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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 — Organizational Behavior  • 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.    How to Get the Right Work Done   Add   View  27 pp.  Article Collection Author(s): Trapani, Gina; DeMaio, Steven; Schwartz, Tony; McCarthy, Catherine; Oncken, William; Wass, Donald L.; Covey, Stephen R. Publication Date: 05/18/2009 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Collection Publisher: Harvard Business School HBS Number: 14819 Subjects: Managerial skills; Managers; Productivity; Time wasters Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: Do you feel trapped in a time-bind, unable to get to — much less complete — your most important work? In this collection, you'll learn how to: * avoid endless “urgent” tasks * write to-do lists that work * renew your energy with simple rituals * delegate effectively. This collection includes: 1. How to Mitigate the Urgent to Focus on the Important offers simple techniques to help you get to the work that furthers your personal and professional goals — rather than getting caught up by the brush fires, busywork, and emails that can consume your time. 2. How to Write To-Do Lists That Work warns against confusing to-do's with goals or projects. A to-do is one specific action, like “call Dr. K at 203-555-6789.” When you break a task down to its smallest steps, you'll move through that list more effectively. 3. The Art of the Self-Imposed Deadline suggests ways to structure your workload. Start your day as early as possible, do similar tasks back-to-back, and break big projects up so that you finish the longest part first. 4. Manage Your Energy, Not Your Time emphasizes that time is a limited resource, so you run out of it, become exhausted, even quit. Energy, however, is renewable. Each of its wellsprings — the body, emotions, mind, and spirit — can be renewed. 5. Management Time: Who's Got the Monkey? explains how to avoid taking on “monkeys” — your subordinates' problems. Focus on developing and empowering your direct    Decoding Resistance to Change   Add   View  12 pp.  Article Author(s): Ford, Jeffrey D.; Ford, Laurie W. Publication Date: 04/01/2009 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article HBS Number: R0904J Subjects: Resistance Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: This article includes a one-page preview that quickly summarizes the key ideas and provides an overview of how the concepts work in practice along with suggestions for further reading. When a change initiative falters, the knee-jerk response can be to blame those who won't get on board. Jeffrey Ford, of the Ohio State University, and Laurie Ford, of Critical Path Consultants, examine why that type of reaction is not only pointless but potentially destructive. Drawing on their years of research and consulting work, the authors recommend seeing resistance for what it really is — feedback — and propose five ways for leaders to use that feedback to effect change more productively.    Harnessing Your Staff’s Informal Networks   Add   View  12 pp.  Article Author(s): McDermott, Richard ; Archibald, Douglas Publication Date: 03/01/2010 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: R1003F Subjects: Teams; Employee empowerment; Knowledge management; Collaboration Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: If your smartest employees are getting together to solve problems and develop new ideas on their own, the best thing to do is to stay out of their way, right? Well, think again. For years, loosely organized employee networks have been helping companies find creative solutions to challenges that bridge functional gaps. Composed of on-staff experts who got together to share information and insights, these “communities of practice” often generated improvements that saved firms dramatic amounts of money and time. Not wanting to crush these groups' collaborative nature, managers let them operate independently, off the grid. But as business became more global and technology multiplied the tools and information available to experts exponentially, community members found it harder to dedicate time to these voluntary groups. Communities started to fail. They didn't die, however; they evolved, becoming integrated into companies' formal structures. Today they're an actively managed part of the organization, with clear accountability and executive oversight. The most effective communities address issues that are critical to the organization and strive to meet specific, long-term goals. Companies assign them official management sponsors and full-time staff, train their leaders, and even make participation in them part of employees' performance criteria.    Giving Up the CEO Seat   Add   View  12 pp.  Article Author(s): Hollender, Jeffrey Publication Date: 03/01/2010 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: R1003J Subjects: Change management; CEO; Values; Leadership transitions Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: The CEO and cofounder of Seventh Generation, a maker of environmentally responsible household and personal care products, describes how he came to realize that although he'd been the right person to guide his company through its infancy and adolescence, he was not the right one to take it into full-fledged adulthood. Having made the decision to step down, he had to determine the best way to proceed: How quickly should he move? How public should he be? How would he get buy-in from the board and the company's associates? How would he ensure that Seventh Generation's fierce commitment to social and environmental sustainability endured? Most important, was he doing the right thing?    Life’s Work: Richard Serra   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Author(s): Serra, Richard ; Bell, Katherine Publication Date: 03/01/2010 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: R1003M Subjects: Innovation; Creativity; Collaboration Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: An American sculptor who works with massive sheets of rolled steel shares insights about large-scale innovation and collaboration.    Who Do These Bankers Think They Are?   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Author(s): Stiglitz, Joseph E. Publication Date: 03/01/2010 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: F1003J Subjects: Finance; Performance management; Risk management Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: Even with better regulation, the prognosis doesn't look good for financial markets. We have bankers to thank for that.    