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Main Catalogs   Accounting Business Communication Business Law Economics Finance Insurance and Real Estate Management Information Systems Management and Organization Marketing Operations and Decision Sciences      Special Catalogs     Case Studies Text Chapters Mapped to Specific Cases How to Build a Book: Select Content Review & Arrange Personalize Request a Copy Keyword    Title, Author, Case #, Etc. ALEKS Homework Manager Discover Econ   Learning Solutions Group     Harvard Business Review Articles — Human Resources Management  • To include an item in your complimentary custom book, click the item’s Add link. If there is a View link next to an item, you can view the pages by clicking on the link.  • To review the list of items you have selected so far, click on Step 2 in the progress bar above. You have successfully added all of the items to your order. Either click here to review your order or continue to add content from another title.    Engaging the "Pole Vaulters" on Your Staff   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Author(s): Truss, Katie ; Soane, Emma Publication Date: 03/01/2010 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: F1003D Subjects: Human resources management; Employee attitude; Motivation Academic Discipline: Human resources management Product Description: If you classify your employees into four types (Grand Prix Drivers, Pole Vaulters, Long-Distance Runners, and Flatliners) and customize engagement programs to meet their needs, the authors' research suggests, you'll be rewarded with workers who display more motivation, more loyalty, and better performance.    Women in Management: Delusions of Progress   Add   View  8 pp.  Article Author(s): Carter, Nancy M.; Silva, Christine Publication Date: 03/01/2010 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: F1003B Subjects: Human resources management; Diversity; Women in business Academic Discipline: Human resources management Product Description: New research shows that female managers continue to lag behind men at every career stage, right from their first professional jobs-and that's among graduates from elite MBA programs. The aggressive efforts this past decade to create opportunities for women weren't nearly as fruitful as we'd thought. To achieve anything close to gender equality, organizations have a lot of work to do.    Fixing Health Care on the Front Lines   Add   View  12 pp.  Article Author(s): Bohmer, Richard M. J. Publication Date: 04/01/2010 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: R1004D Subjects: Reorganization; Organizational learning Academic Discipline: Human resources management Product Description: In the United States and around the world, there have been plenty of proposals for curing what ails health care. All of them-new organizational forms, alternative payment systems, and free-market competition-aim to tackle a universal challenge: improving the quality of care and reducing, or at least curbing, its cost. But the reality is that regardless of what happens to the many experiments and reform efforts, including the one in Washington, the basic structure of the health care system in the United States and most other countries will remain in place for the foreseeable future. The only realistic hope for substantially improving care delivery is for the old guard to launch a revolution from within. Existing providers must redesign themselves. They must revamp core clinical processes and the organizational structures, management systems, and cultures supporting them so that they excel at performing three discrete tasks simultaneously: rigorously applying scientifically established best practices for diagnosing and treating diseases that are well understood; employing a trial-and-error process to deal with complicated or poorly understood conditions; and capturing and applying knowledge generated by day-to-day care. Some organizations — such as Intermountain Healthcare, the Cleveland Clinic, and Istituto Clinico Humanitas — have already redesigned themselves in ways that improve quality and lower costs. But no single dominant design exists; each organization has its own environment, structure, and history. More important than the specific designs are the four principles on which they    Turning Doctors into Leaders   Add   View  16 pp.  Article Author(s): Lee, Thomas H. Publication Date: 04/01/2010 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: R1004B Subjects: Leadership development; Change management; Teamwork; Motivation; Collaboration Academic Discipline: Human resources management Product Description: The problem with medicine, the author writes, is people like him: Fifty-something doctors trained in an era of autonomous hero-practitioners. These lone cowboy physicians may work hard, but they don't provide the best possible care, because they're embedded in a fragmented, chaotic, performance-blind system. Fixing this will require a new kind of leader who can organize doctors into teams, measure their performance not by how much they do but by how their patients fare, deftly apply financial and behavioral incentives, improve processes, and dismantle dysfunctional cultures. Drawing on examples from best-practice institutions such as the Cleveland Clinic, Seattle's Virginia Mason Medical Center, Intermountain Healthcare in Utah, and his own organization, Partners HealthCare System of Boston, Lee shows how a “new breed of leader” is orienting strategy around patients' needs (a more radical idea than it might sound) and raising the quality, efficiency, and value of care. A sidebar written by Partners strategy director Kelly W. Hall looks at how peer pressure can drive improved performance.    Premium Price, Poor Performance   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Author(s): Levin-Scherz, Jeff Publication Date: 04/01/2010 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: R1004P Geographic Setting: United States Subjects: Cost analysis Academic Discipline: Human resources management Product Description: A graphic look at how the United States stacks up against other countries in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development on health care expenditures and life expectancy.    Health Care Needs a New Kind of Hero   Add   View  8 pp.  Article Author(s): Gawande, Atul ; Morse, Gardiner Publication Date: 04/01/2010 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: R1004C Subjects: Innovation; Change management; Teamwork Academic Discipline: Human resources management Product Description: The surgeon and best-selling author readily concedes his own limitations as he explains how doctors-and health care generally-could do better. In his latest book, The Checklist Manifesto, Atul Gawande describes how asking a set of simple questions before the surgery starts-things like “Did we give the patient her antibiotic?” and even “Did we introduce ourselves to one another?”-can reduce infections and deaths by nearly half. As simple as this exercise is, it's often met with hostility, because it challenges beloved notions about doctors' status, autonomy, and expertise. In this edited interview Gawande discusses what checklists reveal about the culture of medicine and how its dysfunctions might be fixed.    What Drives High Health Care Costs — and How to Fight Back   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Author(s): Levin-Scherz, Jeff Publication Date: 04/01/2010 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: R1004E Subjects: Cost analysis Academic Discipline: Human resources management Product Description: This infographic offers a data-driven look at five reasons U.S. health care is so expensive-out-of-control pricing; payment schemes that reward excess; too many specialists; a few people cost a lot; and small practices, fractured care-and suggests some remedies.    The Battle for Female Talent in Emerging Markets   Add   View  8 pp.  Article Author(s): Hewlett, Sylvia Ann; Rashid, Ripa Publication Date: 05/01/2010 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: R1005H Subjects: Global business; Emerging markets; Women in business; Multinational corporations; Talent management Academic Discipline: Human resources management Product Description: Multinational companies are pinning their hopes for growth on emerging markets, specifically in the BRIC countries-Brazil, Russia, India, and China, which together account for 15%-20% of today's global economy. But these companies face a critical obstacle: a cutthroat war for talent. Despite the enormous labor forces in BRIC, top-notch talent is hard to find. India produces as many young engineers as the United States, but according to the McKinsey Global Institute, only 25% of them are suitable for employment by multinationals. Fewer than one out of 10 university graduates in China are prepared to succeed in a multinational environment. To better understand the talent dynamics in emerging markets and how multinational companies can succeed there, the authors launched a study of 4,350 college-educated men and women in Brazil, Russia, India, China, and the United Arab Emirates. They found that the talent solution is in plain sight: Millions of educated women have entered the professional workforce in these countries over the past two decades. Though this talent pool is currently neglected and underleveraged, it represents the future. Women in emerging markets are enormously ambitious and passionate about their work, but they face complicated challenges that are fundamentally different from those of women in the developed world. Here's what companies like Google, Siemens, Intel, GE, and Pfizer are doing to shape talent models that work, especially for women in emerging markets.    Debunking Four Myths About Employee Silence   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Author(s): Detert, James R.; Burris, Ethan R.; Harrison, David A. Publication Date: 06/01/2010 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: F1006B Subjects: Communication in organizations; Superior & subordinate; Difficult conversations; Managing people Academic Discipline: Human resources management Product Description: The most common reason workers aren't frank with you isn't fear of retribution. It's a sense of futility.    Why Men Still Get More Promotions Than Women   Add   View  12 pp.  Article Author(s): Ibarra, Herminia; Carter, Nancy M.; Silva, Christine Publication Date: 09/01/2010 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: R1009F Subjects: Career advancement; Diversity; Women; Mentoring; Gender Academic Discipline: Human resources management Product Description: Though companies now invest heavily in mentoring and developing their best female talent, all that attention doesn't translate into promotions. A Catalyst survey of over 4,000 high potentials shows that more women than men have mentors-yet women are paid $4,600 less in their first post-MBA jobs, hold lower-level positions, and feel less career satisfaction. To better understand why, the authors conducted in-depth interviews with 40 participants in a mentoring program at a large multinational. All mentoring is not created equal, they discovered. Only sponsorship involves advocacy for advancement. The interviews and survey alike indicate that, compared with their male peers, high potential women are overmentored, undersponsored, and not advancing in their organizations. Without sponsorship, women not only are less likely than men to be appointed to top roles but may also be more reluctant to go for them. Organizations such as Deutsche Bank, Unilever, Sodexo, and IBM Europe have established sponsorship programs to facilitate the promotion of high-potential women. Programs that get results clarify and communicate their goals, match sponsors and mentees on the basis of those goals, coordinate corporate and regional efforts, train sponsors, and hold those sponsors accountable.    CEOs with Headsets   Add   View  8 pp.  Article Author(s): Zimbalist, Andrew Publication Date: 09/01/2010 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: F1009A Industry Setting: Executive compensation Subjects: Executive compensation Academic Discipline: Human resources management Product Description: Economist Andrew Zimbalist explores the disconnect between colleges in fiscal crisis and the ballooning salaries of those college's football coaches. Many argue that market forces dictate the steep salaries in college athletics, but Zimbalist's research finds that the high pay does not correlate to performance and in fact it makes no economic sense. Colleges should rethink how much they're willing to give these CEOs with headsets.    The ROI on Weight Loss at Work   Add   View  8 pp.  Article Author(s): Blackburn, George L., M.D. Publication Date: 12/01/2009 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: R0912A Subjects: Wellness programs; Health Academic Discipline: Human resources management Product Description: Workplace weight-loss programs are a win-win tool that companies can use to boost both health and wealth. The financial payoff - for one Texas employer, about $2.50 in return for every dollar spent - stems from lower health care costs and reduced absenteeism.    Pull the Plug on Stress   Add   View  12 pp.  Article Author(s): Cryer, Bruce; McCraty, Rollin; Childre, Doc Publication Date: 07/01/2003 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: R0307J Subjects: Human behavior; Human resources management; Psychology; Employee problems; Stress Academic Discipline: Human resources management Product Description: Stress is rampant, stress is growing, and stress hurts the bottom line. A 1999 study of 46,000 workers revealed that health care costs are 147% higher for those who are stressed or depressed, independent of other health issues. But what exactly is stress? It usually refers to our internal reaction to negative, threatening, or worrisome situations — a looming performance report, say, or interactions with a dismissive colleague. Accumulated over time, negative stress can depress you, burn you out, make you sick, or even kill you — because it's both an emotional and a physiological habit. Of course, many companies understand the negative impact of cumulative stress and offer programs to help employees counteract it. The problem is that employees in the greatest need of help often don't seek it. Since 1991, the authors have studied the physiological impact of stress on performance, at both the individual and organizational levels. Their goal largely has been to decode the underlying mechanics of stress. After working with more than 50,000 workers and managers in more than 100 organizations, the authors have found that learning to manage stress is easier than most people think. They have devised a scientifically based system of tools, techniques, and technologies that organizations can use to reduce employee stress and boost overall health and performance.    New Game Plan for C Players   Add   View  12 pp.  Article Author(s): Axelrod, Beth; Handfield-Jones, Helen; Michaels, Ed Publication Date: 01/01/2002 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: R0201G Subjects: Succession planning; Managing professionals; Performance appraisals; Human resources management; Employee development; Organizational management Academic Discipline: Human resources management Product Description: It's a big driver of business success, but one that executives are loath to talk about: upgrading the management talent pool by weeding out “C” players — those who deliver results that are acceptable but who fail to innovate or inspire the people they lead. In this article, the authors of The War for Talent explore the hidden costs of tolerating underperformance and acknowledge the reasons why executives may shy away from dealing decisively with C players. They recommend that organizations establish rigorous, disciplined processes for assessing and dealing with low-performing managers but still treat them with respect. The authors outline three ironhanded step for executives to take. First, identify C players by evaluating their talents and distributing employee performances along an assessment curve. Second, agree on explicit action plans that articulate the improvements or changes that C performers must achieve within 6 to 12 months. And third, hold managers accountable for carrying out the action plans. The authors also emphasize the need for executives to ensure that low performers are treated with dignity — offer candid feedback, instructive coaching, and generous severance packages and outplacement support. The authors' approach isn't about being tough on people; it's about being relentlessly focused on performance.    Corporate Budgeting Is Broken — Let’s Fix It   Add   View  12 pp.  Article Author(s): Jensen, Michael C. Publication Date: 11/01/2001 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: R0110F Subjects: Budgeting; Performance measurement; Managers; Compensation; Employee compensation; Incentives Academic Discipline: Human resources management Product Description: Corporate budgeting is a joke, and everyone knows it. It consumes a huge amount of executives' time, forcing them into endless rounds of dull meetings and tense negotiations. It encourages line managers to lie and cheat, lowballing targets and inflating results. And it turns business decisions into elaborate exercises in gaming. The sad thing is, budget shenanigans have become so embedded in corporate life that they're accepted as business as usual — no matter how destructive they are. The source of the problem is using budget targets to drive managers' compensation. In a traditional pay-for-performance compensation program, a manager earns a hurdle bonus when performance reaches a certain level. The bonus increases with performance until it hits a maximum cap. These “kinks” in the pay-for-performance line create incentives to game the system. When performance approaches the hurdle target, a manager will try to accelerate the realization of revenue and profit. When performance hits the cap, the manager has a strong incentive to push revenue and profit into the next year. To eliminate inducements to game the system, companies should adopt a purely linear pay-for-performance scheme that rewards actual performance, independent of budget targets. A manager receives the same bonus for a given level of performance whether the budget goal happens to be set beneath that level or above it. Severing the link between budgets and bonuses eliminates managers' motivation to lowball targets, and it takes away incentives to move revenues and expenses aro    Off-Ramps and On-Ramps Revisited   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Author(s): Hewlett, Sylvia Ann; Sherbin, Laura; Forster, Diana Publication Date: 06/01/2010 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: F1006D Subjects: Career planning; Career changes; Women in business Academic Discipline: Human resources management Product Description: A research update shows that women are still choosing circuitous career paths, despite the recession.    The Value of Human Resource Management for Organizational Performance   Add   View  9 pp.  Article Author(s): Ireland, R. Duane; Liu, Yongmei; Combs, James; Ketchen, David , Jr. Publication Date: 11/09/2007 Product Type: Business Horizons Article Publisher: Business Horizons/Indiana Univ. HBS Number: BH255 Subjects: Performance management; Human resources management; Analytics Academic Discipline: Human resources management Product Description: All executives would like to see their organizations perform better, and most search for tools that can help make this happen. For decades, human resource managers have believed that their function enhances performance. This contention has been met with skepticism on the part of executives, however, who wonder whether funds allocated to the human resource function are good investments. Dozens of studies have examined this issue, but their inconsistent results have provided no conclusions. To resolve a long-standing and controversial question - does human resource management matter for organizational performance? - we take stock of the available evidence. Based on data from over 19,000 organizations, we conclude that human resource management adds significant value for organizations. In addition, the value added is strongest when human resource systems are emphasized rather than individual practices, when human resource management decisions are tied to strategy, and among manufacturing firms.    How to Keep Your Top Talent   Add   View  12 pp.  Article Author(s): Martin, Jean; Schmidt, Conrad Publication Date: 05/01/2010 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: R1005B Subjects: Leadership development; Employee retention; Talent management; Top performers Academic Discipline: Human resources management Product Description: Practically every company these days has some form of program designed to nurture high-potential employees. But a recent study by the Corporate Executive Board demonstrates that nearly 40% of internal job moves made by people identified by their companies as “high potentials” end in failure. Disengagement within this cohort of employees also is remarkable: One in three emerging stars reported feeling disengaged from his or her company. Even more striking, 12% of all the high potentials in the study said they were actively searching for a new job-suggesting that as the economy rebounds and the labor market warms up, organizations may see their most promising employees take flight in large numbers. Why do companies have so much trouble bringing along their next generation of leaders? The Corporate Executive Board's research showed that senior managers make misguided assumptions about these employees and take actions on their behalf that actually hinder their development. When dealing with high-potential employees, firms tend to make six common errors: assuming that all of them are highly engaged, equating current performance with future potential, delegating the management of high potentials down in the organization, shielding promising employees from early derailment, expecting stars to share the pain of organization-wide cutbacks, and failing to link high potentials and their careers to corporate strategy. These mistakes can doom a company's talent investments to irrelevance-or worse. If you're concerned about who will take up the leadershi    ABCs of Job Interviewing   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Jenks, James M.; Zevnik, Brian L.P. Executives who don't usually interview candidates for management positions can benefit from first writing a job description specific enough to cover the position's details but general enough to cover its managerial aspects. This exercise forms the basis of a written interview guide which helps the interviewer elicit the most pertinent and useful information in each interview. Focusing on applicants' past performance and framing questions in a way that calls for revealing answers is the best approach. Revelations about past behavior are in any case the best indicator of future performance. HBS Number: 89408 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 7/1/1989 Subjects: Careers & career planning; Personnel selection; Recruitment    After Layoffs, Help Survivors Be More Effective   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Author(s): Nyberg, Anthony J.; Trevor, Charlie O. Publication Date: 06/01/2009 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article HBS Number: F0906B Subjects: Downsizing; Academic Discipline: Human resources management Product Description: If your firm has downsized recently, you're now managing a bunch of survivors — the lucky ones who didn't get laid off. But good fortune doesn't make for good performance, at least not in this situation. Chances are, you're presiding over a heightened level of employee dysfunction, even if you don't see it yet. Here's what you can do to limit the damage.    After the Layoffs, What Next?   Add   View  16 pp.  Article Wetlaufer, Suzy Harry Denton, the CEO in this fictional case study, has been caught off guard. As the head of Delarks, a venerable department-store chain in the Midwest, he has engineered a remarkable turnaround in only a year. Sales have rebounded, a HBS Number: 98510 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 9/1/1998 Subjects: Employee morale; Employment security; HBR Case Discussions; Human resources management; Layoffs; Management of crises; Restructuring; Work force management    Agility in Learning: An Essential for Evolving Organizations — and People   Add   View  5 pp.  Article Author(s): Williams, Monci J. Publication Date: 05/01/1997 Product Type: Harvard Management Update Article Product Description: In part, because as many as 75% of all reengineering efforts fail, organizations must focus on learning to sustain their competitive advantage--no small task given the tenacity with which bright people struggle to remain within their comfort zones, even if this leads to skilled incompetence. "Individual learning agility" may be just the lever organizations need to facilitate meaningful change. There are three levels of learning ability. Agile or active learners, about 10% of the organizational population, are unusually effective in new or challenging situations and have an outsized impact when placed in the right job. The majority of people in an organization are random or passive learners (60%). Members of this population learn as a matter of happenstance rather than habit, nature, or desire but still may be the linchpin for their entire team--at least until the team has to deal with change. Blocked learners, the remaining people in the organization, are the most resistant to or discombobulated by change but have their place in organizational life, especially in roles where creativity is not required. The author advises passive learners to become more like agile learners and offers suggestions for how to put oneself on the line in new situations that force development and application of new insights. HBS Number: U9705B Geographic Setting: Industry Setting: Subjects: Learning; Learning curves; Management development; Organizational change; Organizational development; Reengineering Academic Discipline: Human resources management    Aligning Employees Through “Line of Sight”   Add   View  11 pp.  Article Author(s): Boswell, Wendy; Bingham, John B.; Colvin, Alexander J.S. Publication Date: 11/15/2006 Product Type: Business Horizons Article Publisher: Business Horizons/Indiana University HBS Number: BH217 Subjects: Alignment; Employee orientation; Human capital; Strategic HR management; Strategy Academic Discipline: Human resources management Product Description: Aligning employees with a firm's larger strategic goals is critical if organizations hope to manage their human capital effectively and ultimately attain strategic success. An important component of attaining and sustaining this alignment is for employees to have a “line of sight” (LOS) with their organization's strategic objectives. Illustrates how the translation of calculated firm goals into tangible results requires that employees not only understand the organization's strategy, but also accurately appreciate what actions are aligned with realizing that strategy. Using recent empirical evidence, theoretical insights, and tangible examples of exemplary firm practices, provides thought leaders with a comprehensive view of LOS by showing how it can be created, how it can be enhanced or stifled, and how it can be effectively managed. Further, integrates LOS with current thinking on employee alignment to help managers more effectively benefit from understanding human capital potential.    Aligning Human Capital with Business Strategy: Perspectives from Thought Leaders   Add   View  5 pp.  Article Author(s): Frangos, Cassandra A. Publication Date: 05/15/2002 Product Type: Balanced Scorecard Report Article Product Description: Human capital is firmly acknowledged as a strategic source of value creation for all types of organizations in today's knowledge-based economy. As is the case in many companies, human resources executives are expected to lead employee development, but most HR departments lack a strategic planning process for human capital, much less a consistent way to describe and measure it. A recent BSCol conference examined these issues. Here, read what three leading voices on these issues had to say: Dr. Jac Fitz-enz, the father of human capital benchmarking; scorecard co-creator David Norton; and Helen Drinan, former CEO of the Society of Human Resource Management. HBS Number: B0205D Subjects: Balanced scorecard; Communication in organizations; Employee development; Employee retention; Employees; Human relations; Human resources management; Management of change Academic Discipline: Human resources management    Alternative Workplace: Changing Where and How People Work   Add   View  20 pp.  Article Apgar, Mahlon, IV This article describes the benefits and challenges of alternative workplace programs. Today many organizations, including AT&T and IBM, are pioneering the alternative workplace--the combination of nontraditional work practices, setting HBS Number: 98301 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 5/1/1998 Subjects: Corporate culture; Human resources management; Organizational structure; Telecommuters; Virtual communities; Work environment    Alternative Workplace: Changing Where and How People Work (HBR OnPoint Enhan   Add   View  24 pp.  Article Apgar, Mahlon, IV HBR OnPoint Articles save you time by enhancing an original Harvard Business Review article with an overview that draws out the main points and an annotated bibliography that points you to related resources. This enables you to scan, a HBS Number: 3677 Type: HBR OnPoint Article Publication Date: 6/1/2000 Subjects: Corporate culture; Human resources management; Organizational structure; Telecommuters; Virtual communities; Work environment    Alternatives to the Annual Performance Review   Add   View  5 pp.  Article Publication Date: 02/01/2000 Product Type: Harvard Management Update Article Product Description: Companies can get rid of those troublesome yearly evaluations if they really want to. But it isn't an easy move to make. Managers have to change some fundamental assumptions about what really produces high performance. Companies have to work with employees differently on a variety of fronts, from feedback to compensation. HBS Number: U0002A Subjects: Organizational behavior; Performance appraisal; Performance effectiveness; Superior & subordinate Academic Discipline: Human resources management    Ambidextrous Organization: Managing Evolutionary and Revolutionary Change   Add   View  24 pp.  Article Tushman, Michael L.; O'Reilly, Charles A., III Organizations evolve through periods of incremental or evolutionary change punctuated by discontinuous or revolutionary change. The challenge for managers is to adapt the culture and strategy of their organizations to its current environment, but to do so in a way that does not undermine its ability to adjust to radical changes in that environment. They must, in other words, create an ambidextrous organization--one capable of simultaneously pursuing both incremental and discontinuous innovation. HBS Number: CMR063 Type: CMR Article Publication Date: 7/1/1996 Subjects: Corporate culture; Corporate strategy; Innovation; Organizational change Publisher: Publisher:California Management Review    America’s Looming Creativity Crisis   Add   View  16 pp.  Article Author(s): Florida, Richard Publication Date: 10/01/2004 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article HBS Number: R0410H Subjects: Competitive advantage; Creativity; Economic development; Economic growth; Human resources management; Intellectual capital; Management of professionals Academic Discipline: Human resources management Product Description: The strength of the American economy does not rest on its manufacturing prowess, its natural resources, or the size of its market. It turns on one factor — the country's openness to new ideas, which has allowed it to attract the brightest minds from around the world and harness their creative energies. But the United States is on the verge of losing that competitive edge. As the nation tightens its borders to students and scientists and subjects federal research funding to ideological and religious litmus tests, many other countries are stepping in to lure that creative capital away. Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Denmark, and others are spending more on research and development and shoring up their universities in an effort to attract the world's best — including Americans. If even a few of these nations draw away just a small percentage of the creative workers from the United States, the effect on its economy will be enormous. In this article, the author introduces a quantitative measure of the migration of creative capital called the Global Creative-Class Index. It shows that, far from leading the world, the United States doesn't even rank in the Top 10 in the percentage of its workforce engaged in creative occupations. What's more, the baby boomers will soon retire. And data showing large drops in foreign-student applications to U.S. universities and in the number of visas issued to knowledge workers, along with concomitant increases in immigration in other countries, suggest that the erosion of talent from the United States will    An Uneasy Look at Performance Appraisal/Chairman Mac in Perspective   Add   View  12 pp.  Article McGregor, Douglas Conventional approach to performance appraisal forces managers to make judgments on the personal worth of a fellow employee. An effective alternative is employee self-evaluation. This requires that they think about their jobs, assess carefully their own strengths and weaknesses, and formulate specific plans to reach their goals. The superior's role is to help correlate the employee's self-appraisal goals and plans with the concerns of the organization. This system places the major responsibility on the subordinate, and shifts the emphasis from appraisal to analysis. The Supplement, Chairman Mac in Perspective, by W.G. Bennis, provides an evaluation of McGregor's work. HBS Number: 72507 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 9/1/1972 Subjects: HBR Classics; Management philosophy; Performance appraisal    Applying Flextime Policies   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Author(s): Von Hoffman, Constantine Publication Date: 01/01/1998 Product Type: Harvard Management Update Article Product Description: While many companies have been responsive to the needs of working parents, many believe that policies such as parental leave, daycare, and sick child care can alienate the large and increasing majority of workers who do not have children. This article presses for ways to adopt more need-blind policies to human resources and suggests methods to create policies that are "owned" by everyone and not perceived as biased. HBS Number: U9801C Geographic Setting: Industry Setting: Subjects: Employee benefits; Families & family life; Flexible hours; Human resources management; Personnel policies; Scheduling; Work hours Academic Discipline: Human resources management    Appraisal of What Performance?   Add   View  8 pp.  Article Levinson, Harry Present performance appraisal techniques evaluate behavior by making subjective and impressionistic judgments rather than quantitative judgments and providing inadequate information about performances. Static job descriptions contribute to the inadequacy of appraisal systems as they do not define the subtleties of the relationships which will influence employees' roles and careers. Employees need to develop political skill in addition to professional competence and this need demands a dynamic job description, a critical incident process, and a psychological support system. HBS Number: 76405 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 7/1/1976 Subjects: Performance appraisal; Performance measurement    Are CIOs Obsolete?   Add   View  8 pp.  Article Maruca, Regina Fazio Back in the prehistoric days of information technology--say, about 15 years ago--many companies opted to deal with the frighteningly complicated matter of "machines and men" by creating a new position: chief information officer. This n HBS Number: R00212 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 3/1/2000 Subjects: Corporate governance; Executives; MIS; Organizational structure    Are You Using Recognition Effectively?   Add   View  3 pp.  Article Author(s): Bielaszka-DuVernay, Christina Publication Date: 05/01/2007 Product Type: Harvard Management Update Article HBS Number: U0705B Subjects: Compensation; Leadership development; Management performance; Personal strategy & style; Recognition; Team leadership; Values Academic Discipline: Human resources management Product Description: Recognition in the workplace? It gets great lip service, but little — or ineffective — actual practice. For recognition to strengthen your team's performance, it can't be haphazard, it can't be generalized to the group, and it can't be generic. So say Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton, authors of “The Carrot Principle: How the Best Managers Use Recognition to Engage Their People, Retain Talent, and Accelerate Performance.” In this article, HMU talks with Gostick about the characteristics of successful recognition and good recognition habits.    Articulating Corporate Values Through Human Resource Policies   Add   View  5 pp.  Article Author(s): Begley, Thomas M.; Boyd, David P. Publication Date: 07/15/2000 Product Type: Business Horizons Article Publisher: Business Horizons/Indiana University Product Description: More and more, the task of the HR department is one of identifying and articulating primary strategic values of the corporate culture. As an example, Texas Instruments shelved its cumbersome approach to updating HR policy and switched to a system that allowed the rapid response needed in a fast-changing environment. In companies with a strongly articulated value-based culture, the challenge is to apply that culture to the formulation of specific HR policies. Doing so requires that HR policies be examined for relevance to the current business environment, connection to strategic goals, adaptability to changing circumstances, applicability across the firm's theater of operations, familiarity to employees, ease of interpretation and application, specification of the bounds of acceptable employee behavior, and extent of commitment to policies by employees. The process of designing HR policies in a value-based culture is illustrated by the experiences of Texas Instruments, Bell Atlantic, and Unisys. HBS Number: BH050 Subjects: Corporate culture; Human resources management; Strategy implementation; Values Academic Discipline: Human resources management    Attack on Pay   Add   View  9 pp.  Article Kanter, Rosabeth Moss Traditional compensation systems that value status instead of contribution do not reward the entrepreneurial activity U.S. companies need. They're also unfair, costly, and inefficient. Now U.S. employers are changing their pay practices to forge better links between compensation and performance. Traditional ideas about hierarchy come into question every time one of these changes is made, so attacks on pay that look like fine-tuning are actually revolutionary in what they portend for organizational design. HBS Number: 87209 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 3/1/1987 Subjects: Executive compensation; Organizational design    Best of Intentions   Add   View  12 pp.  Article Author(s): Humphreys, John; Thomas, David A.; Morris, Herman, Jr.; Koehn, Daryl; Leung, Alicia; Loury, Glenn C. Publication Date: 07/01/2002 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article HBS Number: R0207A Subjects: Diversity; HBR case discussions; Human resources management; Management of professionals; Racial discrimination Academic Discipline: Human resources management Product Description: Cynthia Mitchell has finally gotten a plum management opportunity at AgFunds, a Houston-based company that provides financial services to farmers and farmer-owned cooperatives. Peter Jones, regional vice president, has recruited Cynthia to revive the Arkansas district, which has been losing customers for 15 years. The sales force there isn't bad; it's just been poorly managed by an indifferent boss for too long. Still, Cynthia knows she'll need at least one powerhouse sales rep to get things back on track. She thinks she's found that person in Steve Ripley, this year's top trainee at AgFunds, who is inexplicably available three months after the training period is over. In the interview, he proves to be ambitious, intelligent, and personable. But several of Cynthia's colleagues suggest that Steve might not be the best fit for the job: He's a black man in a company whose customer base is mostly conservative and white. Uncomfortably recalling her own experiences at AgFunds — she'd been rejected for a position in a territory that was deemed too unfriendly to female sales representatives — Cynthia addresses the issue with Peter. The mostly white farmers in Cynthia's district just won't trust their books to a black professional, Peter explains. And other minority professionals at AgFunds have derailed their careers trying to make inroads in unfriendly districts. “Steve deserves to start out in a more hospitable district. Once the right opportunity opens up, he'll be hired, and he'll do brilliantly    Best-Laid Incentive Plans   Add   View  12 pp.  Article Author(s): Kerr, Steven; Kaufman, Stephen P.; Gross, Steven E.; Hernandez, Diego E.; Leskin, Barry Publication Date: 01/01/2003 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Product Description: Hiram Phillips couldn't have been in better spirits. The CFO and chief administrative officer of Rainbarrel Products, a diversified consumer-durables manufacturer, Phillips felt he'd single-handedly turned the company's performance around. He'd been at Rainbarrel only a year, but the company's numbers had, according to his measures, already improved by leaps and bounds. Now the day had come for Hiram to share the positive results of his new performance management system with his colleagues. The corporate executive council was meeting, and even CEO Keith Randall was applauding the CFO's work. Everything looked positively rosy — until some questionable information began to trickle in from other meeting participants. It came to light, for instance, that R&D had developed a breakthrough product that was not being brought to market as quickly as it should have been — thanks to Hiram's inflexible budgeting process. An employee survey showed that workers were demoralized. And customers were complaining about Rainbarrel's service. The general message? The new performance metrics and incentives had indeed been affecting overall performance — but not for the better. Should Rainbarrel revisit its approach to performance management? HBS Number: R0301A Subjects: Compensation; Employee attitude; Employee problems; HBR case discussions; Human resources management; Performance appraisal; Performance measurement Academic Discipline: Human resources management    Beware the Busy Manager   Added   View  12 pp.  Article Author(s): Bruch, Heike; Ghoshal, Sumantra Publication Date: 02/01/2002 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Product Description: Managers will tell you that the resource they lack most is time. If you watch them, you'll see them rushing from meeting to meeting, checking their e-mail constantly, fighting fires. Managers think they are attending to important matters, but they're really just spinning their wheels. For the past 10 years, the authors have studied the behavior of busy managers, and their findings should frighten you: Fully 90% of managers squander their time in all sorts of ineffective activities. A mere 10% of managers spend their time in a committed, purposeful, and reflective manner. Effective action relies on a combination of two traits: focus--the ability to zero in on a goal and see the task through to completion--and energy--the vigor that comes from intense personal commitment. Focus without energy devolves into listless execution or leads to burnout. Energy without focus dissipates into aimless busyness or wasteful failures. Plotting these two traits into a matrix provides a useful framework for understanding productivity levels of different managers. This article will help you identify which managers in your organization are making a real difference--and which just look busy. HBS Number: R0202D Subjects: Employee empowerment; Managerial behavior; Motivation; Organizational behavior; Organizational problems Academic Discipline: Human resources management    Beware the Busy Manager (HBR OnPoint Enhanced Edition)   Add   View  16 pp.  Article Author(s): Bruch, Heike; Ghoshal, Sumantra Publication Date: 02/01/2002 Product Type: HBR OnPoint Article Product Description: This is an enhanced edition of the HBR reprint R0202D, originally published in February 2002. HBR OnPoint articles save you time by enhancing an original Harvard Business Review article with an overview that draws out the main points and an annotated bibliography that points you to related resources. This enables you to scan, absorb, and share the management insights with others. Managers will tell you that the resource they lack most is time. If you watch them, you'll see them rushing from meeting to meeting, checking their e-mail constantly, fighting fires. Managers think they are attending to important matters, but they're really just spinning their wheels. For the past 10 years, the authors have studied the behavior of busy managers, and their findings should frighten you: Fully 90% of managers squander their time in all sorts of ineffective activities. A mere 10% of managers spend their time in a committed, purposeful, and reflective manner. Effective action relies on a combination of two traits: focus — the ability to zero in on a goal and see the task through to completion — and energy — the vigor that comes from intense personal commitment. Focus without energy devolves into listless execution or leads to burnout. Energy without focus dissipates into aimless busyness or wasteful failures. Plotting these two traits into a matrix provides a useful framework for understanding productivity levels of different managers. This article will help you identify which managers in your organization are making a real difference — and which just look busy. HBS Number: 8903 Subjects: Employee empowerment; Managerial behavior; Motivation; Organizational behavior; Organizational problems Academic Discipline: Human resources management    Beware the Interview Inquisition   Add   View  3 pp.  Article Author(s): Poundstone, William Publication Date: 05/01/2003 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Product Description: The brutal, puzzle-based job interview has spread from the computer industry to the Fortune 500 and beyond. But grilling candidates in this way can backfire. HBS Number: F0305B Subjects: Business reading; Human resources management; Interviews; Organizational development; Personnel selection; Recruitment Academic Discipline: Human resources management    Beyond Theory Y   Add   View  10 pp.  Article Morse, John J.; Lorsch, Jay W. Douglas McGregor's "Theory Y" fails to explain worker motivation under all circumstances. Recent studies show that there is not one best organizational approach, and that the best approach is one fitted to the nature of the work to be done. The "Contingency Theory" states that an individual's central need is to achieve a sense of competence. Competence is most likely to be fulfilled when there is a fit between task and organization. In this situation, competence continues after the achievement of initial goals. HBS Number: 70307 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 5/1/1970 Subjects: Motivation; Organizational design; Performance effectiveness    Big Hat, No Cattle: Managing Human Resources   Add   View  10 pp.  Article Skinner, C. Wickham Sixty years of executive attention to human resource management (HRM) theories fail to make employees productive, loyal, and motivated because of unrealistic management expectations, contradictory theories regarding employee performance and relations, the problematic role of personnel management in corporate decision making, and the undermining nature of management assumptions regarding employee motivation. A new approach to human resources planning depends on management's ability to replace mistaken assumptions with premises that emphasize the importance of the personnel function in corporate development, and concentrate on basic HRM skills such as supervision and communication. HBS Number: 81512 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 9/1/1981 Subjects: Human resources management; Personnel management    Black Managers: The Dream Deferred   Add   View  13 pp.  Article Jones, Edward W., Jr. Equal opportunity laws have brought blacks in large numbers into corporate managerial ranks. Yet in the midst of this good news there is widespread disappointment, dismay, frustration, and anger among black managers who feel they have not gained acceptance on a par with their white peers. Three years of research and more than 200 interviews with professionals in a large variety of fields disprove the myth that companies are color-blind. Commitment to equal opportunity is vital and must come from the top down. HBS Number: 86307 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 5/1/1986 Subjects: Discrimination; Diversity; Human behavior; Management development    Breakthrough in On-the-Job Training   Add   View  12 pp.  Article Gomersall, Earl R.; Myers, M. Scott A study at Texas Instruments (TI) revealed that a lack of minimal job competence and the resultant debilitating anxieties caused failures in problem solving. To reduce the anxiety of new employees so as to speed the achievement of a competence level, manufacturing managers at TI designed a special orientation program. The results were significant gains in learning time, quality production, and job attendance. HBS Number: 66404 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 7/1/1966 Subjects: Employee attitude; Employee training; Productivity    Building a Learning Organization   Add   View  20 pp.  Article Author(s): Garvin, David A. Publication Date: 07/01/1993 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article HBS Number: 93402 Subjects: Continuous improvement; Implementation; Learning curves; Organizational development; Organizational learning; Performance measurement; Strategy Academic Discipline: Human resources management Product Description: Continuous improvement programs are proliferating as corporations seek to better themselves and gain an edge. Unfortunately, however, failed programs far outnumber successes, and improvement rates remain low. That's because most companies have failed to grasp a basic truth. Before people and companies can improve, they must first learn. And to do this, they need to look beyond rhetoric and high philosophy and focus on the fundamentals. Three critical issues must be addressed before a company can truly become a learning organization: meaning, management, and measurement.    Building Front-Line Morale: A Checklist   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Author(s): Wardell, Charles Publication Date: 05/01/1999 Product Type: Harvard Management Update Article Product Description: Most businesses would be nothing without their front-line workers: store clerks, warehouse workers, housekeepers, and telephone reps are the people who do companies' everyday work. They rarely get much training and don't make a lot of money. Yet they're often the people who determine whether a customer goes away satisfied or annoyed. Boosting the performance of front-line workers normally requires expensive training or increased benefits and compensation. But if you aren't in a position to implement such programs, this article offers five simple tips that can really make a difference to your employees. HBS Number: U9905C Subjects: Employee attitude; Employee morale; Human resources management; Line & staff management; Service management; Supervision; Work force management Academic Discipline: Human resources management    Business and Labor: From Adversaries to Allies   Add   View  8 pp.  Article Scobel, Donald N. To settle the quarrel between management and workers, both sides must first adopt a spirit of cooperation and a willingness to accommodate each others' needs. This spirit is beginning in many companies in the form of new labor contracts and quality-of-work-life programs. An analysis of both the success and failure of these experiments indicates that change must be initiated in small steps, and companies should avoid combining cooperation and bargaining. If cooperation is unachievable, management and labor face the risks of labor union ineffectiveness, low productivity, poor morale, little or no growth, and a lack of security. HBS Number: 82611 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 11/1/1982 Subjects: Labor negotiations; Labor relations    Business and the Facts of Family Life   Add   View  10 pp.  Article Rodgers, Fran Sussner; Rodgers, Charles Business and family are at odds in the United States. Whereas women once stayed home to care for the sick, the young, and the elderly, most now work outside the home. Yet people seem to manage and everybody gets taken care of. Nevertheless there are four reasons why business should worry about the family: 1) companies will have to compete for workers on the basis of family programs and flexible schedules, 2) both men and women want more time with their families and are blaming companies when they don't get it, 3) company inflexibility on family issues decreases productivity, 4) children are the future work force and they're not getting the personal and educational attention they need. HBS Number: 89610 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 11/1/1989 Subjects: Families & family life; Human relations; Organizational change; Social change    Business of Equal Opportunity   Add   View  8 pp.  Article Dickson, Reginald D. Inroads is an organization headed by Reginald Dickson that puts talented black and Hispanic young people on a career path in business. Dickson believes today's corporate leaders must tap into the huge reservoir of minority talent if they are going to keep up with the changing demographics of the 1990s. And minority youth must be trained and willing to accept the challenge to break into the American mainstream. Programs have long existed for getting minorities into the medical and legal fields. Inroads is the first to work with the business world. Inroads sees the corporations as the clients, and it services them with its growing minority talent pool. HBS Number: 92101 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 1/1/1992 Subjects: Careers & career planning; Corporate culture; Discrimination; Employee training; Management development; Minority & ethnic groups    Business Success in Eastern Europe: Understanding and Customizing HRM   Add   View  5 pp.  Article Kiriazov, Dimiter; Sullivan, Sherry E.; Tu, Howard S. Compared to the West, human resource practices in Eastern Europe are immature. Countries focus more on personnel administration than the integration of human resources (HR) with corporate strategy. Few companies have well-developed sel HBS Number: BH045 Type: Business Horizons Article Publication Date: 1/15/2000 Subjects: Eastern Europe; Human resources management; International business; Organizational behavior Publisher: Publisher:Business Horizons/Indiana University    Can Loyalty Be Leased?   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Author(s): Craig, Elizabeth; Kimberly, John; Bouchikh Publication Date: 09/01/2002 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Product Description: Groom your executives to leave--enhance the skills that make them attractive in the marketplace--and they'll remain committed to their jobs. This counterintuitive finding, based on a study of 400 midlevel executives, has an important corollary: Fall short on your promises to develop executives' employability, and loyalty will diminish. HBS Number: F0209D Subjects: Careers & career planning; Employee development; Employee training; Employment security; Loyalty Academic Discipline: Human resources management    Capitalizing on Capabilities   Add   View  12 pp.  Article Author(s): Ulrich, David; Smallwood, Norman Publication Date: 06/01/2004 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article HBS Number: R0406J Subjects: Accountability; Competitive advantage; Human resources management; Innovation; Intangible assets; Learning; Organizational development Academic Discipline: Human resources management Product Description: By making the most of organizational capabilities — employees' collective skills and fields of expertise — you can dramatically improve your company's market value. Although there is no magic list of proficiencies that every organization needs to succeed, the authors identify 11 intangible assets that well-managed companies tend to have: talent, speed, shared mind-set and coherent brand identity, accountability, collaboration, learning, leadership, customer connectivity, strategic unity, innovation, and efficiency. Such companies typically excel in only three of these capabilities while maintaining industry parity in the other areas. Organizations that fall below the norm in any of the 11 are likely candidates for dysfunction and competitive disadvantage. To determine how your company fares in these categories (or others, if the generic list doesn't suit your needs), the authors explain how to conduct a “capabilities audit,” describing in particular the experiences and findings of two companies that recently performed such audits. In addition to highlighting which intangible assets are most important given the organization's history and strategy, this exercise gauges how well your company delivers on its capabilities and guides you in developing an action plan for improvement. A capabilities audit can work for an entire organization, a business unit, or a region — indeed, for any part of a company that has a strategy to generate financial or customer-related results. It enables executives to assess overall company strengths a    Capitalizing on Your Capabilities (HBR OnPoint Enhanced Edition)   Add   View  16 pp.  Article Author(s): Ulrich, David; Smallwood, Norman Publication Date: 06/01/2004 Product Type: HBR OnPoint Article HBS Number: 7014 Subjects: Accountability; Competitive advantage; Human resources management; Innovation; Intangible assets; Learning; Organizational development Academic Discipline: Human resources management Product Description: This is an enhanced edition of HBR article R0406J, originally published in June 2004. HBR OnPoint articles include the full-text HBR article plus a summary of key ideas and company examples to help you quickly absorb and apply the concepts. By making the most of organizational capabilities — employees' collective skills and fields of expertise — you can dramatically improve your company's market value. Although there is no magic list of proficiencies that every organization needs to succeed, the authors identify 11 intangible assets that well-managed companies tend to have: talent, speed, shared mind-set and coherent brand identity, accountability, collaboration, learning, leadership, customer connectivity, strategic unity, innovation, and efficiency. Such companies typically excel in only three of these capabilities while maintaining industry parity in the other areas. Organizations that fall below the norm in any of the 11 are likely candidates for dysfunction and competitive disadvantage. To determine how your company fares in these categories (or others, if the generic list doesn't suit your needs), the authors explain how to conduct a “capabilities audit,” describing in particular the experiences and findings of two companies that recently performed such audits. In addition to highlighting which intangible assets are most important given the organization's history and strategy, this exercise gauges how well your company delivers on its capabilities and guides you in developing an action plan for improvement. A capabilities audit can work f    Care in Knowledge Creation   Add   View  22 pp.  Article Von Krogh, Georg Knowledge creation is the key source of innovation in any company. However, it is a fragile process fraught with uncertainty and conflict of interest. The effective creation of new knowledge (especially tacit social knowledge) hinges on strong caring among organization members. Managers have several means to facilitate caring relations, including new incentive systems, mentoring programs, care as an articulated value, project debriefings, and training programs in care-based behavior. HBS Number: CMR112 Type: CMR Article Publication Date: 4/1/1998 Subjects: Behavior; Conflict; Conflicts of interest; Employee training; Human relations; Knowledge management Publisher: Publisher:California Management Review    Case of AIDS   Add   View  8 pp.  Article Tedlow, Richard S.; Marram, Michele S. In this three-part case, the authors explore how an HIV-infected employee should be managed over time. Manager Greg van de Water must make a series of decisions regarding Joe Collins. Three AIDS-in-the-workplace experts recommend action to Greg at each decision point. They are: Lee Smith of Levi Strauss; Jim Nichols of American Security Bank (where he is on long-term disability leave as a result of HIV infection); and Jonathan Mann of the Harvard School of Public Health. HBS Number: 91611 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 11/1/1991 Subjects: Diversity; HBR Case Discussions; Health; Human resources management; Performance appraisal; Personnel policies; Personnel selection    Case of Big Mac’s Pay Plans   Add   View  10 pp.  Article Sasser, W. Earl, Jr.; Pettway, Samuel H. A case study examines the history of McDonald's compensation schemes for managers. The initial plans, managers complained, based compensation on sales volume, were too complicated, and used bonus payments based on supervisors' subjective evaluations which inaccurately recognized performance. McDonald's then developed four alternative plans. Four experts comment on the plans and outline various objectives: to be result-oriented, to produce extra effort, direct effort, provide compensation, encourage risk, place an emphasis on higher sales, avoid rapid upward mobility, and provide a comprehensible system which the managers find fair. HBS Number: 74410 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 7/1/1974 Subjects: Employee compensation; Executive compensation; HBR Case Discussions; Incentives; Participatory management    Case of the Floundering Expatriate   Add   View  15 pp.  Article Adler, Gordon Frank Waterhouse, CEO of Argos Diesel, Europe, is exasperated. Bert Donaldson, who arrived in Zurich a year ago to create a European team--to facilitate communication among the parts suppliers that Argos has acquired over the past two HBS Number: 95401 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 7/1/1995 Subjects: Cross cultural relations; Europe; HBR Case Discussions; International business; Leadership; Management styles; Switzerland    Case of the Hidden Harassment   Add   View  8 pp.  Article Niven, Daniel Discusses a manager's responsibilities in reporting and ending sexual harassment. Jerry Tarkwell discovers that one of his employees is being sexually harassed by a colleague. When he tells the harassed employee that he has reported the incident to the company equal employment opportunity officer, she asks him not to pursue the matter because she is afraid her career might be ruined by an investigation. Tarkwell is torn between his duty to keep the workplace safe from sexual harassment by following company policy, and the victim's wish for privacy. Five experts on sexual harassment offer their views. HBS Number: 92205 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 3/1/1992 Subjects: Discrimination; Diversity; Grievances; HBR Case Discussions; Personnel policies; Sexual harassment; Women    Case of the Mismanaged Ms.   Add   View  13 pp.  