of fairness and, some say, a driver of innovation and performance. To assess the latter claim, we undertook a large, cross-country study into the relationship between multiple aspects of managerial diversity, the presence of enabling conditions such as leadership support for diversity, and innovation outcomes. We surveyed […]

Grant Faint/Hayon Thapaliya/Getty Images We’ve all been in the awkward situation of meeting someone new and having to build rapport quickly — at networking events, industry conferences, charity events, dinner parties, and other social-professional situations. If you’re like many people — especially most Americans — you break the awkward silence with a pretty standard question: “So, what do […]

H. Armstrong/Roberts Classic Stock/Getty Images In our assessments, surveys, and interviews of over a thousand leaders, many comments stood out, but one in particular was especially powerful and thought-provoking. “Leadership today,” Javier Pladevall, CEO of Audi Volkswagen, Spain, told us, “is about unlearning management and relearning being human.” What Javier means is, the power of […]

Jorg Greuel/Getty Images The topic of industry disruption — “a process whereby a smaller company with fewer resources is able to successfully challenge established incumbent businesses” — is rife with misconceptions. One of the biggest is that it is a mysterious, random, and unpredictable event. Another is that it happens to you in ways that are beyond […]

sarah wright/Getty Images When you exchange pleasantries with a co-worker in the elevator, the two of you are building trust. When you stop by a colleague’s office and see their family photographs on a desk, you learn about that person’s life outside the office and, as a result, usually feel closer. Face-to-face meetings, office parties, […]

TongRo Images Inc./Getty Images In the Black Mirror episode Nosedive, the protagonist, Lacie, lives in a saccharine world of pleasantries in which every personal or business interaction is scored. Everything depends on the social score, and everyone is desperate to move up in the rankings. But the omnipresent rating game has one big catch: ranking […]

Maguma/Getty Images Asking for a promotion can be nerve-wracking. But when you think you’re ready for the next step, it’s important to say so. How do you prepare for that conversation with your boss? What information should you have at the ready? And how exactly do you make your case? What the Experts Say “Asking […]

Juj Winn/Getty Images According to the World Health Organization, a record number of young people worldwide are suffering from serious depression or anxiety disorders. In some sections of society, there is a tendency to dismiss this trend as the product of an over-indulged, over-entitled, and over-sensitive “snowflake generation.” To the contrary, there is growing evidence […]

Hayon Thapaliya When HubSpot was in its earliest stages, I used to say yes to almost anything: new features, new initiatives, new ideas. It empowered my team to move fast and get things done. I prided myself on being a “yes” man. We were working hard on getting product-market fit right, so anything we could […]

Ilka & Franz/Getty Images The new U.S. tax law is surprisingly unpopular. According to a New York Times survey, only one-third of Americans think their taxes will go down in 2018 as a result of the new tax law.  These pessimists are wrong. Almost every household will pay less in tax.  And over time the […]

omair khan/unsplash Last Thanksgiving, I watched my father-in-law evaluate over one hundred exams for the high school class he teaches on the U.S. government. They were mostly short answer questions: matching different provisions of the U.S. Constitution, and explaining the contents of the Bill of Rights. The grading was tedious and time consuming, and took […]

joshua sortino/Unsplash Coming off the winter holidays, most of us start dreaming of, if not planning, our spring and summer getaways. It’s tempting, of course, to default to the same vacation each year: your family’s cabin, a familiar beach town, your favorite city, that resort the kids loved. We often choose to spend our hard-earned dollars for comfort, […]

Nick Vedros/Getty Images Managers have hard jobs. They coordinate the work of their teams, align this work with company goals, serve as a primary source of professional development for their employees, deliver results, and many other critical tasks (all while keeping people engaged). We’ve previously written about what great managers do differently, but even great […]

Aron Vellekoop Len/Getty Images Getting as much as they can from analytics is critical for companies seeking to monetize their data, become data-driven, and put their data to work. Yet most find this difficult. Indeed, the failure rate of analytics projects remains distressingly high. A key reason for this is that senior managers fail to […]

hank walker/life/Getty Images What’s the best way to assess elite talent—those people you expect to play a critical role in your organization’s success?  Most management experts would say in-depth interviews, reference-checking and work sample reviews. Some forward-thinking companies might even use “auditions.” But at Citadel and Citadel Securities, we’ve decided to go a step further. […]

tyler garrison/Getty Images David Maister was angry. He had been surprised and annoyed to learn that his company had set up a new AI-based marketing system that was doing most of what he thought was his job as digital marketing manager at Global Consumer Brands: deciding what ads to place where, for which customer segments, […]