Life’s Work: Jane Goodall   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Author(s): Goodall, Jane ; Bell, Katherine Publication Date: 04/01/2010 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: R1004N Subjects: Communication strategy; Influence; Change management Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: The renowned primatologist talks about her early, unconventional interest in science and the importance of stories in changing people's minds.    The Acceleration Trap   Add   View  12 pp.  Article Author(s): Bruch, Heike ; Menges, Jochen I. Publication Date: 04/01/2010 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: R1004G Subjects: Morale; Organizational culture; Managing workplace stress Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: When companies face financial shortfalls and market pressures-as virtually all of them have over the past two years-they typically slash innovation cycles, cut personnel, and raise performance goals. They often succeed brilliantly at doing more with less-for a time. But when employees are pushed to work at a fevered pitch every day, month after month, their energy fails. Error rates rise, exhaustion and resignation blanket the company, the best employees defect, and the company's performance suffers. To escape from this acceleration trap, declare an end to the current high-energy phase and have employees abandon less important tasks. And to avoid the trap in the future, institute stop-the-action initiatives, limit the company's goals, and require that project-management systems put the kibosh on mediocre ideas. Equally important is to change the company's accelerated culture: Focus on just one thing for a specified period of time, institute time-outs to give employees time for rejuvenation, and mandate periods of calm between crises.    Google’s CEO on the Enduring Lessons of a Quirky IPO   Add   View  12 pp.  Article Author(s): Schmidt, Eric Publication Date: 05/01/2010 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: R1005J Subjects: IPO; Organizational culture; Strategy Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: Six years ago, Google's IPO was the most hotly anticipated public offering of the year. But in classic Google style, the offering was neither typical nor uneventful. Here's the story of how the process began, what it involved, and the obstacles the company encountered along the way.    The Decision-Driven Organization   Add   View  16 pp.  Article Author(s): Blenko, Marcia W.; Mankins, Michael C.; Rogers, Paul Publication Date: 06/01/2010 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: R1006B Subjects: Decision making; Reorganization; Organizational structure; Improving performance Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: CEOs tend to believe that company structure is closely tied to performance, so it makes sense that nearly half of all CEOs reorganize their companies during their first two years on the job. But Marcia W. Blenko, Michael C. Mankins, and Paul Rogers of Bain & Company report that of 57 reorganizations they studied between 2000 and 2006, less than one-third saw significant performance improvement. This failure, they believe, is rooted in a misunderstanding about the link between structure and outcome. In truth, a company's structure only results in improved performance if it allows the firm to make key decisions better and faster than the competition. Making sure this is the case requires a shift in the way we manage organizational change. We must start with an audit of assets, capabilities, risks, and weaknesses and move toward a decision audit, in which the goal is to understand which set of decisions are key to the success of the company's strategy and at what organizational level they should be made. If there is alignment between structure and decisions, then the organization will work better and performance will improve. To reorganize around decisions, leaders should follow six steps: Identify their firm's key decisions, figure out where in the company those decisions should happen, organize the macrostructure based on sources of value, determine how much authority decision makers need, align the rest of the organizational system with that related to decision making, and help managers acquire the skills they need to    Life’s Work: Joe Girardi   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Author(s): Girardi, Joe; Bell, Katherine Publication Date: 06/01/2010 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: R1006M Subjects: Leadership Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: Joe Girardi had wanted to play for the Chicago Cubs since he was a boy. He achieved that ambition, went on to coach for the Yankees, and is now the New York team's manager. He reflects in this interview on the value of numbers, how to keep players focused, and the challenges that come with being the most successful sports franchise in American history.    Change for Change’s Sake   Add   View  12 pp.  Article Author(s): Vermeulen, Freek; Puranam, Phanish; Gulati, Ranjay Publication Date: 06/01/2010 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: R1006D Subjects: Communication in organizations; Reorganization; Organizational structure; Organizational change; Managing creativity & innovation Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: No one disputes that firms have to make organizational changes when the business environment demands them. But the idea that a firm might want change for its own sake often provokes skepticism. Why inflict all that pain if you don't have to? That is a dangerous attitude. A company periodically needs to shake itself up, regardless of the competitive landscape. Even if the external environment is not changing in ways that demand a response, the internal environment probably is. The human dynamics within an organization are constantly shifting — and require the organization to change along with them. Over time, informal networks mirror the formal structure, which is how silos develop; restructuring gets people to start forming new networks, making the organization as a whole more creative. It also disrupts all the routines in an organization that collectively stifle innovation and adaptability. Finally, restructuring breaks up the outdated power structures that may be quietly misdirecting a company's resource allocation. All these processes — silo formation, the accretion of deadening routines, and the emergence of corporate baronies — take place all the time. But when everything is going well, you tend not to notice them, just as many seemingly fit people don't realize that their arteries may be dangerously clogged. A simple questionnaire can serve as a kind of cholesterol test for your company, enabling you to see if your regimen needs minor or major adjustments.    