Article Seymour, Sally Describes Ruth Linsky's charges of sex discrimination against Triton, where she is a sales manager. Ruth believes that she has been denied promotion because of an institutionalized system of sexual discrimination. Barbara Smith, Triton's personnel director, must weigh the issues: Where does the law draw the line? Does the company personnel policy favor men? Why didn't the affirmative action policy work? A panel of experts from business and the law discuss the case. HBS Number: 87614 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 11/1/1987 Subjects: Discrimination; Diversity; Employee promotions; Grievances; HBR Case Discussions; Legal aspects of business; Personnel policies; Women    Case of the Not-So-Supermarket   Add   View  10 pp.  Article McCormick, Janice In this case, presented in the form of two memos, a grocery store prepares for renegotiating a contract with the Grocery Workers International Union. The grocery store wants to discuss issues including high employee turnover rates and HBS Number: 89212 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 3/1/1989 Subjects: HBR Case Discussions; Human resources management; Labor negotiations; Labor relations    Case of the Omniscient Organization   Add   View  12 pp.  Article Marx, Gary T. This hypothetical case, set in 1995, excerpts part of Dominion-Swann (DS) Industries' employee handbook. In 1990 DS implemented a personnel program using the latest advances in surveillance technology and subliminal persuasion to increase productivity and sales. Joseph Moderow, senior vice president and general counsel, UPS; Shoshana Zuboff, associate professor, Harvard Business School; Bill Howard, vice president of information technology, Bechtel Corp.; and Karen Nussbaum, executive director of 9 to 5, National Association of Working Women, discuss DS's use of technology to support and control employees. HBS Number: 90209 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 3/1/1990 Subjects: Ethics; HBR Case Discussions; Human resources management; MIS; Occupational safety; Organizational behavior; Personnel management; Productivity; Technology    Case of the Part-Time Partner   Add   View  10 pp.  Article Loveman, Gary The promotions committee at Meeker, Needham & Ames, a long-established law firm, met to discuss the candidacy of three associates up for partner. The vote was split on the candidacy of Julie Ross, who, although she had exceptional skills and an ability to bring in new business, worked only part-time as an associate. The meeting minutes and the expert commentaries that follow discuss the advantages and disadvantages of having a part-time partner. HBS Number: 90507 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 9/1/1990 Subjects: Diversity; Employee promotions; HBR Case Discussions; Human resources management; Legal services; Partnerships    Case of the Perplexing Promotion   Add   View  8 pp.  Article Levinson, Harry; Stone, Nan Winger Foods' CEO, Tom Arthur, in trying to decide who will succeed him, must choose between Jack Fazio and Matt Butler. But he also wants to retain the executive being passed over. Believing that Fazio would leave if passed over, Arthur recommends him for the position, naming Butler vice chairman, and giving him CEO responsibilities without the name. Three years later, Butler resigns. Gerald R. Roche, chairman of the board at Heidrick and Struggles, Inc.; Thomas C. Theobald, chairman of Continental Bank; Peter Larson, chief operating officer of Certified Vacations and former executive vice president and director of Kimberly-Clark Corp.; and Abraham Zaleznik, Konosuke Matsushita Professor of Leadership at Harvard Business School comment on whether Arthur's plan was realistic and whether there are ways that power can be shared at the top. HBS Number: 90109 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 1/1/1990 Subjects: Employee promotions; HBR Case Discussions; Human resources management; Management of change; Managerial selection; Personnel management; Succession planning    Case of the Plateaued Performer   Add   View  9 pp.  Article Warren, E. Kirby; Ference, Thomas P.; Stoner, James A.F. Research in nine companies indicates that a large number of older but valuable managers have plateaued; that is, they now have few if any opportunities for promotion or substantial increases in duties and responsibilities. This is due to declining rates of corporate growth and increasing numbers of younger, aggressive candidates competing in the managerial pool. A by-product of this problem is the resentment and friction between the "young Turks" and the "old guard". The editors of HBR invited four business leaders to study this common problem. They share their reactions and suggest possible solutions. HBS Number: 75109 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 1/1/1975 Subjects: Employee promotions; Executives; HBR Case Discussions; Management development; Motivation    Case of the Team-Spirit Tailspin   Add   View  8 pp.  Article Foster, R. Daniel The Plane Truth, a newspaper started by a group of flight attendants at the struggling Century Airlines, was considered one of the successes of the company's Century Spirit change program. With time, though, the Plane Truth began to run articles critical of management and of other work groups. Worried the paper was sabotaging the Spirit program, the president asked the human resources director to cancel it. Experts on organizational change and motivation analyze the situation. HBS Number: 91104 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 1/1/1991 Subjects: Airlines; HBR Case Discussions; Labor relations; Management communication; Motivation; Organizational change; Personnel management    Case of the Unequal Opportunity   Add   View  9 pp.  Article Gentile, Mary Laura Wollen, group marketing director for ARPCO, was about to recommend her best product manager, Charles Lewis, for a position in the London office. Yet David Abbott, Wollen's counterpart in the United Kingdom, admitted that Lewis looked good on paper, but doubted he would fit in with the team and adjust to the British market. Wollen finally understood that Abbott's reservations were because Lewis was black. Wollen was wary of promoting Lewis into the London job only to have him fail there because of racism. Four experts analyze her alternatives. HBS Number: 91406 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 7/1/1991 Subjects: Appliances; Discrimination; Employee promotions; Ethics; HBR Case Discussions; International operations; Management development; Managerial selection    Case of the Unpopular Pay Plan   Add   View  8 pp.  Article Ehrenfeld, Tom After launching a new quality program, the CEO of Top Chemical Co. was searching for a team-based compensation program that would reflect his company's new philosophy. A committee was formed to discuss the options. The compensation vice president explained his idea for paying teams based on their performance, making pay an incentive for continued improvement and overall excellence of the team. The plan met with resistance from employees at all levels of the company. What seemed like a simple idea for a pay plan turned into a very complicated matter. Four experts on compensation reveal where Top Chemical went wrong in its plan and how the CEO might bring about change successfully. HBS Number: 92102 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 1/1/1992 Subjects: Chemicals; Employee compensation; Executive compensation; HBR Case Discussions; Incentives; Motivation; Teams    Case Study: The Strategy That Wouldn’t Travel   Add   View  12 pp.  Article Beers, Michael C. In early 1995, Karen Jimenez began implementing a project to boost morale and productivity at Acme Minerals Extraction Co.'s plant in Wichita, Kansas. The team-based productivity project, as it is known, was designed to induce similar results at all of Acme's plants. But now, in the fall of 1996, Jimenez seems to have run into a brick wall at the second site targeted for improvement--the plant in Lubbock, Texas. The tactics that worked so well in Wichita are failing. And, as a meeting with Acme's senior managers looms in this fictional case study, Jimenez must rethink the issues and explain how the project can be put back on track. What can be done? The company has earmarked big bucks for the project, and the CEO's ego and reputation are wrapped up in it. Four experts advise Jimenez on possible courses of action. HBS Number: 96602 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 11/1/1996 Subjects: Conflict; Corporate culture; Cross functional management; Employee attitude; HBR Case Discussions; Interdepartmental relations; Labor relations; Management of change; Operations management    Causes of Failure in Network Organizations   Add   View  20 pp.  Article Author(s): Miles, Raymond E.; Snow, Charles C. Publication Date: 07/01/1992 Product Type: CMR Article Publisher: California Management Review HBS Number: CMR038 Subjects: Organizational problems; Organizational structure Academic Discipline: Human resources management Product Description: Forecasts the problems that emerging network organizations face as the result of managerial actions that inadvertently damage their operating capabilities. Examines the managerial mistakes that have plagued and continue to plague earlier functional, divisional, and matrix forms of organization, actions that are most likely to constrain the network structure. By analyzing predictable mistakes as they begin to occur, the authors hope to help managers prevent these problems rather than become victims of them.    CEO Incentives - It’s Not How Much You Pay, But How   Add   View  17 pp.  Article Jensen, Michael C.; Murphy, Kevin J. Attention to how much CEOs are paid diverts public attention from how they are paid. A statistical analysis of executive compensation concludes that top executives are not receiving record salaries and bonuses; annual changes in executive compensation do not reflect changes in corporate performance; and with respect to pay for performance, CEO compensation is getting worse. Compensation policy not only shapes how top executives behave, it also helps determine the kind of executives an organization attracts. Boards of directors must reform their compensation practices and adopt systems that reward outstanding performance and penalize poor performance. HBS Number: 90308 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 5/1/1990 Subjects: Executive compensation; Executives; Management performance; Performance appraisal    CEO’s Six Steps to Effective Feedback   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Author(s): Bielaszka-DuVernay, Christina Publication Date: 08/01/2007 Product Type: Harvard Management Update Article HBS Number: U0708A Subjects: Difficult conversations; Employee development; Interpersonal skills; Management of professionals; Performance appraisals Academic Discipline: Human resources management Product Description: The goal of feedback is improved performance, but many managers struggle to provide feedback that is fair, consistent, or useful. This article, based on a conversation with Jack Stahl, CEO of Revlon and author of the recently published “Lessons on Leadership: The 7 Fundamental Management Skills for Leaders at All Levels,” presents a six-step model to make the feedback process easier and more effective.    Championing Change: An Interview with Bell Atlantic’s CEO Raymond Smith   Add   View  16 pp.  Article Smith, Raymond; Kanter, Rosabeth Moss Transforming Bell Atlantic from a bureaucratic, monopolistic company into an efficient entrepreneurial competitor meant creating a new mind-set and sense of teamwork for each employee. Raymond Smith credits his company's successful change to behavior established through the Bell Atlantic Way -- an improvement program stressing teamwork and accountability. HBS Number: 91109 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 1/1/1991 Subjects: Communications industry; Interviews; Leadership; Management of change; Organizational change    Changing Employee Values: Deepening Discontent?   Add   View  11 pp.  Article Cooper, Michael R.; Morgan, Brian S.; Foley, Patricia Mortensen; Kaplan, Leon B. A survey, covering 25 years, shows that employees are increasingly dissatisfied with pay, supervision, and by lack of equitable treatment. Managers exhibit far greater satisfaction with working conditions than hourly employees do, which shows that a "hierarchy gap" exists. Most employees agree that their companies are declining as desirable places to work and that favorable pay fails to offset growing discontent. They say chances for advancement are poor and that improvement is unlikely. HBS Number: 79103 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 1/1/1979 Subjects: Business & society; Employee attitude; Job satisfaction; Social change; Values    Changing the Mind of the Corporation   Add   View  12 pp.  Article Martin, Roger Big companies in crisis get there by doing the things that once made them big. The experience of troubled companies is a syndrome with four stages. First the founders articulate their vision. Then the company develops steering mechanis HBS Number: 93607 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 11/1/1993 Subjects: Consulting; Management of change; Organizational change; Organizational development    Changing the Role of Top Management: Beyond Structure to Processes   Add   View  16 pp.  Article Ghoshal, Sumantra; Bartlett, Christopher A. The hierarchical organization based on the strategy-structure-systems doctrine of management no longer delivers competitive results. While a top-down structure of corporate divisions gives managers tight control and allows companies to grow, it also fragments resources and creates a vertical organization that prevents small units from sharing their strengths with one another. Structural fixes, such as skunk works, alliances, and acquisitions, have not solved the problem. Based on a study of 20 companies with vanguard management styles, the authors predict a managerial revolution that will focus on horizontal processes rather than vertical structures. The job of management will be to promote three core organizational processes: frontline entrepreneurship, competence building, and renewal. HBS Number: 95105 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 1/1/1995 Subjects: Decentralization; Leadership; Organizational development; Organizational structure    Changing the Role of Top Management: Beyond Structure to Processes   Add   View  20 pp.  Article Author(s): Ghoshal, Sumantra; Bartlett, Christopher Publication Date: 11/15/2000 Product Type: HBR OnPoint Article Product Description: HBR OnPoint Articles save you time by enhancing an original Harvard Business Review article with an overview that draws out the main points and an annotated bibliography that points you to related resources. This enables you to scan, absorb, and share the management insights with others. The hierarchical organization based on the strategy-structure-systems doctrine of management no longer delivers competitive results. While a top-down structure of corporate divisions gives managers tight control and allows companies to grow, it also fragments resources and creates a vertical organization that prevents small units from sharing their strengths with one another. Structural fixes, such as skunk works, alliances, and acquisitions, have not solved the problem. Based on a study of 20 companies with vanguard management styles, the authors predict a managerial revolution that will focus on horizontal processes rather than vertical structures. The job of management will be to promote three core organizational processes: frontline entrepreneurship, competence building, and renewal. HBS Number: 5424 Subjects: Decentralization; Leadership; Organizational development; Organizational structure Academic Discipline: Human resources management    Changing the Role of Top Management: Beyond Systems to People   Add   View  16 pp.  Article Bartlett, Christopher A.; Ghoshal, Sumantra In the postwar years, planning and control systems were the tools that enabled companies to grow and helped managers deal with sprawling enterprises. Yet many of the problems companies experience today are inherent in the strategy-stru HBS Number: 95301 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 5/1/1995 Subjects: Control systems; Delegation of authority; Knowledge management; Leadership; MIS; Organizational structure; Upper management    Checklist for Conducting a Disciplinary Conversation   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Author(s): Prewitt, Edward Publication Date: 06/01/1997 Product Type: Harvard Management Update Article Product Description: At some point in their career, every manager must confront the actions or behavior of an employee and hold a disciplinary discussion. This article prescribes some approaches to use before a problem occurs, when a problem occurs, and if a problem continues. Before a problem arises, learn to recognize praiseworthy effort when it occurs. Communicate company policies will in advance. When a problem occurs, don't respond when angry. Instead reprimand in private, probe to determine the root of the problem, frame your complaint in terms of observed behavior, cite business reasons behind a policy, and gain the employee's commitment to change. If a problem continues, issue an oral reminder followed by a written one, and consider a paid leave of absence before delivering an ultimatum. HBS Number: U9706D Geographic Setting: Industry Setting: Subjects: Communication strategy; Discipline; Performance appraisal; Terminations Academic Discipline: Human resources management    Choosing Strategies for Change   Add   View  13 pp.  Article Kotter, John P.; Schlesinger, Leonard A. The need for organizational change increases as companies deal with new government regulations, new products, growth, increased competition, technological development, and a changing work force. Change may affect a company's morale and meet strong resistance. Resistance arises from four common reasons: the fear of losing something of value, a misunderstanding of change, a disbelief in change, and a low tolerance for change. HBS Number: 79202 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 3/1/1979 Subjects: Employee morale; Human behavior; Management of change; Organizational change; Organizational development    Chronic Time Abuse   Add   View  12 pp.  Article Author(s): Berglas, Steven Publication Date: 06/01/2004 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article HBS Number: R0406F Subjects: Employee problems; Human resources management; Managerial behavior; Performance effectiveness; Psychology; Time management Academic Discipline: Human resources management Product Description: Anyone who has ever managed people who abuse time — whether they are chronic procrastinators or individuals who work obsessively to meet deadlines weeks in advance — knows how disruptive they can be to a business's morale and operating efficiency. But lessons in time management will have no impact on these employees. That's because real time abuse results from psychological conflict that neither a workshop nor a manager's cajoling can cure. Indeed, the time abuser's quarrel isn't even with time but rather with a brittle self-esteem and an unconscious fear of being evaluated and found wanting. This article describes four types of time abusers typically encountered in the workplace: Perfectionists are almost physically afraid of receiving feedback. Their work has to be “perfect,” so they can increase their likelihood of earning a positive evaluation or at least avoid getting a negative one. Preemptives try to be in control by handing in work far earlier than they need to, making themselves unpopular and unavailable in the process. People pleasers commit to far too much work because they find it impossible to say no. Procrastinators make constant (and often reasonable-sounding) excuses to mask a fear of being found inadequate in their jobs. Managing these four types of people can be challenging — time abusers respond differently from most other employees to criticism and approval. Praising a procrastinator when he is on time, for instance, will only exacerbate the problem, because he will fear that your expectations are even higher than before. In fact, som    Coach Who Got Poached   Add   View  12 pp.  Article Author(s): Kesner, Idalene F. Publication Date: 03/01/2002 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Product Description: Jared Gordan, the president of the Industrial Products Division for Compunext, is a first-rate manager. In just three years, he's turned around a flagging division and increased sales and profits by 50% -- a dramatic shift from five years earlier, when analysts were suggesting that the company sell the division. But that's not all. In addition to being a turnaround expert, Jared has shown a special aptitude for recruiting and developing talent. Many executives have noticed this faculty, and -- unfortunately for Jared -- those running Compunext's biggest, most glamorous divisions are poaching his best managers. In fact, Industrial Products has just been raided for the tenth time in two years, and Jared is spitting mad. This time, the Telecommunications Division has wooed -- and won -- Stan Simpson, Industrial Products' VP of sales. Jared, right or wrong, confronts Hank Dodge, president of Telecommunications, for not coming to him before offering Stan the job. Still furious, Jared then meets with Sue Patel, Compunext's VP of human resources, to discuss what can be done to avoid future raids. Does Jared have good reason to be angry? What lies at the root of the problem, and how can Jared solve it? HBS Number: R0203A Subjects: Employee development; Employee retention; Human relations; Human resources management; Recruitment Academic Discipline: Human resources management    Coming of the New Organization   Add   View  12 pp.  Article Drucker, Peter F. Twenty years from now, the typical large business will have half the levels of management and one third the managers of its counterpart today. Work will be done by specialists brought together in task forces that cut across traditional departments. Coordination and control will depend largely on employees' willingness to discipline themselves. Behind these changes lies information technology. Information-based organizations pose their own management challenges: motivating and rewarding specialists; creating a vision to unify an organization of specialists; devising a management structure that works with task forces; and ensuring the supply, preparation, and testing of top management people. HBS Number: 88105 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 1/1/1988 Subjects: Corporate strategy; Flat organization; Information age; Information systems; Information technology; Knowledge management; Management of change; Organizational change; Organizational development; Technological change    Common Sense About Group Incentives   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Author(s): Case, John Publication Date: 11/01/1998 Product Type: Harvard Management Update Article Product Description: Few compensation ideas have swept the business world as quickly as group incentive or gainsharing plans. Unlike traditional profit-sharing plans, group incentive plans emphasize unit or department results rather than companywide results. Unlike individual or project-team incentives, everyone in the unit is usually included. The idea behind group incentives is simple and compelling: employees will be more productive if part of their compensation is tied to business objectives. Companies get better performance and may even be able to cut fixed costs by minimizing annual pay increases. A study by the Consortium for Alternative Rewards Strategies found that group incentive plans averaged returns of $2.22 for every dollar of payout. Designing and implementing such a plan, however, is problematic. You must choose the right objectives and inform and get support from managers and employees. HMU tells you how to determine whether your company's plan is on track, and what you should do if it's not. HBS Number: U9811A Geographic Setting: Industry Setting: Subjects: Compensation; Employee compensation; Incentives Academic Discipline: Human resources management    Communicating in the Aftermath   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Author(s): Ribbink, Kim Publication Date: 06/01/2002 Product Type: Harvard Management Communication Letter Article Product Description: To minimize long-term effects on employee morale, companies must handle layoffs carefully. Thoughtful, honest, and consistent communication during a restructuring is essential to avoiding unintended aftershocks and getting back to business quickly. This article examines the assumptions underlying the language of restructuring and offers tips on how to manage the strong emotions that accompany the process. HBS Number: C0206C Subjects: Communication in organizations; Employee morale; Interpersonal relations; Layoffs; Management communication; Management of change; Management of crises; Personnel management Academic Discipline: Human resources management    Compensation and Benefits for Startup Companies   Add   View  6 pp.  Article Tibbetts, Joseph S., Jr.; Donovan, Edmund T. Startup companies face a difficult tension: they need the best managers, but they lack the resources or financial stability to match the compensation and benefits these managers can get elsewhere. Evaluate compensation and benefits choices from four perspectives. How do they affect cash flow? What are the tax implications? What is the accounting impact? What is the competition doing? HBS Number: 89111 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 1/1/1989 Subjects: Employee benefits; Employee compensation; Small business    Competencies and What They Mean to You   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Author(s): Gendron, Marie Publication Date: 09/01/1996 Product Type: Harvard Management Update Article Product Description: A recent survey of large companies found that while only 8% currently used competency-based pay systems, 78% said they had plans to implement such systems within the next two years. In the past, employees were rewarded for their efforts; in the future, they will be compensated for their results. Determining the set of competencies required by different positions is a monumental task, and it requires input from all levels of an organization. Despite the fear and anxiety a switch to competencies may involve, this system gives managers a legitimate way to pay people who contribute beyond the bounds of the job. It can also teach managers about how well they are doing their own jobs. HBS Number: U9609D Geographic Setting: Industry Setting: Subjects: Core competency; Employee compensation; Executive compensation; Organizational development Academic Discipline: Human resources management    Competencies: Alternative Frameworks for Competitive Advantage   Add   View  11 pp.  Article Author(s): Cardy, Robert L.; Selvarajan, T.T. Publication Date: 05/15/2006 Product Type: Business Horizons Article Publisher: Business Horizons/Indiana University Product Description: Competencies in organizations can be broadly classified as employee level and organizational level. Because organizational-level competencies are embedded in employee-level competencies, the identification of the latter is important for organizations interested in using competencies to achieve competitive advantage. In this paper, we present a model of employee competencies as a means to organizational competitiveness and discuss various frameworks for identifying employee competencies. In addition to the traditional frameworks, which are more suitable for organizations functioning in a static environment, we offer two alternative frameworks that are useful in identifying competencies in a dynamic organizational environment. Once appropriate employee-level competencies are identified, a competency-based human resources system can be implemented to ensure that employees actually do possess the identified competencies. HBS Number: BH197 Subjects: Competencies; Competitive advantage; Employees; Human resources management Academic Discipline: Human resources management    Complex Case of Management Education   Add   View  19 pp.  Article Linder, Jane; Smith, H. Jeff Both executives and academics have recently voiced concerns about how business schools can best add value to the business community. The case of Jim Martin frames the dilemma. Martin is president and CEO of Bay International Industries (BII), a $4 billion consumer electronics company. Although he attended Plymouth Business School, one of the world's most prestigious management institutions, Martin has become an outspoken critic of the research and education provided by such schools. Martin himself has grappled with the issues surrounding management education. First, reports within BII show that MBA hiring has yielded disappointing results. Second, a business school has asked BII to participate in a research study. Third, Martin's daughter, who is planning to pursue an MBA, has turned to her father for advice. HBS Number: 92505 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 9/1/1992 Subjects: Employee training; HBR Case Discussions; Higher education    Conditions for Manager Motivation   Add   View  20 pp.  Article Author(s): Myers, M. Scott Publication Date: 01/01/1965 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Product Description: Based on a detailed survey at Texas Instruments, the author finds that managers depend heavily on their bosses for conditions of motivation that have meaning at their level. High position alone does not guarantee motivation or self-actualization. Sound motivation patterns must begin at the top, and successful bosses develop their managers along Theory Y lines rather than confine them with reductive supervision. HBS Number: 66108 Subjects: Employee training; Management development; Managerial behavior; Motivation Academic Discipline: Human resources management    Conducting a Great Job Interview   Add   View  5 pp.  Article Author(s): Hattersley, Michael Publication Date: 03/01/1997 Product Type: Harvard Management Update Article Product Description: Though many resources are available to prepare job candidates for interviews, less attention has been paid to preparing the interviewer. A productive interview process is one where managers can take an active role in the hiring process. Because interviewees are coached to take control of the interview by asking questions and having prepackaged answers in mind for commonly-asked questions, the interviewer needs to prepare in order to jolt the candidate off his or her script. Interviewers may even request and check references before, rather than after, the interview. Interviewers must know what not to ask, and avoid questions that are so general that the applicant will have to struggle, with nothing learned by either party. A series of useful questions are provided to help the interviewer prepare. HBS Number: U9703C Subjects: Interpersonal behavior; Interviews; Management communication; Personnel selection Academic Discipline: Human resources management    Conventional Wisdom with Max H. Bazerman: “In high-stakes decisions, sometimes you’ve just got to go with your gut.”   Add   View  3 pp.  Article Author(s): Bazerman, Max H.; Bielaszka-DuVernay, Christina Publication Date: 05/01/2007 Product Type: Harvard Management Update Article HBS Number: U0705E Subjects: Decision making; Judgment; Leadership development; Problem solving Academic Discipline: Human resources management Product Description: Managers and entrepreneurs face high-stakes decisions throughout their careers. When so much is unknown and unknowable, conventional wisdom says to go with your gut. Harvard Business School professor Max H. Bazerman strongly disagrees. In this interview with HMU editor Christina Bielaszka-DuVernay, Bazerman, author of “Judgment in Managerial Decision Making,” explains why the worst time to rely on your intuition is when making high-stakes decisions.    Conventional Wisdom: “Leadership Ability — You Either Have It or You Don’t!”   