Hamish Blair/Getty Images You have the right to have work that enriches and enlivens you, rather than diminishing you. This is my own personal declaration of human rights at work. It informs everything I do as a coach, management professor, and human being. Yet it’s surprisingly controversial. Managers and employees in organizations around the world […]

From the Women at Work podcast: Download this podcast Have you ever been in a meeting and shared an idea, only to have it ignored? Then, 10 minutes later, a guy shares the same idea, and your boss says “Great idea!” (Grrr.) Or maybe you’ve been told you apologize too much, don’t speak up enough, […]

Mel Svenson/Getty Images Elon Musk’s new pay package has attracted almost as much divided opinion as Elon Musk himself. Advocates have claimed that it is “radical” and “bold,” praise often used to describe Tesla. Others argue that it is a publicity stunt. But, as with most things, the reality is likely in between these extremes. The […]

Jorg Greuel/Getty Images It’s no fun to tell employees that they’ve been passed over for a promotion — especially if you value them and their work. What’s the best way to deliver the bad news? What can you say to make sure they don’t lose interest in their jobs or hold grudges against you or […]

Aron Vellekoop Len/Getty Images In the last decade, there has been an explosion in the number of research deals between companies and universities. Companies, which have been reducing their spending on early stage research for three decades, have been increasingly turning to universities to perform that role, seeking access to the best scientific and engineering […]

yatharth roy vibhakar/unsplash All managers know that they need to help their employees through challenging times – whether it’s a tough work situation like a tight deadline or high-stakes client, or a demanding personal situation, like a new baby or a sick parent. But almost no manager is prepared for when one of their direct […]

Yaroslav Kushta/Getty Images The future of the workforce is one of the biggest issues facing CEOs today. It’s abundantly clear to all that artificial intelligence, big data analytics, and advanced robotics make it possible for machines to take on tasks that once required a person to do them. How should companies prepare, strategically, to thrive […]

Cindy Loughridge/Getty Images Bad bosses aren’t just a workplace nuisance. A leader’s manipulative, passive-aggressive, credit-taking, and overly-critical behavior can lead to workplace bullying, job dissatisfaction, psychological distress, and depression among employees according to a set of recent studies by the University of Manchester of more than 1,200 people. If you’re struggling with the effects of your boss’s […]

Moshe Cohen, a senior lecturer at Boston University’s Questrom School of Business, says you can’t take the emotion out of a negotiation. After all, negotiations revolve around conflict, risk, and reward—which are inherently emotional. Instead of sidelining your feelings, understand them. Cohen explains how to understand your triggers and use your emotions and those of […]

Romano Cagnoni/Getty Images Michelangelo approached the craft of sculpting with the humble conviction that a unique and beautiful piece of art already existed within the stone, and his job was only to release it. We think the best mentors approach their art in the same way. Social psychologists have already confirmed that in the best […]

Nicholas Blechman A new year has arrived, along with the usual air of optimism. Yet the 21st century is already shaping up to be a challenging one. From climate change to terrorism, the difficulties confronting policy makers are unprecedented in their variety, but also in their complexity. Our existing policy tool kit seems stale and […]

CSA Images/Mod Art Collection/Getty Images Software doesn’t always end up being the productivity panacea that it promises to be. As its victims know all too well, “death by PowerPoint,” the poor use of the presentation software, sucks the life and energy out of far too many meetings. And audit after enterprise audit reveals spreadsheets rife […]

Dr. Terri Cooper, Principal & Chief Inclusion Officer, Deloitte Consulting LLP What will it take to be a great leader in the future?  Listen to Angelia Herrin, Special Projects editor for Harvard Business Review, interview Dr. Terri Cooper, Principal and Chief Inclusion Officer of Deloitte Consulting, as she discusses six attributes of leaders who display […]

Neasden Control Centre for hbr Nearly five years ago, a show that followed the lives of inmates in a women’s prison shook up television. Orange Is the New Black became an unexpected hit, helping to put Netflix on the map as a creator of innovative original entertainment. The show pushed boundaries with its dark humor […]

Caroline Stirling/Getty Images Sally’s finger hovered over the “Purchase” button. After hours of online sleuthing, she was pretty sure the green chair would complete her living room. It was the style and color she wanted, home delivery was guaranteed within three days, she had money in the bank to pay for it, and both the […]

Laura Schneider for HBR To make a good decision, you need to have a sense of two things: how different choices change the likelihood of different outcomes and how desirable each of those outcomes is. In other words, as Ajay Agrawal, Joshua Gans, and Avi Goldfarb have written, decision making requires both prediction and judgment. […]

The New York Public Library It is tempting to regard artificial intelligence as a threat to human leadership. After all, the very purpose of AI is to augment, improve, and ultimately replace human intelligence, which is still widely regarded, at least by us humans, as our key competitive advantage. There is no reason to believe […]