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Author(s): Linsky, Marty; Bielaszka-Duvernay, Christina Publication Date: 04/01/2007 Product Type: Harvard Management Update Article HBS Number: U0704C Subjects: Adaptability; Emotional intelligence; Interpersonal skills; Leadership development Academic Discipline: Human resources management Product Description: Among the most pernicious myths about leadership is that the ability to lead is a mysterious, almost magical power that only a lucky few possess. In this interview, Marty Linsky, cofounder of Cambridge Leadership Associates and an adjunct lecturer at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government, talks with HMU's Christina Bielaszka-DuVernay about the error of this myth and describes steps that anyone — at any level in an organization — can take to become more effective at exercising leadership.    Corporate Budgeting Is Broken — Let’s Fix It (HBR OnPoint Enhanced Edition)   Add   View  16 pp.  Article Author(s): Jensen, Michael C. Publication Date: 11/01/2001 Product Type: HBR OnPoint Article Product Description: This is an enhanced edition of the HBR reprint R0110F, originally published in November 2001. HBR OnPoint Articles save you time by enhancing an original Harvard Business Review article with an overview that draws out the main points and an annotated bibliography that points you to related resources. This enables you to scan, absorb, and share the management insights with others. Corporate budgeting is a joke, and everyone knows it. It consumes a huge amount of executives' time, forcing them into endless rounds of dull meetings and tense negotiations. It encourages line managers to lie and cheat, lowballing targets and inflating results. And it turns business decisions into elaborate exercises in gaming. The source of the problem is using budget targets to drive managers' compensation. In a traditional pay-for-performance compensation program, a manager earns a hurdle bonus when performance reaches a certain level. The bonus increases with performance until it hits a maximum cap. These "kinks" in the pay-for-performance line create incentives to game the system. When performance approaches the hurdle target, a manager will try to accelerate the realization of revenue and profit. When performance hits the cap, the manager has a strong incentive to push revenue and profit into the next year. To eliminate inducements to game the system, companies should adopt a purely linear pay-for-performance scheme that rewards actual performance, independent of budget targets. HBS Number: 813X Subjects: Bonuses; Compensation; Managers; Pay for performance; Performance measurement Academic Discipline: Human resources management    Corporate Governance: The Other Side of the Coin   Add   View  6 pp.  Article Dayton, Kenneth N. To improve the performance of American corporations, we must improve the effectiveness of corporate boards of directors. Corporate governance is just as important as corporate management. Corporations need personnel who can take the long-term view and make long-term commitments. They also need stockholders who are willing to hold onto their shares for long periods so that they become owners rather than speculators. HBS Number: 84104 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 1/1/1984 Subjects: Corporate governance; Corporate strategy; Executives; Leadership; Management of professionals; Organizational structure    Corporate Universities: The New Pioneers of Management Education   Add   View  5 pp.  Article Author(s): Gary, Loren; Meister, Jeanne Publication Date: 10/01/1998 Product Type: Harvard Management Update Article Product Description: University-based management-education programs have proliferated in recent years, and business people have been flocking back to school for refresher classes of all sorts. But the hottest new trend in management education--the corporate university--isn't in academia at all. This interview with Jeanne Meister, president of the New York City consulting firm Corporate University Xchange and author of Corporate Quality Universities: Lessons in Building a World-Class Work Force, discusses how corporate universities are pioneering imaginative new ways of teaching managers the skills they need in a knowledge-based economy, while at the same time using education to augment their parent corporations' business strategies. HBS Number: U9810B Geographic Setting: Industry Setting: Subjects: Business education; Continuing education; Education; Employee development; Employee training; Interviews; Management development; Management training Academic Discipline: Human resources management    Cost-Benefit of Well Employees   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Author(s): White, Miles Publication Date: 12/01/2005 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Product Description: As major purchasers of health care, corporations have almost as much of a stake in maintaining employees' health as employees themselves do. HBS Number: F0512D Subjects: Employee benefits; Health; Health insurance Academic Discipline: Human resources management    Crabs, Cranks, and Curmudgeons: How to Manage Difficult People   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Author(s): Von Hoffman, Constantine Publication Date: 06/01/1999 Product Type: Harvard Management Update Article Product Description: What do you do when one of your most valuable employees--one you really need on your team--is a pain and a troublemaker who aggravates everybody? First, make sure the employee is in the right job and has the right training--for example, an analyst who is now running her department needs managerial training. Second, determine whether the job itself requires the person to be difficult. Third, assess the group dynamic and make sure there are other personalities in the group to neutralize the difficult person. If the problem goes beyond the scope of organizational fixes, you may want to turn to emotional intelligence (EI), the capacity for recognizing and managing your own emotions as well as the emotions of others. Another tool is 360-degree feedback, in which employees' performance is assessed by their coworkers. The article includes a sidebar on using emotional intelligence. HBS Number: U9906B Subjects: Conflict; Employee problems; Group dynamics; Human relations; Interpersonal behavior; Interpersonal relations; Management of professionals; Personality Academic Discipline: Human resources management    Create Colleagues, Not Competitors   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Author(s): Van Alstyne, Marshall W. Publication Date: 09/01/2005 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Product Description: To maximize information exchange among employees, don't reward individual performance. HBS Number: F0509E Subjects: Information sharing; Knowledge transfer; Learning; Performance appraisal; Product introduction; Simulation Academic Discipline: Human resources management    Creating Knowledge Through Collaboration   Add   View  20 pp.  Article Inkpen, Andrew C. Although many firms enter strategic alliances with specific learning objectives, these objectives are often not realized. Drawing on a study of North American-Japanese joint ventures, this article analyzes the question of why some firms are more effective than others at exploiting alliance learning opportunities and develops a framework for alliance learning. The framework incorporates knowledge management processes--a set of organizational actions that establish the basis for accessing and exploiting alliance knowledge--and facilitating factors--the conditions that promote a favorable climate for effective alliance knowledge management. The primary obstacle to successfully learning from alliances is a failure to execute the specific organizational processes necessary to access, assimilate, and disseminate alliance knowledge. HBS Number: CMR070 Type: CMR Article Publication Date: 10/1/1996 Subjects: Joint ventures; Knowledge management; Learning curves; Organizational development; Strategic alliances; Value of information Publisher: Publisher:California Management Review

Crime and Management: An Interview with New York City PoliceCommissioner Lee P.   Add   View  16 pp.  Article Brown, Lee P.; Webber, Alan M. In this interview, Commissioner Brown describes the Community Patrol Officers Program -- a return to the days of the cop on the beat. This program requires a total change in the way the department is organized and operates. A cornerstone of community policing is empowering the workforce -- in this case, the patrol officers who are the backbone of the department. Brown also wants to involve the police more closely with their customers--the law-abiding citizens of New York's neighborhoods--and let the customers set the department's priorities. Change requires Brown to articulate the department's vision and its values, to alter the recruitment, hiring, training, and reward practices. HBS Number: 91303 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 5/1/1991 Subjects: Community relations; Employee training; Interviews; Local government; Organizational change; Public administration; Service management    Crises in a Developing Organization   Add   View  11 pp.  Article Lippitt, Gordon L.; Schmidt, Warren H. As a business organization goes through the three developmental stages of birth, youth, and maturity, it faces a predictable series of nonfinancial crises. The criteria for determining the stage of development of an organization depend more upon the manner of coping with these recognizable crises than upon the number of employees in the company, its share of the market, or its managerial sophistication. To provide effective leadership in a developing organization, management communicates objectives and actions to all staff members and, thus, provides a common viewpoint and frame of reference. HBS Number: 67608 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 11/1/1967 Subjects: Management of crises; Organizational development    Cultivating Ex-Employees   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Author(s): Sertoglu, Cem; Berkowitch, Anne Publication Date: 06/01/2002 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Product Description: Most businesses shower attention and rewards on potential recruits and current employees, but they ignore another key human asset: their ex-employees. That's a costly oversight, because a company's alumni can play many roles on its behalf. HBS Number: F0206A Subjects: Employee development; Employee problems; Employee retention; Human resources management Academic Discipline: Human resources management    Cultivating the Gold-Collar Worker   Add   View  3 pp.  Article Author(s): Roe, Mary Ann Publication Date: 05/01/2001 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Product Description: An antiquated corporate mind-set divides the workforce into two camps: white-collar knowledge workers and blue-collar manual workers. It's time for U.S. businesses to recognize a different class of employee--the gold-collar worker. HBS Number: F0105E Subjects: Education & industry; Employee training; Human resources management Academic Discipline: Human resources management    Cultural Fit: Why Hiring Good People Is No Longer Good Enough   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Author(s): Stauffer, David Publication Date: 03/01/1998 Product Type: Harvard Management Update Article Product Description: Searches for good candidates are becoming more expensive and more difficult for HR departments in companies of all sizes. With the option to settle for a "near fit" so tempting, most professionals warn that finding someone who is the correct match for the firm's culture and values is at least as important as finding someone with the correct skill set. The article also offers some suggestions for handling the search process. HBS Number: U9803C Geographic Setting: Industry Setting: Subjects: Corporate culture; Human resources management; Managerial selection; Recruitment; Values Academic Discipline: Human resources management    Cultural Intelligence   Add   View  12 pp.  Article Author(s): Earley, P. Christopher; Mosakowski, Elaine Publication Date: 10/01/2004 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Product Description: In an increasingly diverse business environment, managers must be able to navigate the thicket of habits, gestures, and assumptions that define their coworkers' differences. Foreign cultures are everywhere--in other countries, certainly, but also in corporations, vocations, and regions. Interacting with individuals within them demands perceptiveness and adaptability. And the people who have those traits in abundance aren't necessarily the ones who enjoy the greatest social success in familiar settings. Cultural intelligence, or CQ, is the ability to make sense of unfamiliar contexts and then blend in. It has three components--cognitive, physical, and emotional/motivational. Although it shares many of the properties of emotional intelligence, CQ goes one step further by equipping a person to distinguish behaviors produced by the culture in question from behaviors that are peculiar to particular individuals and those found in all human beings. In their surveys of 2,000 managers in 60 countries, the authors found that most managers are not equally strong in all three of these areas of CQ. The authors have devised tools that show how to identify one's strengths and developed training techniques to help people overcome weaknesses. They conclude that anyone reasonably alert, motivated, and poised can attain an acceptable CQ. HBS Number: R0410J Subjects: Cross cultural relations; Employee development; Human resources management Academic Discipline: Human resources management    Curbing the Procrastination Instinct   Add   View  3 pp.  Article Author(s): Carr, Nicholas G. Publication Date: 10/01/2001 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Product Description: According to new research, the way deadlines are set has a profound effect on the degree to which workers procrastinate and even on the quality of their work. HBS Number: F0109C Subjects: Management of professionals; Scheduling Academic Discipline: Human resources management    Cyanamid’s New Take on Performance Appraisal   Add   View  6 pp.  Article Gellerman, Saul W.; Hodgson, William G. The old performance appraisal system at American Cyanamid Co. had so many detractors it became a target in the company's effort to find ways to improve employees' quality of life. An experiment in the Medical Research Division substituted three ratings for the ten in the old review procedure and called for no recommended distribution. The new plan assumed that almost all employees perform capably and conscientiously at their jobs, though in a few cases performance is so impressively good or egregiously bad that it should get special recognition. Supervisors were now encouraged to stress positive instead of negative aspects of each subordinate's work. HBS Number: 88305 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 5/1/1988 Subjects: Human resources management; Performance appraisal    Dear White Boss...   Add   View  16 pp.  Article Author(s): Caver, Keith A.; Livers, Ancella B. Publication Date: 11/01/2002 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article HBS Number: R0211E Subjects: Affirmative action; African Americans; Diversity; Management development Academic Discipline: Human resources management Product Description: It's easy for white managers to assume that their colleagues of color face the same basic challenges they do. On one level, that's true — the work itself is the same. But on another level, African-American managers often contend with an atmosphere of tension, instability, and distrust that can be so frustrating they lose the desire to contribute fully. Their white bosses and coworkers are simply unaware of the “miasma” and are often puzzled when African-Americans quit apparently for no reason or seemingly overreact to a minor incident. This portrayal of what it's like to be different in the workplace takes the form of a fictional letter from a black manager to a white boss. The letter, based on interviews and surveys the authors conducted with hundreds of mid- to senior-level African-American managers, is not about the lack of role models or mentors of color or any of the other barriers that limit opportunities for blacks in corporate America. Instead, the letter sheds light on the realities that lurk below the surface for black managers — the feeling that they leave some part of their identities at home and the sometimes subtle and often systemic racial biases that inhibit and alienate African-Americans. It should be required reading for all white executives who don't want talent to slip through their fingers.    Dear White Boss... (HBR OnPoint Enhanced Edition)   Add   View  16 pp.  Article Author(s): Caver, Keith A.; Livers, Ancella B. Publication Date: 11/01/2002 Product Type: HBR OnPoint Article Product Description: This is an enhanced edition of HBR article R0211E, originally published in November 2002. HBR OnPoint articles include the full-text HBR article, plus a synopsis and annotated bibliography. It's easy for white managers to assume that their colleagues of color face the same basic challenges they do. On one level, that's true -- the work itself is the same. But on another level, African-American managers often contend with an atmosphere of tension, instability, and distrust that can be so frustrating they lose the desire to contribute fully. Their white bosses and coworkers are simply unaware of the ``miasma'' and are often puzzled when African-Americans quit apparently for no reason or seemingly overreact to a minor incident. This portrayal of what it's like to be different in the workplace takes the form of a fictional letter from a black manager to a white boss. The letter, based on interviews and surveys the authors conducted with hundreds of mid- to senior-level African-American managers, is not about the lack of role models or mentors of color or any of the other barriers that limit opportunities for blacks in corporate America. Instead, the letter sheds light on the realities that lurk below the surface for black managers -- the feeling that they leave some part of their identities at home and the sometimes subtle and often systemic racial biases that inhibit and alienate African-Americans. It should be required reading for all white executives who don't want talent to slip through their fingers. HBS Number: 2187 Subjects: Affirmative action; African Americans; Diversity; Management development Academic Discipline: Human resources management    Developing Effective e-Recruiting Web sites: Insights for Managers from Marketers   Add   View  10 pp.  Article Author(s): Maurer, Steven D.; Liu, Yuping Publication Date: 07/01/2007 Product Type: Business Horizons Article Publisher: Business Horizons/Indiana University HBS Number: BH240 Industry Setting: IT industry Subjects: Human resources management; Internet; Marketing; Recruitment; Websites Academic Discipline: Human resources management Product Description: In recent years, the practice of using corporate Web sites to recruit job applicants has increased steadily. Despite this trend, however, studies show that approximately 75% of job seekers find the sites too complicated to use successfully (Brown, 2004) and that more than 20% have rejected job opportunities based on poorly designed Web sites (Pastore, 2000). To address this problem, joins Internet marketing and employee recruitment research to offer six development implications for creating an effective “e-recruitment” source on a corporate Web site. Based on a job marketing approach to the recruitment process and consumer behavior research on persuasive communication and decision making, we present considerations important to creating an online recruiting Web site that effectively influences the search decisions and behaviors of a target market of desired job candidates.    Developing Your Leadership Pipeline   Add   View  11 pp.  Article Author(s): Conger, Jay A.; Fulmer, Robert M. Publication Date: 12/01/2003 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article HBS Number: R0312F Subjects: Corporate culture; Employee development; Employee training; Executive ability; Human resources management; Leadership; Organizational development; Succession planning Academic Discipline: Human resources management Product Description: Why do so many newly minted leaders fail so spectacularly? Part of the problem is that in many companies, succession planning is little more than creating a list of high-potential employees and the slots they might fill. It's a mechanical process that's too narrow and hidebound to uncover and correct skill gaps that can derail promising young executives. And it's completely divorced from organizational efforts to transform managers into leaders. Some companies, however, do succeed in building a steady, reliable pipeline of leadership talent by marrying succession planning with leadership development. Eli Lilly, Dow Chemical, Bank of America, and Sonoco Products have created long-term processes for managing the talent roster throughout their organizations — a process Conger and Fulmer call succession management. Drawing on the experiences of these best-practice organizations, the authors outline five rules for establishing a healthy succession management system: Focus on opportunities for development, identify linchpin positions, make the system transparent, measure progress regularly, and be flexible.    Developing Your Leadership Pipeline (HBR OnPoint Enhanced Edition)   Add   View  16 pp.  Article Author(s): Conger, Jay A.; Fulmer, Robert M. Publication Date: 12/01/2003 Product Type: HBR OnPoint Article Product Description: This is an enhanced edition of HBR article R0312F, originally published in December 2003. HBR OnPoint articles include the full-text HBR article plus a summary of key ideas and company examples to help you quickly absorb and apply the concepts. Why do so many newly minted leaders fail so spectacularly? Part of the problem is that in many companies, succession planning is little more than creating a list of high-potential employees and the slots they might fill. It's a mechanical process that's too narrow and hidebound to uncover and correct skill gaps that can derail promising young executives. And it's completely divorced from organizational efforts to transform managers into leaders. Some companies, however, do succeed in building a steady, reliable pipeline of leadership talent by marrying succession planning with leadership development. Eli Lilly, Dow Chemical, Bank of America, and Sonoco Products have created long-term processes for managing the talent roster throughout their organizations--a process Conger and Fulmer call succession management. Drawing on the experiences of these best-practice organizations, the authors outline five rules for establishing a healthy succession management system: Focus on opportunities for development, identify linchpin positions, make the system transparent, measure progress regularly, and be flexible. HBS Number: 5542 Subjects: Employee development; Employee training; Executive ability; Human resources management; Leadership; Organizational development; Succession planning Academic Discipline: Human resources management    Discipline Without Punishment - At Last   Add   View  10 pp.  Article Campbell, David N.; Fleming, R.L.; Grote, Richard C. The nonpunitive approach to discipline is gaining acceptance at U.S. companies. Since Tampa Electric adopted a nonpunitive system of discipline companywide in January 1981, it has reported only favorable results. Organizations that have adopted a nonpunitive system have found measurable reductions in absenteeism, dismissals, disciplinary actions, grievances, and arbitration. They have also found a reduction in wrongful termination suits. HBS Number: 85405 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 7/1/1985 Subjects: Personnel management; Personnel policies; Terminations    Diversity and the Bottom Line   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Author(s): Mueller, Karin Price Publication Date: 04/01/1998 Product Type: Harvard Management Update Article Product Description: A diverse workplace allows companies to better read and respond to the needs of multicultural markets and welcomes innovative thinking and problem solving by introducing a great variety of approaches to the workplace. Although workplace diversity is often difficult to discuss, it is an issue that simply must be addressed in a significant way. This article distills the major arguments--economic, moral, and innovative--for a diverse workplace and offers a prescription for a successful workplace diversity initiative. The article also points out that biases come from all groups and that everyone must take at least some responsibility for the issue. HBS Number: U9804C Geographic Setting: Industry Setting: Subjects: Diversity; Human resources management; Multiculturalism & pluralism; Work force management Academic Discipline: Human resources management    Diversity as Strategy   Add   View  16 pp.  Article Author(s): Thomas, David A. Publication Date: 09/01/2004 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article HBS Number: R0409G Subjects: Corporate strategy; Diversity; Human resources management; Minority & ethnic groups Academic Discipline: Human resources management Product Description: By the time Lou Gerstner took the helm in 1993, IBM had a long history of progressive management when it came to civil rights and equal opportunity employment. But Gerstner felt IBM wasn't taking full advantage of a diverse market for talent, nor was it maximizing the potential of its diverse customer and employee base. So in 1995, he launched a diversity task force initiative to uncover and understand differences among people within the organization and find ways to appeal to an even broader set of employees and customers. Gerstner established a task force for each of eight constituencies: Asians; blacks; the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered community; Hispanics; white men; Native Americans; people with disabilities; and women. He asked the task forces to research four questions: What does your constituency need to feel welcome and valued at IBM? What can the corporation do, in partnership with your group, to maximize your constituency's productivity? What can the corporation do to influence your constituency's buying decisions so that IBM is seen as a preferred solution provider? And with which external organizations should IBM form relationships to understand better the needs of your constituency? The answers to these questions became the basis for IBM's diversity strategy. David A. Thomas stresses that four factors are key to implementing any major change initiative: strong support from company leaders, an employee base that is fully engaged with the initiative, management practices that are integrated and aligned with the effort, and a strong and well-articulated business case for action. All f    Do Women Lack Ambition?   Add   View  16 pp.  Article Author(s): Fels, Anna Publication Date: 04/01/2004 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article HBS Number: R0404B Subjects: Career advancement; Careers & career planning; Psychology; Women executives; Women in business; Working conditions Academic Discipline: Human resources management Product Description: For men, ambition is considered a necessary and desirable part of life. Most women, however, associate ambition with egotism, self-aggrandizement, or manipulation. Getting to the bottom of why this is so required study of what ambition consists of — for both sexes. In childhood, the research uncovered, girls are clear about their ambitions. Their goals are grand and they make no apologies for them. In nearly all childhood ambitions, two distinct factors are in place: the mastery of a special skill and recognition for it. And what's true in childhood is no less true in later life: We all want our efforts and accomplishments acknowledged. Yet, there are dramatic differences in how women and men create, reconfigure, and realize (or abandon) their goals. Most women are demure when praised for their achievements. Research shows that such behavior varies according to social context: Women more openly seek and compete for affirmation when they are with other women, but behave differently when competing with men. The underlying problem has to do with cultural ideals of femininity. Women face the reality that to appear feminine, they must provide or relinquish scarce resources to others — and recognition is a scarce resource. Although women have more opportunities than ever before, they still come under social scrutiny that makes hard choices — such as when and whether to start a family or advance in the workplace — even harder. There are no easy solutions, but there are ways women can hold fast to their dreams. They must band together, learn to blow their own horns, and s    Do Women Lack Ambition? (HBR OnPoint Enhanced Edition)   Add   View  20 pp.  Article Author(s): Fels, Anna Publication Date: 03/01/2005 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article HBS Number: 9424 Subjects: Career advancement; Careers & career planning; Psychology; Women executives; Women in business; Working conditions Academic Discipline: Human resources management Product Description: This is an enhanced edition of HBR article R0404B, originally published in April 2004. HBR OnPoint articles include the full-text HBR article plus a summary of key ideas and company examples to help you quickly absorb and apply the concepts. For men, ambition is considered a necessary and desirable part of life. Most women, however, associate ambition with egotism, self-aggrandizement, or manipulation. Getting to the bottom of why this is so required study of what ambition consists of — for both sexes. In childhood, the research uncovered, girls are clear about their ambitions. Their goals are grand and they make no apologies for them. In nearly all childhood ambitions, two distinct factors are in place: the mastery of a special skill and recognition for it. And what's true in childhood is no less true in later life: We all want our efforts and accomplishments acknowledged. Yet, there are dramatic differences in how women and men create, reconfigure, and realize (or abandon) their goals. Most women are demure when praised for their achievements. Research shows that such behavior varies according to social context: Women more openly seek and compete for affirmation when they are with other women, but behave differently when competing with men. The underlying problem has to do with cultural ideals of femininity.    Do Your Commitments Match Your Convictions?   Add   View  16 pp.  Article Author(s): Sull, Donald; Houlder, Dominic Publication Date: 01/01/2005 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article HBS Number: R0501H Subjects: Behavior; Change management; Decision making; Job satisfaction; Performance effectiveness; Personal strategy & style; Self evaluation; Success; Values Academic Discipline: Human resources management Product Description: How many of us keep pace day to day, upholding our obligations to our bosses, families, and the community, even as our overall satisfaction with work and quality of life decline? And, yet, our common response to the situation is: “I'm too busy to do anything about it now.” Unfortunately, unless a personal or professional crisis strikes, very few of us step back, take stock of our day-to-day actions, and make a change. In this article, London Business School strategy professors Donald Sull and Dominic Houlder examine the reasons why a gap often exists between the things we value most and the ways we actually spend our time, money, and attention. They also suggest a practical approach to managing the gap. The framework they propose is based on their study of organizational commitments — the investments, promises, and contracts made today that bind companies to a future course of action. Such commitments can prevent organizations from responding effectively to change. A similar logic applies to personal commitments — the day-to-day decisions we make about how we allocate our precious resources. These decisions are individually small and, therefore, easy to lose sight of. When we do, a gap can develop between our commitments and our convictions. Sull and Houlder make no value judgments about the content of personal commitments; they've devised a somewhat dispassionate tool to help you take a thorough inventory of what matters to you most. It involves listing your most important values and assigning to each a percentage o    Do Your Commitments Match Your Convictions? (HBR OnPoint Enhanced Edition)   Add   View  20 pp.  Article Author(s): Sull, Donald N.; Houlder, Dominic Publication Date: 01/01/2005 Product Type: HBR OnPoint Article HBS Number: 8770 Subjects: Behavior; Change management; Decision making; Job satisfaction; Performance effectiveness; Personal strategy & style; Self evaluation; Success; Values Academic Discipline: Human resources management Product Description: This is an enhanced edition of HBR article R0501H, originally published in January 2005. HBR OnPoint articles include the full-text HBR article plus a summary of key ideas and company examples to help you quickly absorb and apply the concepts. How many of us uphold our obligations to our bosses, families, and the community, even as our overall satisfaction with work and quality of life decline? And, yet, our common response to the situation is: “I'm too busy to do anything about it now.” London Business School strategy professors Donald Sull and Dominic Houlder examine the reasons why a gap often exists between the things we value most and the ways we actually spend our time, money, and attention. The framework they propose is based on their study of organizational commitments — the investments, promises, and contracts made today that bind companies to a future course of action. Such commitments can prevent organizations from responding effectively to change. A similar logic applies to personal commitments — the day-to-day decisions we make about how we allocate our precious resources. These decisions are individually small and, therefore, easy to lose sight of. A gap can develop between our commitments and our convictions. Sull and Houlder make no value judgments about the content of personal commitments; they've devised a somewhat dispassionate tool to help you take a thorough inventory of what matters to you most. It involves listing your most important values and assigning to each a percentage of your annual salary, the hou    Does Business Have Any Business in Education?   Add   View  12 pp.  Article Stone, Nan Between 20% and 30% of U.S. workers lack the basic skills they need to do their jobs effectively. Yet the employees most likely to need training are the least likely to receive it. In U.S. schools, meanwhile, there is no link between performance and prospects for future employment. By educating their own workers and providing jobs that reinforce the value of learning, businesses can raise employees' expectations for themselves and their children. HBS Number: 91209 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 3/1/1991 Subjects: Employee training; Higher education    Does This Company Need a Union?   Add   View  12 pp.  Article Von Hoffman, Constantine No doubt about it, the top managers in this fictitious case study agree, Wellington Associates is a great place to work. Analysts at the high-tech consulting firm enjoy some of the best pay in the industry. And their benefits are exten HBS Number: 98311 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 5/1/1998 Subjects: Employee attitude; Grievances; HBR Case Discussions; Human resources management; Labor relations; Unionization    Don’t Just Do Something — Sit There   Add   View  3 pp.  Article Author(s): Whitemyer, David Publication Date: 12/01/2002 Product Type: Harvard Management Update Article Product Description: Often, intervening in a conflict between employees is your gut reaction. But it shouldn't be. Have you ever considered doing nothing at all? Not jumping into situations between employees can benefit you and your direct reports. Read how you can use the conflict to improve interactions between the group or as a way for employees to practice their own problem-solving skills. HBS Number: U0212E Subjects: Communication in organizations; Conflict; Employee problems; Human behavior; Interpersonal behavior; Interpersonal relations; Leadership; Management styles; Problem solving Academic Discipline: Human resources management    Double Loop Learning in Organizations   Add   View  12 pp.  Article Argyris, Chris Organizational learning is a process of detecting and correcting errors. Single loop learning is a process in which organizations are able to correct matters in order to achieve stated objectives. In double loop learning, problems are examined and corrected even though correction requires challenge to underlying policies and objectives. When policy or objectives are not questioned, organizational behavior may camouflage errors. Organizational games and norms prevent people from speaking out. HBS Number: 77502 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 9/1/1977 Subjects: Communication; Organizational development; Organizational problems    Drawing the Lines   Add   View  3 pp.  Article Author(s): Cecere, Marc Publication Date: 11/01/2001 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Product Description: Armed with their important-sounding titles, all the "chiefs" in a company naturally want to report directly to the CEO. But that's not always feasible--or wise. A chart illustrates a more reasonable reporting structure. HBS Number: F0110B Subjects: CEO; Executives; Organizational structure Academic Discipline: Human resources management    Driving Change: An Interview with Ford Motor Company’s Jacques Nasser   Add   View  16 pp.  Article Nasser, Jacques; Wetlaufer, Suzy What happens when the world is changing but your organization isn?t? And what if that organization has 340,000 employees in 200 countries? In this interview, Jacques Nasser, the new CEO of Ford Motor Company, talks with HBR senior edit HBS Number: 99211 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 3/1/1999 Subjects: Automobiles; Interviews; Leadership; Management of change; Organizational change; Organizational development; Organizational learning    Driving Change: An Interview with Ford Motor Company’s Jacques Nasser (HBR OnPoint Enhanced Edition)   Add   View  20 pp.  Article Nasser, Jacques; Wetlaufer, Suzy HBR OnPoint Articles save you time by enhancing an original Harvard Business Review article with an overview that draws out the main points and an annotated bibliography that points you to related resources. This enables you to scan, a HBS Number: 374X Type: HBR OnPoint Article Publication Date: 2/1/2000 Subjects: Automobiles; Interviews; Leadership; Management of change; Organizational change; Organizational development; Organizational learning    Educating the Workforce of the Future   Add   View  12 pp.  Article Editors In "What Is Business's Social Compact?," HBR Reprint #94102, Bernard Avishai examines the nature of businesses's social responsibility in a competitive environment that has superseded Adam Smith's division of labor. The nature of work has undergone, and continues to undergo, a fundamental transformation. In this new economy, learning organizations must become teaching organizations as well. Does business have an obligation not only to train its current employees but also to educate the workforce of the future? In this issue's Perspectives section, nine experts consider Avishai's argument and examine the role of business in education. HBS Number: 94208 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 3/1/1994 Subjects: Business & society; Corporate responsibility; Employee training; Higher education    Employee Motivation: A Powerful New Model   Added   View  12 pp.  Article Author(s): Nohria, Nitin; Groysberg, Boris; Lee, Linda-Eling Publication Date: 07/01/2008 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article HBS Number: R0807G Subjects: Behavior; Motivation; Psychology Academic Discipline: Human resources management Product Description: Motivating employees begins with recognizing that to do their best work, people must be in an environment that meets their basic emotional drives to acquire, bond, comprehend, and defend. So say Nohria and Groysberg, of Harvard Business School, and Lee, of the Center for Research on Corporate Performance. Using the results of surveys they conducted with employees at a wide range of Fortune 500 and other companies, they developed a model for how to increase workplace motivation dramatically. The authors identify the organizational levers that companies and frontline managers have at their disposal as they try to meet workers' deep needs. Reward systems that truly value good performance fulfill the drive to acquire. The drive to bond is best met by a culture that promotes collaboration and openness. Jobs that are designed to be meaningful and challenging meet the need to comprehend. Processes for performance management and resource allocation that are fair, trustworthy, and transparent address the drive to defend. Equipped with real-world company examples, the authors articulate how to apply these levers in productive ways. That application should not be selective, they argue, because a holistic approach gets you more than a piecemeal one. By using all four levers simultaneously, and thereby tackling all four drives, organizations can improve motivation levels by leaps and bounds. For example, a company that falls in the 50th percentile on employee motivation improves only to the 56th by boosting performance on one drive, but way up to the 88th percentile by doing better on all four drives. That's a powerful gain in competitive advantage t    Employee Retention: What Managers Can Do   Add   View  6 pp.  Article Publication Date: 04/01/2000 Product Type: Harvard Management Update Article Product Description: Replacing an employee is estimated to cost twice the departee's annual salary. In today's tight labor market, managers are beginning to realize that they need to focus on keeping the employees they have. To do this, create a great work environment within your department, develop flexible jobs that provide autonomy and challenge, and--most importantly, spend time asking your employees what's working for them and what's not. Includes these sidebars: "Watch Out! The Early Warning Signs of Defection," "What About Poor Performers?" "How Committed Are Your Employees?" "Let Them Leave--But Keep Them in the Company," and "First Step to Retention: Hooking the Hottest Prospects." HBS Number: U0004A Subjects: Employee attitude; Employee retention; Human resources management; Labor market; Leadership; Organizational behavior Academic Discipline: Human resources management    Empowering the Board   Add   View  16 pp.  Article Lorsch, Jay W. If the 1980s were the decade when the movement to empower U.S. factory and office workers took root, the 1990s are the decade when empowerment is sweeping corporate boardrooms. Empowerment means that outside directors have the capabili HBS Number: 95107 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 1/1/1995 Subjects: Board of directors; Corporate governance; Executive compensation; Leadership; Organizational structure; Outside directors    Empowering the Individual to Execute Strategy   Add   View  5 pp.  Article Author(s): Manzione, Travis Publication Date: 05/15/2007 Product Type: Balanced Scorecard Report Article HBS Number: B0705E Subjects: Balanced scorecard; Careers & career planning; Core competencies; Employee development; Employee empowerment; Motivation; Strategy execution Academic Discipline: Human resources management Product Description: Despite their growing ability to identify the key drivers to successful strategy execution, organizations still grapple with aligning the employee's individual goals and development plans to strategy. Those organizations that have successfully done so, however, enjoy breakthrough results. Indeed, as this article illustrates, employee alignment is a best practice among the organizations most successful at strategy execution.    Empowerment Effort That Came Undone   Add   View  12 pp.  Article Rothstein, Lawrence R. George Marlow, a manufacturing vice president at SportsGear, had been looking forward to this month's companywide meeting. Martin Griffin, SportsGear's CEO, was going to announce a new era of empowerment at the company. And as Martin g HBS Number: 95111 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 1/1/1995 Subjects: Employee empowerment; HBR Case Discussions; Organizational change; Participatory management; Teams    Empowerment Effort That Came Undone (HBR Case Study)   Added   View  8 pp.  Article Author(s): Rothstein, Lawrence R. Publication Date: 01/01/1995 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article HBS Number: 95111X Subjects: Employee empowerment; HBR case discussions; Organizational change; Teams Academic Discipline: Human resources management Product Description: George Marlow, a manufacturing vice president at SportsGear, had been looking forward to this month's companywide meeting. Martin Griffin, SportsGear's CEO, was going to announce a new era of empowerment at the company. And as Martin gave his speech, he seemed to fill the entire auditorium with his enthusiasm. But Harry Lewis, a SportsGear veteran of more than 20 years, was not so sure. “What in the world does empowerment mean?” he asked. And indeed, Harry's concerns proved well founded. George led the team from manufacturing that was to be the test case for implementing empowerment at SportsGear. The team began the project in high spirits, eager to accomplish its goals. But when the time came to present their reports, the members were shocked: Martin was called away from the meeting, and the department heads formed a wall of resistance. It appeared that the team's efforts had been a waste of time. Can empowerment work at SportsGear? May be used with: (95111Z) The Empowerment Effort That Came Undone (Commentary for HBR Case Study).    Empowerment or Else   Add   View  12 pp.  Article Frey, Robert Nine years ago, the author bought a small manufacturing company with marginal profits, poor union relations, nit-picking work rules, and high labor costs. Today he has flexible work rules, lower relative labor costs, fewer benefits, ex HBS Number: 93502 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 9/1/1993 Subjects: Employee compensation; Employee empowerment; Labor negotiations; Labor relations; Management of change; Packaging    Empowerment: The Emperor’s New Clothes   Add   View  12 pp.  Article Argyris, Chris Everyone talks about empowerment, but it?s not working. CEOs subtly undermine empowerment. Employees are often unprepared or unwilling to assume the new responsibilities it entails. Even change professionals stifle it. When empowerment HBS Number: 98302 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 5/1/1998 Subjects: Employee attitude; Employee empowerment; Management of change; Participatory management    Enabling the Disabled   Add   View  10 pp.  Article Pati, Gopal C.; Morrison, Glenn Through Projects with Industry (PWI), begun with funding from the Rehabilitation Services Administration of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, many organizations tap the potential of handicapped employees. Private industries and rehabilitation agencies cooperatively administer the projects, which help the handicapped adjust their attitudes and behavior to work requirements. PWIs also provide training in necessary skills for job placement. HBS Number: 82412 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 7/1/1982 Subjects: Employee training; Personnel management; Personnel policies; Personnel selection    Energize Employees with Green Strategy   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Author(s): Winston, Andrew Publication Date: 09/01/2009 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article HBS Number: F0909F Subjects: Employee attitude; Morale; Motivation Academic Discipline: Human resources management Product Description: Greening your business, and involving everyone in the process, can keep people motivated and help your company survive the economic downturn.    Ensure They’re Insured   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Author(s): Horowitz, Sara Publication Date: 12/01/2004 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Product Description: Sara Horowitz, founder of the nonprofit Working Today, explains why insurance programs for independent workers are good for business. HBS Number: F0412K Subjects: Consultants; Human resources management; Insurance Academic Discipline: Human resources management    Entrepreneur Thorkil Sonne on what you can learn from employees with autism   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Author(s): Sonne, Thorkil; Donovan, Susan Publication Date: 09/01/2008 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article HBS Number: F0809F Subjects: Employees; Hiring Academic Discipline: Human resources management Product Description: This Danish entrepreneur shares widely applicable lessons from his experience managing employees with autism. More than two-thirds of workers at his software-testing firm, Specialisterne, have the condition and are thriving in their jobs.    E-Pay Changes Compensation — Forever (Guest Column)   Add   View  3 pp.  Article Author(s): Zingheim, Patricia K.; Schuster, Jay R. Publication Date: 05/01/2000 Product Type: Harvard Management Update Article Product Description: The world of compensation will never be the same after the Web. Anyone with access to the Internet can pull up sites with everything from raw survey data to information on "best places to work" and employers of choice." Patricia K. Zingheim and Jay R. Schuster, authors of Pay People Right! Breakthrough Reward Strategies to Create Great Companies, offer advice to companies that need to revise their compensation strategy. HBS Number: U0005D Subjects: Compensation; New economy Academic Discipline: Human resources management    Evolution and Revolution as Organizations Grow   Added   View  12 pp.  Article Greiner, Larry E. The influence of history on an organization is a powerful but often overlooked force. Managers, in their haste to build companies, frequently fail to ask such critical developmental questions as, Where has our organization been? Where HBS Number: 98308 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 5/1/1998 Subjects: HBR Classics; Management of change; Management styles; Organizational development; Organizational problems; Problem solving    Executive Incentives vs. Corporate Growth   Add   View  9 pp.  Article Rappaport, Alfred Bonuses and incentive compensation encourage management's preoccupation with short-term financial results. This emphasis is an important contribution to the United States's lag behind other countries in research and development investment and capital spending. Federal tax policies have failed to provide incentive for investment to further economic growth. Restructured management incentives would reintroduce entrepreneurial spirit without sacrificing the systematic cost-benefit approach to decision making. HBS Number: 78406 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 7/1/1978 Subjects: Executive compensation; Growth management; Incentives; Long term planning    Executive Physicals: What’s the ROI?   Add   View  8 pp.  Article Author(s): Komaroff, Anthony L., M.D. Publication Date: 09/01/2009 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article HBS Number: R0909A Subjects: Cost benefit analysis; Executives; Health Academic Discipline: Human resources management Product Description: With an eye toward prevention, many companies are having their top managers undergo pricey, comprehensive physical exams, complete with full-body CT scans. As imaging technology continues to get better and safer, the day may come when screening healthy people is worth the costs and the risks — but we're not there yet.    Executive Stock Option Repricing: Retention and Performance Reconsidered   Add   View  17 pp.  Article Author(s): Daily, Catherine M.; Certo, S. Trevis; Dal Publication Date: 07/01/2002 Product Type: CMR Article Publisher: California Management Review Product Description: The repricing of stock options--resetting option values when the strike price falls below the current trading price of a firm's stock--is a controversial tactic. Detractors suggest that repricing is tantamount to rewarding the failure of firms' management to secure a level of stock value that exceeds the strike price of options. The arguments of proponents, however, reflect a common theme--a sentiment routinely expressed in repricing firms' proxy materials: Repricing facilitates the retention of chief executive officers and top management teams and, derivatively, the financial performance of the firm. An analysis of these diametrically opposed views provides no support for the perspective that repricing facilitates either retention or firm financial performance. In fact, repricing is associated with increased levels of CEO and TMT turnover. Moreover, there is no evidence that repricing is associated with improvement in the financial performance of the firm. HBS Number: CMR232 Subjects: CEO; Employee retention; Executive compensation; Stock options Academic Discipline: Human resources management    Executive Women and the Myth of Having It All   Add   View  16 pp.  Article Author(s): Hewlett, Sylvia Ann Publication Date: 04/01/2002 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article HBS Number: R0204E Subjects: Career advancement; Careers & career planning; Families & family life; Management of professionals; Women executives; Women in business; Working conditions Academic Discipline: Human resources management Product Description: When it comes to having a high-powered career and a family, the painful truth is that women in the United States don't “have it all.” At midlife, in fact, at least a third of the country's high-achieving women — a category that includes high wage earners across a variety of professions — do not have children. For many, this wasn't a conscious choice: Indeed, most yearn for motherhood. So finds economist Sylvia Ann Hewlett, who recently fielded a nationwide survey to explore the professional and private lives of highly educated and high-earning women. Other findings are similarly disturbing. Many of these women who are raising children have suffered insurmountable career setbacks. In general, Hewlett's data show that, for too many women, the demands of ambitious careers, the asymmetries of male-female relationships, and the difficulties of conceiving later in life undermine the possibility of combining high-level work with family. By contrast, Hewlett's research reveals that high-achieving men continue to “have it all.” Of the men she surveyed, 79% report wanting children, and 75% have them. Indeed, the more successful the man, the more likely he is to have a spouse and children. The opposite holds true for women. Hewlett urges lawmakers and corporations to establish policies that support working parents. But recognizing that changes won't happen overnight, she exhorts young women to be more deliberate about their career and family choices.    Executive Women and the Myth of Having It All (HBR OnPoint Enhanced Edition)   Add   View  16 pp.  Article Author(s): Hewlett, Sylvia Ann Publication Date: 04/01/2002 Product Type: HBR OnPoint Article HBS Number: 9616 Subjects: Career advancement; Careers & career planning; Families & family life; Management of professionals; Women executives; Women in business; Working conditions Academic Discipline: Human resources management Product Description: This is an enhanced edition of the HBR reprint R0204E, originally published in April 2002. HBR OnPoint articles save you time by enhancing an original Harvard Business Review article with an overview that draws out the main points and an annotated bibliography that points you to related resources. This enables you to scan, absorb, and share the management insights with others. When it comes to having a high-powered career and a family, the painful truth is that women in the United States don't “have it all.” At midlife, in fact, at least a third of the country's high-achieving women — a category that includes high wage earners across a variety of professions — do not have children. For many, this wasn't a conscious choice: Indeed, most yearn for motherhood. So finds economist Sylvia Ann Hewlett, who recently fielded a nationwide survey to explore the professional and private lives of highly educated and high-earning women. Other findings are similarly disturbing. Many of these women who are raising children have suffered insurmountable career setbacks. In general, Hewlett's data show that, for too many women, the demands of ambitious careers, the asymmetries of male-female relationships, and the difficulties of conceiving later in life undermine the possibility of combining high-level work with family. By contrast, Hewlett's research reveals that high-achieving men continue to “have it all.” Of the men she surveyed, 79% report wanting children, and 75% have them. Indeed, the more successful the man, the more likely he is to ha    Expectant Executive and the Endangered Promotion   Add   View  11 pp.  Article Mock, Cindee; Bruno, Andrea In this fictional case study, Diane Bryant, who is pregnant, is up for a significant promotion at Hunter Peripherals, a director's position overseeing environmental testing and product compliance. But Jim Serra, vice president of engineering at Hunter, is concerned that Diane won't be able to handle the combined challenges of her new job and new baby. Hunter is planning a critical product launch in six months, and Diane is due in four months. Jim isn't sure he can rely on Diane to put in the time necessary to ensure the product's successful entry into the market. Jim must make a recommendation to the executive committee, either supporting Diane's bid for the job or not. Six commentators offer their solutions to Jim's dilemma and discuss related family and work issues. HBS Number: 94108 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 1/1/1994 Subjects: Discrimination; Employee promotions; Families & family life; HBR Case Discussions; Personnel policies; Women    Experts in Your Midst   Add   View  6 pp.  Article Prietula, Michael J.; Simon, Herbert A. Too many managers do not understand what it is that makes experts so valuable to their organizations. Experts combine analytical reasoning with intuitive judgment, sharpened by long experience. The result is problem-solving ability that cannot be taught or easily learned. Few organizations are structured to recognize the worth of experts financially or through advancement. Companies should make room in the reward system for honoring expertise. HBS Number: 89108 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 1/1/1989 Subjects: Employee compensation; Human resources management; Personnel policies    Fear of Feedback   Add   View  8 pp.  Article Author(s): Jackman, Jay M.; Strober, Myra H. Publication Date: 04/01/2003 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Product Description: Nobody likes performance reviews. Subordinates are terrified they'll hear nothing but criticism. Bosses, for their part, think their direct reports will respond to even the mildest criticism with stonewalling, anger, or tears. The result? Everyone keeps quiet and says as little as possible. That's unfortunate, because most people need help figuring out how they can improve their performance and advance their careers. This fear of feedback doesn't come into play just during annual reviews. At least half the executives with whom the authors have worked never ask for feedback. People avoid the truth and instead try to guess what their bosses are thinking. Fears and assumptions about feedback often manifest themselves in psychologically maladaptive behaviors such as procrastination, denial, brooding, jealousy, and self-sabotage. But there's hope, say the authors. Those who learn adaptive techniques can free themselves from these destructive responses. They'll be able to deal with feedback better if they acknowledge negative emotions, reframe fear and criticism constructively, develop realistic goals, create support systems, and reward themselves for achievements along the way. The authors take you through four manageable steps for doing just that: self-assessment, external assessment, absorbing the feedback, and taking action toward change. HBS Number: R0304H Subjects: Employee development; Employee morale; Human resources management; Interpersonal behavior; Management styles; Managerial skills; Performance appraisal; Psychology Academic Discipline: Human resources management    Feedback Backlash   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Author(s): Morse, Gardiner Publication Date: 10/01/2004 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Product Description: You can overdo feedback, HR professor Alain Gosselin's field research reveals. HBS Number: F0410J Subjects: Education; Employee development; Human resources management; Performance appraisal Academic Discipline: Human resources management    Finding Talent on the Internet   Add   View  5 pp.  Article Author(s): Nakache, Patricia Publication Date: 04/01/1997 Product Type: Harvard Management Update Article Product Description: Recruiting on the Internet has taken off, with some companies finding a third of their new hires on-line. According to one survey, nearly 20% of job-seekers use the Internet. Not surprisingly, given the demographics of Net users, these job-seekers tend to be well qualified. Consequently, human resource divisions need to make the most of their company Web sites for recruiting purposes. Another appealing and economical route is to use commercial job listing services. There are a few large services, such as CareerMosaic and the Monster Board, and those that concentrate on jobs in a single industry or area, such as showbizjobs.com and coolworks.com. Electronic recruiting will continue to grow dramatically, though not to the exclusion of more traditional means of hiring. HBS Number: U9704D Subjects: Computer systems; Employment; Internet; Recruitment Academic Discipline: Human resources management    Finding the Weak Links   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Author(s): Atkinson, Tom; Koprowski, Ron Publication Date: 07/01/2006 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Product Description: According to a recent survey, top executives are consistently underwhelmed by their companies’ sales forces. What can executives do to improve their sales functions? Strive for a full spectrum of excellence. HBS Number: F0607D Subjects: Inadequate performance; Performance appraisal; Performance effectiveness; Sales forces; Sales management Academic Discipline: Human resources management    Firing Up the Front Line   Add   View  20 pp.  Article Author(s): Katzenbach, Jon R.; Santamaria, Jason A. Publication Date: 05/01/1999 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article HBS Number: 99307 Subjects: Employee attitude; Employee morale; Employee training; Human resources management; Line & staff management; Service management; Supervision; Work force management Academic Discipline: Human resources management Product Description: For many organizations, achieving competitive advantage means eliciting superior performance from employees on the front line — the burger flippers, hotel room cleaners, and baggage handlers whose work has an enormous effect on customers. That's no easy task. Frontline workers are paid low wages, have scant hope of advancement, and — not surprisingly — often care little about the company's performance. But then how do some companies succeed in engaging the emotional energy of rank-and-file workers? A team of researchers at McKinsey & Company and the Conference Board recently explored that question and discovered that one highly effective route is demonstrated by the U.S. Marine Corps. The Marines' approach to motivation follows the “mission, values, and pride” path, which researchers say is practical and relevant for the business world. More specifically, the authors say the Marines follow five practices: they overinvest in cultivating core value; prepare every person to lead, including frontline supervisors; learn when to create teams and when to create single-leader work groups; attend to all employees, not just the top half; and encourage self-discipline as a way of building pride. The authors admit there are critical differences between the Marines and most businesses. But using vivid examples from companies such as KFC and Marriott International, the authors illustrate how the Marines' approach can be translated for corporate use. Sometimes, the authors maintain, minor changes in a comp    Firms Still Willing to Pay Dearly for Talent   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Author(s): Landry, John T. Publication Date: 03/01/2009 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article HBS Number: F0903E Subjects: Executive compensation; Academic Discipline: Human resources management Product Description: Past economic crises curbed executive compensation — but only temporarily. Companies continue to shell out hefty sums, even when performance is poor.    Fix the Process, Not the Problem   Add   View  8 pp.  Article Sirkin, Harold; Stalk, George, Jr. A paper company whose subsidiary, a mill, was on the verge of bankruptcy turned the mill into a profitable operation within a few years. It used a multiyear learning process in which employees developed four progressively more sophisticated problem-solving loops: fix-as-fail; prevention; root causes; and anticipation. HBS Number: 90411 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 7/1/1990 Subjects: Corporate strategy; Learning curves; Management of change; Organizational change; Process analysis    Foreman: Master and Victim of Double-Talk   Add   View  14 pp.  Article Roethlisberger, Fritz J. Feeling trapped between management and workers, many foremen have shown interest in unionizing, and their efforts have forced many observers to think about the difference between workers and managers. The author advises companies to give foremen better training so they can take back some responsibility over production. That training should include instruction in human relations, so foremen could understand what workers want and figure out ways to improve production that workers won't resist. HBS Number: 65511 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 9/1/1965 Subjects: Employee attitude; Employee training; HBR Classics; Labor unions; Supervision    Four Myths of Feedback (Guest Column)   Add   View  3 pp.  Article Author(s): Higgins, Jamie; Smith, Diana Publication Date: 06/01/1999 Product Type: Harvard Management Update Article Product Description: Why do people try to avoid giving or receiving feedback? No matter which end of it you're on, it's not easy. Possibly damaging relationships, remaining open to criticism--neither is ideal. But the biggest obstacles to constructive feedback are some myths about feedback itself. Contrary to popular belief, defensiveness is okay; mistakes should not be covered up or punished. The whole point of feedback is to continually improve performance, and getting past the myths can help this happen. HBS Number: U9906E Subjects: Employee development; Human relations; Performance appraisal Academic Discipline: Human resources management    From Affirmative Action to Affirming Diversity   Add   View  17 pp.  Article Thomas, R. Roosevelt, Jr. Affirmative action is based on a set of premises that badly need revising. White males are no longer dominant at every level of the corporation, while decades of attack have noticeably weakened racial and gender prejudices. Our traditional image of assimilating differences--the melting pot--is no longer valid. It's a seller's market for skills, and potential employees are refusing to be melted down. Companies must manage unassimilated diversity and get from it the same commitment, quality, and profit they once got from a homogeneous work force. We need to work not merely toward culture- and color-blindness but also toward an openly multicultural workplace that taps the full potential of every employee. HBS Number: 90213 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 3/1/1990 Subjects: Affirmative action; Diversity; Government & business; Human resources management; Multiculturalism & pluralism; Personnel management; Personnel policies; Women    From Affirmative Action to Affirming Diversity (HBR OnPoint Enhanced Edition)   Add   View  20 pp.  Article Thomas, R. Roosevelt, Jr. HBR OnPoint Articles save you time by enhancing an original Harvard Business Review article with an overview that draws out the main points and an annotated bibliography that points you to related resources. This enables you to scan, a HBS Number: 391X Type: HBR OnPoint Article Publication Date: 2/1/2000 Subjects: Affirmative action; Diversity; Government & business; Human resources management; Multiculturalism & pluralism; Personnel management; Personnel policies; Women    From Control to Commitment in the Workplace   Add   View  12 pp.  Article Author(s): Walton, Richard E. Publication Date: 03/01/1985 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Product Description: There are two radically different strategies for managing a company’s workforce — a strategy based on imposing control and a strategy based on eliciting commitment. At the heart of control strategy is the wish to establish order, exercise control, and achieve efficiency in operations. Underlying the commitment strategy is a management philosophy that acknowledges a company’s multiple stakeholders — owners, employees, customers, and the public. At first, most organizations adopt a limited set of changes — that is, a “transitional” approach. Evidence suggests that the rate of such transformations will continue to accelerate and the move toward commitment will extend to a larger number of plants and offices. HBS Number: 85219 Subjects: Corporate control; Management philosophy; Organizational development; Work force management Academic Discipline: Human resources management    From Lean Production to the Lean Enterprise   Add   View  16 pp.  Article Womack, James P.; Jones, Daniel T. The authors have seen North American and European companies make improvements by implementing lean production techniques. The authors now argue that linking these individual breakthroughs up and down the value chain, creating a lean enterprise, is the next step in achieving superior performance. The lean enterprise is a group of individuals, functions, and legally separate but operationally synchronized companies that creates, sells, and services a family of products. Few companies have created a lean enterprise. Individuals, functions, and companies have needs that conflict with each other and with those of the lean enterprise. The strengths and weaknesses of the German, U.S., and Japanese industrial traditions suggest that trade-offs between these three entities are inevitable. HBS Number: 94211 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 3/1/1994 Subjects: Corporate strategy; Human resources management; Organizational structure; Suppliers; Teams    From the Classroom to the Corner Office   Add   View  7 pp.  Article Greco, Rosemarie B. Going from Catholic nun and teacher to president and CEO of a $5.7 billion bank is a monumental leap. But Rosemarie Greco found that teaching school is not so different from managing a business. Hired in 1968 by Fidelity Bank in Philad HBS Number: 92504 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 9/1/1992 Subjects: Commercial banking; Discrimination; Employee training; Executives; Human resources management; Women    Getting 360-Degree Feedback Right   Add   View  8 pp.  Article Author(s): Peiperl, Maury A. Publication Date: 01/01/2001 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Product Description: Over the past decade, 360-degree feedback has revolutionized performance management. But one of its components--peer appraisal--consistently stymies executives and can exacerbate bureaucracy, heighten political tensions, and consume lots of time. For ten years, Maury Peiperl has studied 360-degree feedback and has asked: under what circumstances does peer appraisal improve performance? Why does peer appraisal sometimes work well and sometimes fail? And how can executives make these programs less anxiety provoking for participants and more productive for organizations? Peiperl discusses four paradoxes inherent to peer appraisal: 1) In the Paradox of Roles, colleagues juggle being both peer and judge. 2) The Paradox of Group Performance navigates between assessing individual feedback and the reality that much of today's work is done by groups. 3) The Measurement Paradox arises because simple, straightforward rating systems would seem to generate the most useful appraisals--but they don't. 4) During evaluations, most people focus almost exclusively on reward outcomes and ignore the constructive feedback generated by peer appraisal. Ironically, it is precisely this overlooked feedback that helps improve performance--thus, the Paradox of Rewards. These paradoxes do not have neat solutions, but managers who understand them can better use peer appraisal to improve their organizations. HBS Number: R0101K Subjects: Human behavior; Knowledge workers; Learning; Participatory management; Performance appraisal; Professional services; Teams Academic Discipline: Human resources management    Getting the Most Out of Your Team   Add   View  2 pp.  Article Author(s): Katz, Nancy Publication Date: 09/01/2001 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Product Description: What's the best way to pay individuals so they'll work well as a team? New research based on battlefield computer simulations points to the advantages of combining two fundamentally different approaches: equality and equity. HBS Number: F0108B Subjects: Compensation; Group behavior; Group dynamics; Human behavior; Organizational behavior; Teams Academic Discipline: Human resources management    Getting to Yes on Flexible Work Schedules   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Author(s): Gendron, Marie Publication Date: 05/01/1997 Product Type: Harvard Management Update Article Product Description: In the interest of helping employees balance their work and families, all but 10% of large companies offer some version of flex-time. Experts advise that it should always be up to the employee to figure out how a non-traditional schedule will work to everyone's benefit. A written proposal from the employee that explains how the change will affect customers will allow the appropriate manager to judge the request as a business proposition, without getting into the personal reasons why various employees are seeking long-term schedule changes. Those considering such a move are warned that it is not always easy to find a rewarding job that can be done part-time, and that those taking advantage of flex-time need to be realistic about how their new work schedule may affect their role or their progress toward long-term goals. Seven essentials in making flexibility work are discussed. HBS Number: U9705D Subjects: Employee benefits; Employee empowerment; Families & family life; Flexible hours; Scheduling; Work force management; Work hours Academic Discipline: Human resources management    Good Communication that Blocks Learning   Added   View  12 pp.  Article Argyris, Chris The new but now familiar techniques of corporate communication--focus groups, surveys, management-by-walking-around--can block organizational learning even as they help solve certain kinds of problems. These techniques do help gather simple, single-loop information. But they also promote defensive reasoning by encouraging employees to believe that their proper role is to criticize management while the proper role of management is to take action and fix whatever is wrong. Managers focus so earnestly on "positive" values--employee satisfaction, upbeat attitude, high morale--that it would strike them as destructive to make demands on employee self-awareness. Yet employees dig deeper and harder into the truth when the task of scrutinizing the organization includes looking at their own roles, responsibilities, and potential contributions to corrective action. HBS Number: 94401 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 7/1/1994 Subjects: Communication; Employee empowerment; Learning; Organizational development; Organizational learning    Good Communication that Blocks Learning (HBR OnPoint Enhanced Edition)   Add   View  20 pp.  Article Author(s): Argyris, Chris Publication Date: 11/15/2000 Product Type: HBR OnPoint Article Product Description: HBR OnPoint Articles save you time by enhancing an original Harvard Business Review article with an overview that draws out the main points and an annotated bibliography that points you to related resources. This enables you to scan, absorb, and share the management insights with others. The new but now familiar techniques of corporate communication--focus groups, surveys, management-by-walking-around--can block organizational learning even as they help solve certain kinds of problems. These techniques do help gather simple, single-loop information. But they also promote defensive reasoning by encouraging employees to believe that their proper role is to criticize management while the proper role of management is to take action and fix whatever is wrong. Managers focus so earnestly on "positive" values--employee satisfaction, upbeat attitude, high morale--that it would strike them as destructive to make demands on employee self-awareness. Yet employees dig deeper and harder into the truth when the task of scrutinizing the organization includes looking at their own roles, responsibilities, and potential contributions to corrective action. HBS Number: 5386 Subjects: Communication; Employee empowerment; Learning; Organizational development; Organizational learning Academic Discipline: Human resources management    Good Neighbors: Implementing Social and Environmental Strategies with the BSC   Add   View  6 pp.  Article Author(s): Epstein, Marc J.; Wisner, Priscilla S. Publication Date: 05/15/2001 Product Type: Balanced Scorecard Report Article Product Description: Leading companies recognize the critical importance--to all stakeholders--of responsibly managing their social and environment impacts, from reducing clean-up costs to supporting community projects. But translating this interest into action is often easier said than done. Marc J. Epstein and Priscilla S. Wisner make the case that the Balanced Scorecard can help demonstrate the links between corporate resources for an S&E strategy and bottom-line payoffs. HBS Number: B0105C Subjects: Accountability; Balanced scorecard; Corporate strategy; Social issues Academic Discipline: Human resources management    Great GM Mystery   Add   View  12 pp.  Article Wolff, Harold A. Former General Motors Chairman Alfred Sloan's biography has been read as a blueprint for a successful organization, but the secret of the company's success is not just the organizational and financial techniques described by Sloan, but the ways of developing managerial talent that appear only when reading between the lines. The company's balance of centralization and decentralization is difficult to imitate, and other pioneering companies such as Du Pont have failed to apply the decentralized structure to new overseas operations. HBS Number: 64514 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 9/1/1964 Subjects: Automobiles; Decentralization; McKinsey Award Winners; Organizational design; Organizational development    Growing Pains   Add   View  12 pp.  Article Nicoson, Robert D. Cyrus Maher, CEO of Waterway Industries, thinks he may be facing a human resources problem. Lee Carter is a relatively new employee whose high-powered sales ability has rocketed Maher's sleepy canoe company into unprecedented growth. But Maher has overheard Carter discussing a new job that would offer equity, and he fears her defection is imminent. Maher has begun to reconsider his employees' compensation arrangements, particularly Carter's. As he consults with his banker and with advisers in the industry, he begins to realize that the easygoing culture he created at Waterway may have changed for good. Six experts offer real solutions to this fictitious case-study dilemma. May be used with: (9-397-031) Decision-Making Exercise (A); (9-397-032) Decision-Making Exercise (B); (9-397-033) Decision-Making Exercise (C); (91506) The Case of the Unhealthy Hospital. HBS Number: 96408 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 7/1/1996 Subjects: ESOP; Employee compensation; Executive compensation; Growth management; HBR Case Discussions; Sales compensation    Harley’s Leadership U-Turn   Add   View  8 pp.  Article Teerlink, Rich When Rich Teerlink, now retired chairman and CEO of Harley-Davidson, became president and COO of its motorcycle division in 1987, the hard work of saving the company was already done. The company had just survived seven arduous years o HBS Number: R00411 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 7/1/2000 Subjects: Employee empowerment; Leadership; Management of change; Motorcycles; Participatory management    Harnessing the Value of Experience in the Knowledge-Driven Firm   Add   View  9 pp.  Article Geisler, Eliezer The sum total of managerial experience in the corporate world is a combined powerhouse of thousands of years of battling in the trenches--winning and learning, losing and learning, always learning. Ignoring managerial experience reduce HBS Number: BH025 Type: Business Horizons Article Publication Date: 5/15/1999 Subjects: Employee training; Intellectual capital; Knowledge management; Management development; Mentors; Organizational learning Publisher: Publisher:Business Horizons/Indiana University    Health and the Welfare of U.S. Business   Add   View  12 pp.  Article Brailer, David J.; Van Horn, R. Lawrence Business leaders continue to blame the cost of health care for jeopardizing the global competitiveness of U.S. industries, and they continue to turn to Washington for the solution. In a study of 16 countries, the authors have discovere HBS Number: 93201 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 3/1/1993 Subjects: Cost control; Employee benefits; Employee compensation; Health; Health care policy; Health services; Labor relations; National competitiveness    High Fidelity: Ivor Tiefenbrun on Tapping Talent   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Author(s): Tiefenbrun, Ivor; Morse, Gardiner Publication Date: 11/01/2006 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article HBS Number: F0611F Subjects: Manufacturing; Operational effectiveness Academic Discipline: Human resources management Product Description: Ivor Tiefenbrun, head of the high-end audio equipment maker Linn Products, explains why the assembly line isn't always the most efficient way to manufacture.    Hiring (Emotionally) Smart   Add   View  3 pp.  Article Publication Date: 09/01/2000 Product Type: Harvard Management Update Article Product Description: Studies indicate that an individual's emotional quotient (EQ) accounts for 15%-45% of their success on the job. In the past, however, it was difficult to apply EQ principles to everyday situations. Now, new EQ-assessment tools can be incorporated into hiring, performance appraisal, and executive development processes to help companies get the right person in the right job. HBS Number: U0009C Subjects: Personnel selection; Recruitment Academic Discipline: Human resources management    Hiring Crunch?: Here’s an Untapped Labor Pool (Guest Column)   Add   View  3 pp.  Article Author(s): Hargis, William C., Jr. Publication Date: 08/01/2000 Product Type: Harvard Management Update Article Product Description: Faced with the difficult task of filling unglamorous jobs in a region with low unemployment, William C. Hargis, Jr. tried everything from welfare-to-work programs to recruiting at local churches. Then he got a phone call from an employee assistance program, asking if he'd ever thought about hiring people with disabilities. Since then, the company has successfully hired several employees with disabilities. In addition to increasing stability and morale, the decision allowed the company to take advantage of certain federal tax incentives, making it even more rewarding. William C. Hargis, Jr. is a general manager for Coyne Textile Services, a national industrial laundry company based in Syracuse, New York. HBS Number: U0008D Subjects: Diversity; Employees; Recruitment Academic Discipline: Human resources management    Hiring Without Firing   Add   View  15 pp.  Article Author(s): Fernandez-Araoz, Claudio Publication Date: 07/01/1999 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article HBS Number: 99403 Subjects: Executive selection; Human resources management; Leadership; Upper management Academic Discipline: Human resources management Product Description: Hiring executives has always been a daunting task — and today's economy makes it tougher than ever. The global scope and breakneck pace of business, the shrinking supply of job candidates, and the constant shift of organizational structures have increased the stakes exponentially; one wrong hire can quickly derail a company. Yet recent studies indicate that between 30% and 50% of executive-level hires end in firings or resignations. What makes hiring go wrong so often? And how can executives substantially improve the outcome of the process? This article provides some surprising answers to those questions. Fernandez-Araoz presents ten common hiring traps and many real-world examples of how those traps have scuttled business plans in a variety of industries worldwide. A large consumer goods company, for instance, slipped into the delegation gaffe trap when it handed over the screening and interviewing process to a mismatched team of managers that had an agenda different from the CEO's. And the ignoring emotional intelligence trap tripped up a U.S. telecommunications company that hired a CEO with a great track record — only to fire him less than a year later when his lack of cross-cultural social skills was discovered. Hiring well is a strategy — perhaps an organization's most important one, the author says. To sidestep the hiring traps, he suggests ways to systematically assess the company's needs and to determine how those needs mesh with the open job description — before candidates walk through the door. Fernandez-Araoz's search strategy incites managers with hiring responsibilities to be creative,    Hiring Without Firing (HBR OnPoint Enhanced Edition)   Add   View  24 pp.  Article Author(s): Fernandez-Araoz, Claudio Publication Date: 11/15/2000 Product Type: HBR OnPoint Article HBS Number: 5351 Subjects: Executive selection; Human resources management; Leadership; Upper management Academic Discipline: Human resources management Product Description: HBR OnPoint Articles save you time by enhancing an original Harvard Business Review article with an overview that draws out the main points and an annotated bibliography that points you to related resources. This enables you to scan, absorb, and share the management insights with others. Hiring executives has always been a daunting task — and today's economy makes it tougher than ever. The global scope and breakneck pace of business, the shrinking supply of job candidates, and the constant shift of organizational structures have increased the stakes exponentially; one wrong hire can quickly derail a company. Yet recent studies indicate that between 30% and 50% of executive-level hires end in firings or resignations. What makes hiring go wrong so often? And how can executives substantially improve the outcome of the process? This article provides some surprising answers to those questions. Fernandez-Araoz presents ten common hiring traps and many real-world examples of how those traps have scuttled business plans in a variety of industries worldwide. A large consumer goods company, for instance, slipped into the delegation gaffe trap when it handed over the screening and interviewing process to a mismatched team of managers that had an agenda different from the CEO's. And the ignoring emotional intelligence trap tripped up a U.S. telecommunications company that hired a CEO with a great track record — only to fire him less than a year later when his lack of cross-cultural social skills was discovered. Hiring well is a strategy — perhaps an organization's most important one, the author says. To sidestep the hiring traps    How Bell Labs Creates Star Performers   Added   View  16 pp.  Article Kelley, Robert E.; Caplan, Janet The authors believe that defining the difference between star performers and average workers is the way to increase the productivity of knowledge professionals. The authors' research at the Bell Laboratories Switching Systems Business Unit (SSBU) has revealed that the difference between stars and average workers is not IQ but the ways top performers do their jobs. Their study has led to a training program based on the strategies of star performers. Once the SSBU training program, known as the Productivity Enhancement Group, got underway, respected engineers ran the training session, which included case studies, work-related exercises, and frank discussion. Participants and managers reported substantial productivity increases in both star and average performers. HBS Number: 93405 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 7/1/1993 Subjects: Engineering; Management development; Management of professionals; Productivity; R&D; Telecommunications    How Fleet Bank Fought Employee Flight   Add   View  12 pp.  Article Author(s): Nalbantian, Haig R.; Szostak, Anne Publication Date: 04/01/2004 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Product Description: In the late 1990s, Fleet Bank was facing high and rising employee turnover, particularly in its retail operations. Overall turnover had reached 25% annually, and among some groups, such as tellers and customer service reps, turnover was as high as 40%. Using a new methodology developed by Mercer Human Resource Consulting, Fleet set out to determine why so many employees were leaving and what could be done to retain them. Fleet's analysis showed that people were leaving not so much for better pay but for broader experience, which they thought would enhance their marketability. Additionally, the analysis revealed a link between the turnover problem and the company's busy history of mergers and acquisitions. Fleet's mergers and acquisitions frequently meant that it had to consolidate operations. That consolidation resulted in layoffs, which provoked higher levels of voluntary turnover, perhaps because remaining employees began worrying about their job security. Although the obvious solution to the turnover problem might have been to compensate the remaining employees -- say, with higher pay -- the more effective and less costly solution, Fleet discovered, was to focus on employees' career opportunities within the company. Those who moved up the hierarchy, or who even made lateral moves, stayed longer. Its solutions required only modest investments that, in the end, saved the company millions of dollars. HBS Number: R0404H Subjects: Asset management; Employee benefits; Employee compensation; Employee development; Employee morale; Employee retention; Intangible assets Academic Discipline: Human resources management    How Gen Y and Boomers Will Reshape Your Agenda   Add   View  12 pp.  Article Author(s): Hewlett, Sylvia Ann; Sherbin, Laura; Sumberg, Karen Publication Date: 07/01/2009 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article HBS Number: R0907G Subjects: Baby boomers; Employee retention; Generation Y; Talent; Work force management Academic Discipline: Human resources management Product Description: When it comes to workplace preferences, Generation Y workers closely resemble Baby Boomers. Because these two huge cohorts now coexist in the workforce, their shared values will hold sway in the companies that hire them. The authors, from the Center for Work-Life Policy, conducted two large-scale surveys that reveal those values. Gen Ys and Boomers are eager to contribute to positive social change, and they seek out workplaces where they can do that. They expect flexibility and the option to work remotely, but they also want to connect deeply with colleagues. They believe in employer loyalty but desire to embark on learning odysseys. Innovative firms are responding by crafting reward packages that benefit both generations of workers — and their employers.    How I Learned to Let My Workers Lead   Added   View  12 pp.  Article Stayer, Ralph To combat poor motivation and lack of commitment, and bridge the gap between performance and potential, the owner of Johnsonville Sausage completely changed his management style and redirected the structure of his company. By giving up his own authority and getting employees to take full responsibility for decisions on production, personnel, quality control, and company expansion, he was able to increase performance standards and market share. HBS Number: 90610 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 11/1/1990 Subjects: Employee empowerment; Food processing industry; Management styles; Motivation; Organizational development    How I Learned to Let My Workers Lead (HBR OnPoint Enhanced Edition)   Add   View  20 pp.  Article Author(s): Stayer, Ralph Publication Date: 12/01/2001 Product Type: HBR OnPoint Article Product Description: This is an enhanced edition of the HBR reprint 90610, originally published in November 1990. HBR OnPoint Articles save you time by enhancing an original Harvard Business Review article with an overview that draws out the main points and an annotated bibliography that points you to related resources. This enables you to scan, absorb, and share the management insights with others. To combat poor motivation and lack of commitment, and bridge the gap between performance and potential, the owner of Johnsonville Sausage completely changed his management style and redirected the structure of his company. By giving up his own authority and getting employees to take full responsibility for decisions on production, personnel, quality control, and company expansion, he was able to increase performance standards and market share. HBS Number: 8318 Subjects: Employee empowerment; Food processing industry; Management styles; Motivation; Organizational development Academic Discipline: Human resources management    How Much Stress Is Too Much?   Add   View  8 pp.  Article Benson, Herbert; Allen, Robert L. Stress may aid production up to a point beyond which it may be harmful and even disastrous. According to the Yerkes-Dodson law, if stress continues to increase, at a certain level, performance and efficiency decrease. Then, individuals and organizations suffer greatly. Regular exercise and the "relaxation response" are two proven methods for counteracting the deleterious effects of stress. The relaxation response involves four basic elements: a quiet environment; a comfortable position; the repetition of a word, phrase or prayer; and the adoption of a passive attitude when other thoughts come into consciousness. HBS Number: 80502 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 9/1/1980 Subjects: Human behavior; Performance effectiveness    How Networks Reshape Organizations for Results   Add   View  13 pp.  Article Charan, Ram A new term--networks--has entered the vocabulary of corporate renewal. Ten companies (among them, Conrail, Dun & Bradstreet, Du Pont, and Royal Bank of Canada) provide good examples of networks and how they operate. The process of building a network starts at the top, where senior managers work to build a new social architecture. Networks change the frequency, intensity, and honesty of the dialogue among managers on priority tasks. HBS Number: 91503 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 9/1/1991 Subjects: Communication; Organizational development; Organizational structure; Strategy formulation    How One Company Went Smokeless   Add   View  5 pp.  Article Hammond, Sherry C.; DeCenzo, David A.; Bowers, Mollie H. Implementing a decision to create a smoke-free work environment is not easy. Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Maryland accomplished the goal at the beginning of 1987 without losing a single employee because of the policy change. Describes the steps taken to successfully implement the policy. HBS Number: 87606 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 11/1/1987 Subjects: Employee attitude; Health; Occupational safety; Personnel management; Personnel policies; Working conditions    How Process Enterprises Really Work   Add   View  16 pp.  Article Author(s): Hammer, Michael; Stanton, Steven Publication Date: 11/01/1999 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Product Description: Many companies have succeeded in reengineering their core processes, combining related activities from different departments and cutting out ones that don't add value. Few, though, have aligned their organizations with their processes. The result is a form of cognitive dissonance as the new, integrated processes pull people in one direction and the old, fragmented management structures pull them in another. That's not the way it has to be. In recent years, forward-thinking companies like IBM, Texas Instruments, and Duke Power have begun to make the leap from process redesign to process management. They've appointed some of their best managers to be process owners, giving them real authority over work and budgets. They've shifted the focus of their measurement and compensation systems from unit goals to process goals. They've changed the way they assign and train employees, emphasizing whole processes rather than narrow tasks. They've thought carefully about the strategic trade-offs between adopting uniform processes and allowing different units to do things their own way. And they've made subtle but fundamental cultural changes, stressing teamwork and customers over turf and hierarchy. These companies are emerging from all those changes as true process enterprises — businesses whose management structures are in harmony, rather than at war, with their core processes. And their organizations are becoming much more flexible, adaptive, and responsive as a result. HBS Number: 99607 Subjects: Business processes; Management philosophy; Organization; Organizational change; Organizational design; Organizational management; Organizational structure; Process analysis; Process flow Academic Discipline: Human resources management    How Process Enterprises Really Work (HBR OnPoint Enhanced Edition)   Add   View  20 pp.  Article Author(s): Hammer, Michael; Stanton, Steven Publication Date: 09/01/2001 Product Type: HBR OnPoint Article HBS Number: 7893 Subjects: Business processes; Management philosophy; Organization; Organizational change; Organizational design; Organizational management; Organizational structure; Process analysis; Process flow Academic Discipline: Human resources management Product Description: This is an enhanced edition of the HBR reprint 99607, originally published in November/December 1999. HBR OnPoint articles save you time by enhancing an original Harvard Business Review article with an overview that draws out the main points and an annotated bibliography that points you to related resources. This enables you to scan, absorb, and share the management insights with others. Many companies have succeeded in reengineering their core processes, combining related activities from different departments and cutting out ones that don't add value. Few, though, have aligned their organizations with their processes. The result is a form of cognitive dissonance as the new, integrated processes pull people in one direction and the old, fragmented management structures pull them in another. That's not the way it has to be. In recent years, forward-thinking companies like IBM, Texas Instruments, and Duke Power have begun to make the leap from process redesign to process management. They've appointed some of their best managers to be process owners, giving them real authority over work and budgets. They've shifted the focus of their measurement and compensation systems from unit goals to process goals. They've changed the way they assign and train employees, emphasizing whole processes rather than narrow tasks. They've thought carefully about the strategic trade-offs between adopting uniform processes and allowing different units to do things their own way. And they've made subtle but fundamental cultural changes, stre    How Risky Is Overtime, Really?   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Author(s): Allen, Harris; Bunn, William, MD Publication Date: 05/01/2007 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article HBS Number: F0705E Subjects: Employee problems; Overtime; Workplace health & safety Academic Discipline: Human resources management Product Description: Not all that much, empirical data from two medical researchers suggest.    How Star Women Build Portable Skills   Add   View  12 pp.  Article Author(s): Groysberg, Boris Publication Date: 02/01/2008 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article HBS Number: R0802D Subjects: Career changes; Networking; Women executives; Women in business Academic Discipline: Human resources management Product Description: In May 2004, with the war for talent in high gear, Groysberg and colleagues from Harvard Business School wrote in these pages about the risks of hiring star performers away from competitors. After studying the fortunes of more than 1,000 star stock analysts, they found that when a star switched companies, not only did his performance plunge, so did the effectiveness of the group he joined and the market value of his new company. But further analysis of the data reveals that it's not that simple. In fact, one group of analysts reliably maintained star rankings even after changing employers: women. Unlike their male counterparts, female stars who switched firms performed just as well, in the aggregate, as those who stayed put. The 189 star women in the sample (18% of the star analysts studied) achieved a higher rank after switching firms than the men did. Why the discrepancy? First, says the author, the best female analysts appear to have built their franchises on portable, external relationships with clients and the companies they covered, rather than on relationships rooted within their firms. By contrast, male analysts built up greater firm- and team-specific human capital by investing more in the internal networks and unique capabilities and resources of their own companies. Second, women took greater care when assessing a prospective new employer. In this article, Groysberg explores the reasons behind the star women's portable performance.    How Technology Brings Blind People into the Workplace   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Anderson, Julia As unemployment levels hover near rock bottom, companies looking for talent must take the initiative in recruiting. One largely overlooked source of talent is sightless or visually impaired people, whose unemployment rate is as high as 70%. Advances in technology have made it easier for a blind person to gain access to printed information. The main obstacle to hiring visually impaired workers is the discomfort most co-workers and superiors feel in their presence because they are "different." But, after some accommodations are made, co-workers soon see the person behind the differentness. HBS Number: 89201 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 3/1/1989 Subjects: Human resources management; Personnel policies; Personnel selection; Recruitment; Technological change    How the Best of the Best Get Better and Better   Add   View  12 pp.  Article Author(s): Jones, Graham Publication Date: 06/01/2008 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article HBS Number: R0806H Subjects: Coaching; Performers Academic Discipline: Human resources management Product Description: What is the real key to elite performance? According to sports psychologist turned executive coach Graham Jones, star athletes and businesspeople share one defining trait: mental toughness. People who become champions aren't necessarily more gifted than others; they're just masters at managing pressure, meticulously tackling goals, and driving themselves to stay ahead of the competition. Jones, who has advised Olympic medalists and Fortune 500 executives, sees many parallels between the arenas of business and sports, especially in the behavior of people who rise to the very top. These stars have learned to love pressure because it spurs them to achieve. Inner-focused and self-directed, they concentrate on their own excellence and forget the rest. They don't get distracted by others' victories or failures — or even by a personal tragedy off the field of competition. Like Darren Clarke, the golfer who inspired his team to a Ryder Cup victory shortly after the death of his beloved wife, elite performers are masters of compartmentalization. Superstars rebound from defeats more easily, Jones observes, because they don't engage in self-flagellation. One of the keys to their success is a relentless focus on the long term and the careful planning of short-term goals that will help them attain major milestones. Competition doesn't daunt elite performers; they just use it to challenge themselves — and they never stop striving. Even after becoming benchmarks in their fields, stars keep their edge by reinventing themselves. Star businesspeople and athletes also recognize the importance of celebrating their wins. It's not just the emotional reward that's important, however: The v    How the Right Measures Help Teams Excel   Add   View  12 pp.  Article Meyer, Christopher Many managers fail to realize that traditional measures, which focus on results, may help them keep score on the performance of their businesses but do not help a multifunctional team monitor the activities or capabilities that enable it to perform a given process. Nor do such results measures tell team members what they must do to improve their performance. Senior managers play an important role in helping teams develop performance measures by dictating strategic goals, ensuring that each team understands how it fits into those goals, and training a team to devise its own measures. But managers must never make the mistake of thinking that they know what is best for the team. HBS Number: 94305 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 5/1/1994 Subjects: Cross functional management; Goal setting; Performance measurement; Productivity; Teams    How to Ace an Interview   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Author(s): Morgan, Nick Publication Date: 04/01/2003 Product Type: Harvard Management Communication Letter Article Product Description: You can get an interview by using connections or maybe on the merits of your resume. But getting an interview requires many different tactics than actually landing the job. Think of the job interview as establishing trust with the interviewer and giving the interviewer a few clear ideas about what you can do for the company. By going into the interview with those two things in mind, you have a much better chance of acing your interview and getting your dream job. HBS Number: C0304C Subjects: Communication; Communication in organizations; Communication strategy; Interpersonal behavior; Interviews Academic Discipline: Human resources management    How to Compensate Teams   Add   View  6 pp.  Article Author(s): Gary, Loren Publication Date: 11/01/1997 Product Type: Harvard Management Update Article Product Description: Teams have become a ubiquitous feature of the business landscape. Only recently, however, have organizations begun wrestling with the challenge of how to compensate teams and their members. Following a brief discussion of the evolution of employee compensation, the article divides teams into three different categories--parallel teams, project teams, and work teams--and presents a strategy for compensating each. HBS Number: U9711B Geographic Setting: Industry Setting: Subjects: Employee compensation; Teams Academic Discipline: Human resources management    How to Deal with Resistance to Change   Add   View  10 pp.  Article Lawrence, Paul R. Two studies investigating resistance to change reveal that the social aspects of change, rather than the technological aspects, cause the most strident resistance in workers. Everyday changes among employees working closely together elicit little resistance. Management action, usually initiated by staff people outside of the small work group, brings on the symptoms of resistance. The manner in which staff specialists effect changes threatens and disrupts social relationships. Self-preoccupation frequently blinds staff specialists to the social aspects of change. HBS Number: 69107 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 1/1/1969 Subjects: HBR Classics; Management communication; Management of change; Social change    How to Fix HR   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Author(s): Kaufman, Gary Publication Date: 09/01/2006 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article HBS Number: F0609H Subjects: Human resources management; Performance measurement Academic Discipline: Human resources management Product Description: HR departments should be held responsible for their companies' performance, not just for programs that provide services and support to staff.    How to Get the Best Solutions from Your Team: Avoid Two Common Decision-Making Traps That Confront Leaders   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Author(s): Cialdini, Robert B. Publication Date: 05/01/2007 Product Type: Harvard Management Update Article HBS Number: U0705C Subjects: Collaboration; Group dynamics; Problem solving; Team leadership; Team process; Teamwork Academic Discipline: Human resources management Product Description: Cooperating groups tasked with a problem are better than even the group's best problem-solver functioning alone. Yet far too often a leader fails to ask for input from team members — or team members themselves relinquish problem-solving to the leader. In this article, psychologist Robert B. Cialdini, author of “Influence: Science and Practice,” illustrates how such errors lead to bad choices, flawed solutions, and avoidable errors — and makes recommendations for staying on track to get the best results from your group.    How to Keep A Players Productive   Add   View  12 pp.  Article Author(s): Berglas, Steven Publication Date: 09/01/2006 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article HBS Number: R0609F Subjects: Burnout; Compensation; Employee development; Employee retention; Feedback; High performance; Job analysis; Job satisfaction; Motivation; Personal strategy & style; Psychology Academic Discipline: Human resources management Product Description: After graduating from Harvard Business School with highest honors, Jane rapidly moved up the corporate ladder at a large advertising firm, racking up promotions and responsibilities along the way. By the time she became the company's creative director, she was, in everyone's estimation, an A player — one of the organization's most gifted and productive employees. But although she received an extraordinarily generous pay package and had what some people considered to be one of the most stimulating jobs in the company, Jane felt underappreciated and was talking to headhunters. Eventually, she was lured away to a competing company that, by her own admission, offered less challenging work. Both Jane and the advertising firm she left behind lost out. Of course, not all A players are as vulnerable as Jane. Some superstars soar to stunning heights, needing little or no special attention, and have the natural self-confidence and brilliance to stay at the top of their game with elegance and grace. But as every manager knows, megastars with manageable egos are rare. Far more common are people like Jane, who are striving to satisfy an inner need for recognition that is often a sign of irrationally low self-esteem. According to the author — an executive coach, management consultant, and former faculty member of the department of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School — if you do not carefully manage the often unconscious need A players have for kudos and appreciation, they will burn out in a way that is damaging to them and unprod

How to Keep Your Company’s Star Employees   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Author(s): Prewitt, Edward Publication Date: 08/01/1999 Product Type: Harvard Management Update Article Product Description: Employee turnover is on the rise, despite the increased focus on retention efforts. Although there are probably some employees you wouldn't mind losing, it becomes a real problem when your top performers start leaving. Recent surveys--and insight from companies that have managed to retain their top employees--suggest that money isn't the key factor. Rather, good performers seek learning opportunities, meaningful feedback, and a healthy relationship with the boss. The article includes a sidebar debating the practice of singling out top performers. HBS Number: U9908B Subjects: Employee attitude; Employee development; Employee retention; Motivation Academic Discipline: Human resources management    How to Make People Decisions   Add   View  8 pp.  Article Drucker, Peter F. People decisions are long lasting in their consequences and difficult to unmake. At most one third of such decisions come out right. Executives who take their people decisions seriously will find the following principles helpful: 1) take responsibility for the decision--if the person the executive places in a position does not perform, the executive has made a mistake; 2) it is the duty of managers to make sure that the responsible persons in their organizations perform; 3) make the decision well; 4) don't give new people major new assignments. There are also some basic steps managers can follow in making effective promotion and staffing decisions. HBS Number: 85406 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 7/1/1985 Subjects: Human resources management; Management of professionals; Management styles    How to Make Reengineering Really Work   Add   View  16 pp.  Article Hall, Gene; Rosenthal, Jim; Wade, Judy In all too many companies, reengineering has been not only a great success but also a great failure. After months, even years, of careful redesign, these companies achieve dramatic improvements in individual processes only to watch overall results decline. By now, paradoxical outcomes of this kind have become almost commonplace. Too many companies are squandering management attention and other resources on projects that look like winners but fail to produce widespread bottom-line results. The authors' research into reengineering projects in over 100 companies reveals how difficult these projects actually are to plan and implement and, more important, how often they fail to achieve real business-unit impact. The study identified two factors--breadth and depth--that are critical in translating short-term, narrow-focus process improvements into long-term profits. HBS Number: 93604 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 11/1/1993 Subjects: Management of change; Organizational change; Organizational development; Process analysis; Reengineering    How to Motivate Your Problem People   Add   View  12 pp.  Article Author(s): Nicholson, Nigel Publication Date: 01/01/2003 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Product Description: Managers who motivate with incentives and the power of their vision and passion succeed only in energizing employees who want to be motivated. So how do you motivate intractable employees--the ones who never do what you want and also take up all your time? According to Nigel Nicholson, you can't: Individuals must motivate themselves. Instead of pushing solutions on problem employees, the manager should pull solutions out of them by creating circumstances in which the employees can channel their motivation toward achievable goals. That means addressing any obstacles--possibly even the manager's own demotivating style--that might be hindering the employees. Using detailed examples, Nicholson walks the reader through his method, pointing out potential pitfalls along the way. First, the manager creates a rich picture of the problem person. Second, the manager exercises flexibility and reframes goals so that the employee can meet them. Third, in a carefully staged, face-to-face conversation, the manager meets with the problem employee on neutral ground. HBS Number: R0301D Subjects: Corporate culture; Employee empowerment; Employee morale; Employee problems; Human resources management; Motivation Academic Discipline: Human resources management    How to Motivate Your Problem People (HBR OnPoint Enhanced Edition)   Added   View  16 pp.  Article Author(s): Nicholson, Nigel Publication Date: 01/01/2003 Product Type: HBR OnPoint Article Product Description: This is an enhanced edition of HBR article R0301D, originally published in January 2003. HBR OnPoint articles include the full-text HBR article, plus a synopsis and annotated bibliography. Managers who motivate with incentives and the power of their vision and passion succeed only in energizing employees who want to be motivated. So how do you motivate intractable employees--the ones who never do what you want and also take up all your time? According to Nigel Nicholson, you can't: Individuals must motivate themselves. Instead of pushing solutions on problem employees, the manager should pull solutions out of them by creating circumstances in which the employees can channel their motivation toward achievable goals. That means addressing any obstacles--possibly even the manager's own demotivating style--that might be hindering the employees. Using detailed examples, Nicholson walks the reader through his method, pointing out potential pitfalls along the way. First, the manager creates a rich picture of the problem person. Second, the manager exercises flexibility and reframes goals so that the employee can meet them. Third, in a carefully staged, face-to-face conversation, the manager meets with the problem employee on neutral ground. HBS Number: 2780 Subjects: Corporate culture; Employee empowerment; Employee morale; Employee problems; Human resources management; Motivation Academic Discipline: Human resources management    How to Play to Your Strengths   Added   View  12 pp.  Article Author(s): Roberts, Laura Morgan; Spreitzer, Gretchen; Dutton, Jane; Quinn, Robert; Heaphy, Emily; Barker, Brianna Publication Date: 01/01/2005 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article HBS Number: R0501G Subjects: Careers & career planning; Employee development; Job satisfaction; Organizational behavior; Performance appraisal; Performance effectiveness; Personal strategy & style; Psychology; Self evaluation Academic Discipline: Human resources management Product Description: Most feedback accentuates the negative. During formal employee evaluations, discussions invariably focus on “opportunities for improvement,” even if the overall evaluation is laudatory. No wonder most executives — and their direct reports — dread them. Traditional, corrective feedback has its place, of course; every organization must filter out failing employees and ensure that everyone performs at an expected level of competence. But too much emphasis on problem areas prevents companies from reaping the best from their people. After all, it's a rare baseball player who is equally good at every position. Why should a natural third baseman labor to develop his skills as a right fielder? This article presents a tool to help you understand and leverage your strengths. Called the Reflected Best Self (RBS) exercise, it offers a unique feedback experience that counterbalances negative input. It allows you to tap into talents you may or may not be aware of and, so, increase your career potential. To begin the RBS exercise, you first need to solicit comments from family, friends, colleagues, and teachers, asking them to give specific examples of times in which those strengths were particularly beneficial. Next, you need to search for common themes in the feedback, organizing them in a table to develop a clear picture of your strong suits. Third, you must write a self-portrait — a description of yourself tha    How to Reward Project Teams   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Publication Date: 07/01/2000 Product Type: Harvard Management Update Article Product Description: Determining an appropriate reward for a project team can be tricky: non-cash rewards such as plaques and gifts ring hollow for some, while the wrong cash award could engender resentment for others. Compensation experts offer tips for project-team compensation that can help you maximize the benefits and minimize potential pitfalls. HBS Number: U0007C Subjects: Employee compensation; Incentives; Teams Academic Discipline: Human resources management    How to Shift the Burden of Hiring onto Candidate: Interview with Pierre Mornell   Add   View  5 pp.  Article Author(s): Gary, Loren; Mornell, Pierre Publication Date: 08/01/1998 Product Type: Harvard Management Update Article Product Description: The success or failure of a company is ultimately determined by the quality and fit of its employees. In this interview, Pierre Mornell, author of the new book Hiring Smart! How to Predict Winners and Losers in the Incredibly Expensive People-Reading Game, discusses the importance of getting the right people working for you. Identifying the right people often requires more than an interview in which the candidate offers rehearsed answers to the most common interview questions. Mornell advises that companies establish a simplified hiring system that meets their specific needs. For example: hiring managers can assign tasks that will demonstrate an applicant's skills in an area relevant to the job, do brief telephone screenings, and ask probing questions in order to provide insight into how applicants will fare in work situations. But Mornell cautions against relying too much on an applicant's interview performance--professional references and past work successes should not be overlooked. The article includes a list of sample interview questions. HBS Number: U9808B Geographic Setting: Industry Setting: Subjects: Employees; Employment interviews; Interviews; Recruitment Academic Discipline: Human resources management    How to Stay Stuck in the Wrong Career   Add   View  16 pp.  Article Author(s): Ibarra, Herminia Publication Date: 12/01/2002 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article HBS Number: R0212B Subjects: Career advancement; Career changes; Careers & career planning; Job satisfaction; Management of professionals; Personal strategy & style; Self evaluation Academic Discipline: Human resources management Product Description: Everyone knows a story about a talented businessperson who has lost his passion for work or a person who ditched a 20-year career to pursue something completely different and is the happier for it. “Am I doing what is right for me, or should I change direction?” is one of the most pressing questions for today's midcareer professional. A true change of direction is hard to swing. Many academics and career counselors contend that the problem lies in basic human behavior: We fear change and don't want to make sacrifices. But author Herminia Ibarra suggests another explanation. People most often fail, she says, because they take the wrong approach to finding new careers. Indeed, the conventional wisdom on how to change careers is a prescription for how to stay put. Most of us have heard that the key to a successful career change is figuring out what we want to do next, then acting on that knowledge. But change actually happens the other way around. Doing comes first, knowing second, because changing careers means redefining our working identity — our sense of self in our professional roles, what we convey about ourselves to others and, ultimately, how we live our working lives. Who we are and what we do are tightly connected, the result of years of action. And to change that connection, we must first resort to action.    How to Stay Stuck in the Wrong Career (HBR OnPoint Enhanced Edition)   Add   View  16 pp.  Article Author(s): Ibarra, Herminia Publication Date: 12/01/2002 Product Type: HBR OnPoint Article Product Description: This is an enhanced edition of HBR article R0212B, originally published in December 2002. HBR OnPoint articles include the full-text HBR article, plus a synopsis and annotated bibliography. Everyone knows a story about a talented businessperson who has lost his passion for work or a person who ditched a 20-year career to pursue something completely different and is the happier for it. “Am I doing what is right for me, or should I change direction?” is one of the most pressing questions for today's midcareer professional. A true change of direction is hard to swing. Many academics and career counselors contend that the problem lies in basic human behavior: We fear change and don't want to make sacrifices. But author Herminia Ibarra suggests another explanation. People most often fail, she says, because they take the wrong approach to finding new careers. Indeed, the conventional wisdom on how to change careers is a prescription for how to stay put. Most of us have heard that the key to a successful career change is figuring out what we want to do next, then acting on that knowledge. But change actually happens the other way around. Doing comes first, knowing second, because changing careers means redefining our working identity — our sense of self in our professional roles, what we convey about ourselves to others and, ultimately, how we live our working lives. Who we are and what we do are tightly connected, the result of years of action. And to change that connection, we must first resort to action. HBS Number: 2330 Subjects: Career advancement; Career changes; Careers & career planning; Job satisfaction; Management of professionals; Personal strategy & style; Self evaluation Academic Discipline: Human resources management    How to Teach Pride in “Dirty Work”   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Author(s): Harvard Business Review Publication Date: 09/01/2007 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article HBS Number: F0709B Subjects: Employee attitude; Jobs Academic Discipline: Human resources management Product Description: Employees in stigmatized occupations can be helped with an array of techniques to cope with or even feel proud of their jobs, including developing an occupational ideology to confer a more positive image on the work; creating social buffers such as professional associations; and avoiding specifics in conversation with outsiders.    How Top Nonunion Companies Manage Employees   Add   View  8 pp.  Article Foulkes, Fred K. A study of 26 large nonunion companies suggests nine factors that improve employee relations and aid productivity: strong management concern for employees; consideration to plant location and size; close ties between ownership and management; employment security; promotion from within; centralized, influential personnel departments; competitive pay and benefits; solicitation of employee viewpoints; and the conscientious selection of managers. The attractive work environment created by the corporations studied results in a high degree of employee loyalty, a low rate of turnover and absenteeism, and a low degree of worker resistance to technological change. HBS Number: 81505 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 9/1/1981 Subjects: Employee compensation; Employee empowerment; Job satisfaction; Labor relations; Personnel policies    How Well Is Employee Ownership Working?   Add   View  5 pp.  Article Rosen, Corey; Quarrey, Michael More than eight million workers now participate in employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs) in approximately 8,100 companies. The tax incentives designed by Congress since 1974 partly explain the growth in the number of ESOP companies, but most ESOPs reflect the view that worker ownership and participation have real advantages. Over 73% of the ESOP companies significantly improved their performance after setting up their plans. Moreover, there is a strong correlation between corporate performance and worker participation: ESOP companies do best when they set up programs that permit workers to have a say in corporate policy. With ESOPs performing so well more American managers should consider adopting this approach. HBS Number: 87511 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 9/1/1987 Subjects: ESOP; Employee compensation; Employee empowerment; Motivation; Productivity    How’s Your Return on People?   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Author(s): Bassi, Laurie; McMurrer, Daniel Publication Date: 03/01/2004 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Product Description: Managers pay lip service to employees as ``valuable assets.'' But when numbers are down, staffers are often seen merely as costs to be cut. Treating employees like the assets they are can do more for your company than build morale. HBS Number: F0403B Subjects: Employee development; Employee morale; Employees; Human resources management; Intangible assets; Organizational behavior Academic Discipline: Human resources management    HR Measurement 2001: Tracking HR Thought Leaders   Add   View  3 pp.  Article Author(s): D'Attoma, Todd Publication Date: 03/15/2001 Product Type: Balanced Scorecard Report Article Product Description: Over the past 40 years, the human resources function has made big strides in accountability. Yet despite the growing importance of human capital in the organization's strategic success, HR still battles for credibility at the higher reaches of management. At the January 2001 "HR Measurement 2001" conference in San Francisco, three leading HR measurement experts put forth their thinking about new measurement approaches that link HR to bottom-line results--and ensure HR its rightful role at the executive roundtable in formulating and executing strategy. BSCol's Todd D'Attoma provides highlights of their thinking. HBS Number: B0103F Subjects: Human resources management; Performance measurement Academic Discipline: Human resources management    Human Due Diligence   Add   View  12 pp.  Article Author(s): Harding, David; Rouse, Ted Publication Date: 04/01/2007 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article HBS Number: R0704J Subjects: Corporate culture; Due diligence; Employee retention; Organizational change Academic Discipline: Human resources management Product Description: Most companies do a thorough job of financial due diligence when they acquire other companies. But all too often, deal makers simply ignore or underestimate the significance of people issues in mergers and acquisitions. The consequences are severe. Most obviously, there's a high degree of talent loss after a deal's announcement. To make matters worse, differences in decision-making styles lead to infighting; integration stalls; and productivity declines. The good news is that human due diligence can help companies avoid these problems. Done early enough, it helps acquirers decide whether to embrace or kill a deal and determine the price they are willing to pay. It also lays the groundwork for smooth integration. When acquirers have done their homework, they can uncover capability gaps, points of friction, and differences in decision making. Even more important, they can make the critical “people” decisions — who stays, who goes, who runs the combined business, what to do with the rank and file — at the time the deal is announced or shortly thereafter. Making such decisions within the first 30 days is critical to the success of a deal. Hostile situations clearly make things more difficult, but companies can and must still do a certain amount of human due diligence to reduce the inevitable fallout from the acquisition process and smooth the integration. This article details the steps involved in conducting human due diligence. The approach is structured around answering five basic questions: Who is the cultural acquirer? What kind of organization do you want? Will the two cultures mesh? Who are t    Human Resource Management in a Global Environment: Keys for Personal and Organizational Success: An Interview with Eliza   Add   View  6 pp.  Article Author(s): Dalton, Catherine M. Publication Date: 05/15/2005 Product Type: Business Horizons Article Publisher: Business Horizons/Indiana University Product Description: Eliza Hermann is vice-president of Human Resources Strategy at BP plc, based in London, England. Her career in the energy business began in 1986 when she joined Amoco Corp., where she earned a series of promotions in the international oil business, which exposed her to markets ranging from Argentina to Azerbaijan. She was a member of the team involved in the successful integration of Amoco when BP acquired the company in 1998. During the past several years at BP, she has served as manager, Strategy and Business Transformation-Global Aromatics, leading a team responsible for strategic planning and business development in the company's petrochemical segment and, more recently, as VP of human resources for BP's global gas, power, and renewables segment. Throughout her career, Hermann has traveled extensively, with particular focus on Asia, Western Europe, North America, South America, Russia, and the republics of the former Soviet Union. Hermann holds an MBA degree from the Kelley School of Business, Indiana University, and a BA degree in social and behavioral sciences from John Hopkins University. She serves on the board of directors of Brightpoint, Inc., where she is chairperson of the Compensation and Human Resources Committee, as well as a member of the Corporate Governance and Nominating Committee. HBS Number: BH119 Geographic Setting: London Industry Setting: Energy; Petroleum industry Subjects: Global business; Human resources management; Interviews; Success Academic Discipline: Human resources management    In Praise of Followers   Added   View  8 pp.  Article Kelley, Robert E. Leaders and followers are often the same people, since most managers have both bosses and subordinates. But while companies often nurture leadership skills, they ignore good followership skills. Four steps that can develop good followers are: 1) redefining followership and leadership roles as equal but different activities, 2) teaching the skills that make effective followers, 3) carrying out performance evaluation on the basis of followership capacities, and 4) building organizational structures (like leaderless groups and rotating leadership assignments) that encourage followership. HBS Number: 88606 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 11/1/1988 Subjects: Leadership; Management development; Managerial skills    In Praise of Hierarchy   Add   View  8 pp.  Article Jaques, Elliott Managerial hierarchy is the most natural and effective organization form that a big company can employ. As organizational tasks range from simple to complex, there are jumps in the level of responsibility. As the time span of the longest task assigned to each managerial role increases, so does the level of experience, knowledge, and mental stamina required. HBS Number: 90107 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 1/1/1990 Subjects: Organizational structure;    Informal Networks: The Company Behind the Chart   Add   View  12 pp.  Article Krackhardt, David; Hanson, Jeffrey R. A formal organizational chart won't reveal which people confer on technical matters or discuss office politics over lunch. Much of the real work in any company gets done through an informal organization, with complex networks of relationships that cross functions and divisions. According to the authors, managers can harness the power in their companies by diagramming the advice network, which reveals the people to whom others turn to get work done; the trust network, which uncovers who shares delicate information; and the communication network, which shows who talks about work-related matters. HBS Number: 93406 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 7/1/1993 Subjects: Communication; Organizational management; Organizational structure; Power & influence    Interest Doesn’t Always Compound   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Author(s): Abrahams, Marc Publication Date: 12/01/2006 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article HBS Number: F0612B Subjects: Leadership; Performance effectiveness Academic Discipline: Human resources management Product Description: A study of executive life in one of history's great multinational enterprises — the British Empire — reveals that the leading workaday reality in foreign offices was boredom.    Interview Questions that Hit the Mark   Add   View  3 pp.  Article Publication Date: 03/01/2001 Product Type: Harvard Management Update Article Product Description: Even with the best recruiting system available, you won't get the right person in the right job if your interviewing methods are lacking. And all too often, they are. The best way to make a match is to focus on a candidate's past behaviors--because past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior. That means getting past the typical canned conversation topics and drilling down for information about how candidates conducted themselves in specific situations--situations that are likely to arise in your organization. HBS Number: U0103D Subjects: Employees; Employment interviews; Personnel selection; Recruitment Academic Discipline: Human resources management    Is There a Best Way to Build a Car?   Add   View  8 pp.  Article Maccoby, Michael Lean production, which has succeeded in both improving quality and lowering costs, has become the competitive standard for automakers worldwide. But a debate continues over how that system treats workers--a debate that concerns not onl HBS Number: 97607 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 11/1/1997 Subjects: Automobiles; Employee attitude; Employee empowerment; Employee training; Labor relations; Manufacturing policy; Production processes    Is This the Right Time to Come Out?   Add   View  8 pp.  Article Williamson, Alistair D. In this fictional case study, Adam Lawson is a promising young associate at Kirkham McDowell Securities, a St. Louis underwriting and financial advisory firm. Recently, Adam helped to bring in an extremely lucrative deal, and soon he a HBS Number: 93411 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 7/1/1993 Subjects: Business policy; Discrimination; Diversity; Employee attitude; Ethics; Financial services; HBR Case Discussions; Job satisfaction    Job Enrichment Pays Off   Add   View  20 pp.  Article Author(s): Paul, William J., Jr.; Robertson, Keith B.; Herzberg, Frederick Publication Date: 03/01/1969 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article HBS Number: 69209 Subjects: Employee attitude; Employee training; Job enrichment; Job satisfaction; Motivation Academic Discipline: Human resources management Product Description: Five separate studies, conducted under confidential but controlled conditions, investigate the feasibility of job enrichment in several varied occupations. Companies participating in the study reported high financial gains, improved job performance, and gradual growth in job satisfaction. Job enrichment allows managers to concentrate primarily on task organization and task support. The job itself functions as the primary vehicle for individual development; management provides authentic and motivational tasks.    Job No CEO Should Delegate   Add   View  8 pp.  Article Author(s): Bossidy, Lawrence A. Publication Date: 03/01/2001 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Product Description: In 1991, AlliedSignal was in poor shape: morale was low, operating margins were lower than 5%, return on equity was only 10.5%, and--most troubling--the operating management team was weak. But by 1999, when AlliedSignal merged with Honeywell, it was a strong and thriving business. How did the company right its course? Larry Bossidy, CEO of AlliedSignal from 1991 through 1999, believes the turnaround was made possible by a dramatic improvement in people processes. And the extraordinary amount of time and emotional energy he put into evaluating, recruiting, and developing great managers--tasks that most CEOs delegate--was the key to this process improvement. In this First Person article, Bossidy explains why he believes the interview "is the most flawed process in American business." He talks candidly about how he assesses candidates and what types of questions he asks references. He also describes the four leadership traits he looks for when evaluating job candidates: first, the ability to execute--that is, being able to turn ideas into reality. The second trait is what Bossidy calls "a career runway." When Bossidy hires someone, he wants to hire him or her for this job and the next job, never for the person's final position. A third quality is a team orientation--good leaders are able to work well with others. And the fourth quality is having a wide range of experience. To build their skill sets, Bossidy tries to ensure that up-and-coming executives sit in many seats en route to leadership roles. HBS Number: R0103B Subjects: CEO; Executive selection; Leadership; Management development; Recruitment Academic Discipline: Human resources management    Job No CEO Should Delegate (HBR OnPoint Enhanced Edition)   Add   View  12 pp.  Article Author(s): Bossidy, Lawrence A. Publication Date: 04/01/2001 Product Type: HBR OnPoint Article HBS Number: 6471 Subjects: CEO; Executive selection; Leadership; Management development; Recruitment Academic Discipline: Human resources management Product Description: HBR OnPoint Articles save you time by enhancing an original Harvard Business Review article with an overview that draws out the main points and an annotated bibliography that points you to related resources. This enables you to scan, absorb, and share the management insights with others. In 1991, AlliedSignal was in poor shape: morale was low, operating margins were lower than 5%, return on equity was only 10.5%, and — most troubling — the operating management team was weak. But by 1999, when AlliedSignal merged with Honeywell, it was a strong and thriving business. How did the company right its course? Larry Bossidy, CEO of AlliedSignal from 1991 through 1999, believes the turnaround was made possible by a dramatic improvement in people processes. And the extraordinary amount of time and emotional energy he put into evaluating, recruiting, and developing great managers — tasks that most CEOs delegate — was the key to this process improvement. In this First Person article, Bossidy explains why he believes the interview “is the most flawed process in American business.” He talks candidly about how he assesses candidates and what types of questions he asks references. He also describes the four leadership traits he looks for when evaluating job candidates: first, the ability to execute — that is, being able to turn ideas into reality. The second trait is what Bossidy calls “a career runway.” When Bossidy hires someone, he wants to hire him or her for this job and the next job, never for the person's final position. A third quality is a team orientation — good leaders are able to work    Job Sculpting: The Art of Retaining Your Best People   Add   View  12 pp.  Article Butler, Timothy; Waldroop, James Hiring good people is tough, but keeping them can be even tougher. The professionals streaming out of today's MBA programs are so well educated and achievement oriented that they could do well in virtually any job. But will they stay? HBS Number: 99502 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 9/1/1999 Subjects: Careers & career planning; Employee development; Human resources management; Job satisfaction; Management of professionals; Performance appraisal    Job Sculpting: The Art of Retaining Your Best People (HBR OnPoint Enhanced Edition)   Add   View  20 pp.  Article Author(s): Butler, Timothy; Waldroop, James Publication Date: 02/01/2000 Product Type: HBR OnPoint Article HBS Number: 4282 Subjects: Careers & career planning; Employee development; Human resources management; Job satisfaction; Management of professionals; Performance appraisal Academic Discipline: Human resources management Product Description: This is an enhanced edition of the HBR article 99502, originally published in September/October 1999. HBR OnPoint articles save you time by enhancing an original Harvard Business Review article with an overview that draws out the main points and an annotated bibliography that points you to related resources. This enables you to scan, absorb, and share the management insights with others. Hiring good people is tough, but keeping them can be even tougher. The professionals streaming out of today's MBA programs are so well educated and achievement oriented that they could do well in virtually any job. But will they stay? According to noted career experts Timothy Butler and James Waldroop, only if their jobs fit their deeply embedded life interests — that is, their long-held, emotionally driven passions. Butler and Waldroop identify the eight different life interests of people drawn to business careers and introduce the concept of job sculpting, the art of matching people to jobs that resonate with the activities that make them truly happy. Managers don't need special training to job sculpt, but they do need to listen more carefully when employees describe what they like and dislike about their jobs. Once managers and employees have discussed deeply embedded life interests — ideally, during employee performance reviews — they can work together to customize future work assignments. In some cases, that may mean simply adding another assignment to existing responsibilities. In other cases, it may require moving that employee to a new position altoge    Keys to Retaining Your Best Managers in a Tight Job Market   Add   View  5 pp.  Article Author(s): Gendron, Marie Publication Date: 06/01/1998 Product Type: Harvard Management Update Article Product Description: Coming in the wake of massive managerial cuts in the early 1990s, overwhelming economic growth has caused a high demand for managers and other senior executives. Companies are finding their top workers--and up-and-coming future top workers--lured away by other firms. Drawing on research from the Society for Human Resources Management, this article examines four key areas that firms should monitor closely in order to retain their best workers: salary, advancement opportunities, making employees feel appreciated, and burnout. Also includes a discussion of six strategies to help retain top employees and keep them happy and productive. HBS Number: U9806A Geographic Setting: Industry Setting: Subjects: Employee compensation; Employee morale; Employee retention; Executive compensation; Human resources management; Loyalty; Managers Academic Discipline: Human resources management    Knowing What to Listen For   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Author(s): Greenberg, Herb Publication Date: 06/01/2005 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Product Description: Blind since childhood, Herb Greenberg emphasizes character above presentation when he advises companies on how to make job interviews more meaningful. HBS Number: F0506G Subjects: Innovation; Academic Discipline: Human resources management    Leadership Development: Perk or Priority?   Add   View  12 pp.  Article Author(s): Kesner, Idalene F.; Burnett, Susan; Morrison, Mike; Tichy, Noel M.; Owens, David Publication Date: 05/01/2003 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Product Description: Karen Barton, Zendal Pharmaceuticals' senior vice-president of human resources, was livid when COO Dave Palmer slashed her executive education budget by 75%. Without funding, there could be no in-house leadership development program, which was to be the first step toward a full-blown Zendal University. Palmer was not against bold initiatives, but sales were down 26%, and there was that $300 million debt Zendal took on when it acquired Premier Pharmaceuticals. As a result, Barton's budget wasn't the only one being cut. Palmer added that it wasn't clear what the return on investment of her proposed program — or any of her current ones for that matter — would be. Barton's analysis had been woefully short on quantitative benefits. Figuring ROI for people isn't the same as calculating the payback from a machine, Barton complained to friend and ally Carlos Freitas, head of the medical devices division. But Freitas disagreed: “If you want dollars, you have to show how you fit in with [management's] plans. You must be willing to fight for resources with the rest of us.” She knew Freitas was right. She needed to make the case that doubling her budget was a smart move even in tough times. The question was, How? HBS Number: R0305A Subjects: HBR case discussions; Human resources management; Leadership; Organizational development; Return on investment Academic Discipline: Human resources management    Leadership in Your Midst: Tapping the Hidden Strengths of Minority Executives   Add   View  16 pp.  Article Author(s): Hewlett, Sylvia Ann; Luce, Carolyn Buck; West, Cornel Publication Date: 11/01/2005 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article HBS Number: R0511D Geographic Setting: Croatia; Europe; India; South Africa; United Kingdom; United States Subjects: Community relations; Corporate culture; Cultural capital; Diversity; Employee retention; Leadership development; Mentors; Minority & ethnic groups; Personal strategy & style; Skills; Surveys; Trust; Volunteers; Women in business; Work life balance Academic Discipline: Human resources management Product Description: All companies value leadership — some of them enough to invest dearly in cultivating it. But few management teams seem to value one engine of leadership development that is right under their noses, churning out the kind of talent they need most. It's the complicated, overburdened but very rich lives of their minority managers. Minority professionals — particularly women of color — are called upon inordinately to lend their skills and guidance to activities outside their jobs. Sylvia Ann Hewlett, who heads the Center for Work-Life Policy, and her co-authors, Carolyn Buck Luce of Ernst & Young and Cornel West of Princeton, present new research on the extent to which minority professionals take on community service and other responsibilities outside the workplace and more than their share of recruiting, mentoring, and committee work within the workplace. These invisible lives, argue the authors, can be a source of competitive strength if companies can learn to recognize and further cultivate the cultural capital they represent. But it's hard to convince minority professionals that their employer respects and values their off-hours responsibilities. A lack of trust keeps many people from revealing much about their personal lives. The authors outline four ways companies can leverage hidden skills: Develop a new    Leadership in Your Midst: Tapping the Hidden Strengths of Minority Executives (HBR OnPoint Enhanced Edition)   Add   View  16 pp.  Article Author(s): Hewlett, Sylvia Ann; Luce, Carolyn Buck; West, Cornel Publication Date: 11/01/2005 Product Type: HBR OnPoint Article HBS Number: 2211 Subjects: Community relations; Corporate culture; Diversity; Employee retention; Human capital; Human resources management; Leadership development; Minority & ethnic groups Academic Discipline: Human resources management Product Description: All companies value leadership — some of them enough to invest dearly in cultivating it. But few management teams seem to value one engine of leadership development that is right under their noses, churning out the kind of talent they need most. It's the complicated, overburdened but very rich lives of their minority managers. Minority professionals — particularly women of color — are called upon inordinately to lend their skills and guidance to activities outside their jobs. Sylvia Ann Hewlett, who heads the Center for Work-Life Policy, and her co-authors, Carolyn Buck Luce of Ernst & Young and Cornel West of Princeton, present new research on the extent to which minority professionals take on community service and other responsibilities outside the workplace and more than their share of recruiting, mentoring, and committee work within the workplace. These invisible lives, argue the authors, can be a source of competitive strength if companies can learn to recognize and further cultivate the cultural capital they represent. But it's hard to convince minority professionals that their employer respects and values their off-hours responsibilities. A lack of trust keeps many people from revealing much about their personal lives. The authors outline four ways companies can leverage hidden skills: Develop a new level of awareness of minority professionals' invisible lives; appreciate the outsize burdens these professionals carry and try to lighten them; build trust by putting teeth into diversity goals; an    Learning to Lead at Toyota   Add   View  20 pp.  Article Author(s): Spear, Steven J. Publication Date: 05/01/2004 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article HBS Number: R0405E Subjects: Coaching; Continuous improvement; Employee development; Employee training; Executive ability; Knowledge transfer; Learning; Management development; Management styles; Management training Academic Discipline: Human resources management Product Description: Many companies have tried to copy Toyota's famous production system — but without success. Part of the reason why, says the author, is that imitators fail to recognize the underlying principles of the Toyota Production System (TPS), focusing instead on specific tools and practices. This article tells the other part of the story. Building on a previous HBR article, “Decoding the DNA of the Toyota Production System,” Spear explains how Toyota inculcates managers with TPS principles. He describes the training of a star recruit — a talented young American destined for a high-level position at one of Toyota's U.S. plants. Rich in detail, the story offers four basic lessons for any company wishing to train its managers to apply Toyota's system — rather than go through the cursory walk-throughs, orientations, and introductions of most companies. First, there's no substitute for direct observation. Toyota employees are encouraged to observe failures as they occur — for example, by sitting next to a machine on the assembly line and waiting and watching for any problems. Second, proposed changes should always be structured as experiments. Employees embed explicit and testable assumptions in the analysis of their work. That allows them to examine the gaps between predicted and actual results. Third, workers and managers should experiment as frequently as possible. The company teaches employees at all levels to achieve continuous improvement through quick, simple experiments rather than through length    Learning to Lead at Toyota (HBR OnPoint Enhanced Edition)   Add   View  20 pp.  Article Author(s): Spear, Steven J. Publication Date: 01/18/2006 Product Type: HBR OnPoint Article HBS Number: 2890 Subjects: Coaching; Continuous improvement; Employee development; Employee training; Executive ability; Knowledge transfer; Learning; Management development; Management styles; Management training Academic Discipline: Human resources management Product Description: Many companies have tried to copy Toyota's famous production system — but without success. Part of the reason why, says the author, is that imitators fail to recognize the underlying principles of the Toyota Production System (TPS), focusing instead on specific tools and practices. This article tells the other part of the story. Building on a previous HBR article, “Decoding the DNA of the Toyota Production System,” Spear explains how Toyota inculcates managers with TPS principles. He describes the training of a star recruit — a talented young American destined for a high-level position at one of Toyota's U.S. plants. Rich in detail, the story offers four basic lessons for any company wishing to train its managers to apply Toyota's system — rather than go through the cursory walk-throughs, orientations, and introductions of most companies. First, there's no substitute for direct observation. Toyota employees are encouraged to observe failures as they occur — for example, by sitting next to a machine on the assembly line and waiting and watching for any problems. Second, proposed changes should always be structured as experiments. Employees embed explicit and testable assumptions in the analysis of their work. That allows them to examine the gaps between predicted and actual results. Third, workers and managers should experiment as frequently as possible. The company teaches employees at all levels to achieve continuous improvement through quick, simple experiments rather than through lengthy, complex one    Let First-Level Supervisors Do Their Job   Add   View  11 pp.  Article Sasser, W. Earl, Jr.; Leonard, Frank S. Upper level managers often fail to realize the difficulties of first-level managers who may have once been among employees and now must form a new identity. Successful first-level supervisors establish a balance between informal authority and interpersonal influence, and responsibility. It is the responsibility of upper management to recognize the difficulties associated with the position and help supervisors develop a power base. HBS Number: 80210 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 3/1/1980 Subjects: Labor relations; Management development; Middle management; Supervision    Longer Vacation   Add   View  13 pp.  Article Asakawa, Jun The new managing director of Yoshihira Heavy Industries proposes to implement a two-month vacation plan. Although finding volunteers for an initial vacation experiment is difficult, eventually a few come forward. Later many of the vacationers decide to defect from the company altogether. This was the result the director had in mind all along, as a way to deal with the middle management squeeze. At the story's end, two commentators (one American, one Japanese) offer their perspectives on the issues. HBS Number: 91302 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 5/1/1991 Subjects: Employee benefits; International business; Japan; Management styles; Middle management; Personnel selection    Look Before You Lay Off   Add   View  3 pp.  Article Author(s): Rigby, Darrell Publication Date: 04/01/2002 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Product Description: Conventional wisdom says that layoffs are a necessary evil during economic downturns, but new research shows that shareholders tend to punish companies that invoke layoffs solely to cut costs. HBS Number: F0204B Subjects: Human resources management; Layoffs; Shareholder relations Academic Discipline: Human resources management    Make Your Company a Talent Factory   Add   View  12 pp.  Article Author(s): Ready, Douglas A.; Conger, Jay Publication Date: 06/01/2007 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article HBS Number: R0706D Subjects: Employee retention; Hiring; Management development; Skills Academic Discipline: Human resources management Product Description: Despite the great sums of money companies dedicate to talent management systems, many still struggle to fill key positions — limiting their potential for growth in the process. Virtually all the human resource executives in the authors' 2005 survey of 40 companies around the world said that their pipeline of high-potential employees was insufficient to fill strategic management roles. The survey revealed two primary reasons for this. First, the formal procedures for identifying and developing next-generation leaders have fallen out of sync with what companies need to grow or expand into new markets. To save money, for example, some firms have eliminated positions that would expose high-potential employees to a broad range of problems, thus sacrificing future development opportunities that would far outweigh any initial savings from the job cuts. Second, HR executives often have trouble keeping top leaders' attention on talent issues, despite those leaders' vigorous assertions that obtaining and keeping the best people is a major priority. If passion for that objective doesn't start at the top and infuse the culture, say the authors, talent management can easily deteriorate into the management of bureaucratic routines. Yet there are companies that can face the future with confidence. These firms don't just manage talent, they build talent factories. The authors describe the experiences of two such corporations — consumer products icon Procter & Gamble and financial services giant HSBC Group — that figured out how to develop and retain key employees and fill positions quickly to meet evolving business needs. Though ea