Are You a High Potential?   Add   View  12 pp.  Article Author(s): Ready, Douglas A.; Conger, Jay A.; Hill, Linda A. Publication Date: 06/01/2010 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: R1006E Subjects: Career advancement; Talent management; Top performers; Managing yourself Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: Some employees are more talented than others, and nearly every company has its method for identifying their high-potential managers. So how can you get on your company's high-potential list? Douglas A. Ready, of the talent-management research center ICEDR; Jay A. Conger, of Claremont McKenna College; and Harvard Business School's Linda A. Hill have studied programs for high-potential leaders for 15 years. They have found that the rising stars who make the grade are remarkably similar in their core characteristics, the most intangible of which they call “X factors”: a drive to excel, a catalytic learning capability, an enterprising spirit, and dynamic sensors that detect opportunities and obstacles. The authors' in-depth interviews with high potentials, their managers, and their HR departments reveal how you can develop your four X factors and, if you manage to get on your company's high-potential list, how to avoid falling off. The article also discusses the pros and cons companies face as they decide whether to make their high-potential lists transparent.    A Maverick CEO Explains How He Persuaded His Team to Leap into the Future   Add   View  8 pp.  Article Author(s): Nayar, Vineet Publication Date: 06/01/2010 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: R1006J Subjects: Work force management; Employee empowerment; Organizational transformations; Getting buy-in Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: India's HCL Technologies has, according to Fortune, the world's most modern management. BusinessWeek says that HCL is one of the top five emerging companies in the world to watch. That's mainly because of a transformation effort that the author, who took over leadership of the $5 billion IT services company in 2005, launched. Nayar learned from talking with customers that what they valued most-above products, services, and technologies-was HCL's employees. So he came up with a radical idea, Employees First, Customers Second, to bring about organizational change. In this article, he explains how he got stakeholders-HCL's founder and chairman, the board of directors, senior executives, managers, and employees-to back his campaign for radical change.    Object-Orientation: A Tool for Enterprise Design   Add   View  23 pp.  Article Author(s): Watson, Richard T.; Zinkhan, George M.; Pitt, Leyland Publication Date: 08/01/2004 Product Type: CMR Article Publisher: California Management Review HBS Number: CMR292 Subjects: Information management; Organizational design; Computer networks; Internet; Network effects Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: Understanding how to exploit networks and gain network effects is critical to success in the network economy. Object-orientation (OO), the commonly accepted methodology for building software, also provides a readily understood and concise set of concepts for comprehending business network structures. The underlying principles of OO serve as a guide for understanding the network economy and the structure of Internet-age organizations, provide a new tool for enterprise design, suggest new ways for entrepreneurs to conceptualize business structure, and indicate an approach for handling information overload. Four case studies illustrate key points and underscore the practical value of the OO approach to enterprise design.    The Leaders We Need Now   Add   View  8 pp.  Article Author(s): Erickson, Tamara J. Publication Date: 05/01/2010 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: R1005C Subjects: Leadership; Generation X; Generational issues Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: Generation X employees will bring a new sensibility to the leadership of corporations, precisely because they are broadly dissatisfied with corporate life. Alternative thinkers with a strong streak of realism, they're ready to take charge-by leading differently. Gen Xers grew up during times of major restructuring, and many of them reject status-quo definitions of success, such as climbing the corporate ladder, in favor of work/life balance. This point of view equips them to engage in five context-creating leadership activities that are well suited for today: fostering collaborative capacity; asking compelling questions; embracing complexity and welcoming disruptive information; actively shaping corporate (collective) identity; and appreciating diversity. Xers may feel like underappreciated workhorses, squeezed between two much larger cohorts: Baby Boomers and the twenty-something members of Generation Y. And they worry that management jobs will skip a generation because Boomers and Gen Y share a natural kinship. But if we give them the chance to lead as their time arrives, their affinity for realism over idealism will serve modern corporations extremely well. If you're concerned about who will take up the leadership torch at your company in the next decade, this Spotlight collection, which focuses on how to develop and nurture your next generation of leaders, is essential reading. Our authors tackle some fundamental questions: Are Gen Xers prepared to move into top roles? How do you hang on to your best talent? And how do you mentor the Millennials as they begin to come of age    Mentoring Millennials   Add   View  8 pp.  Article Author(s): Meister, Jeanne C.; Willyerd, Karie Publication Date: 05/01/2010 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: R1005D Subjects: Employee development; Generation Y; Mentoring; Generational issues Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: The makeup of the global workforce is about to undergo a seismic shift. In four years, Millennials-the people born between 1977 and 1997-will account for half the employees in the world. In some companies, they already constitute the majority. That shift may sound daunting to the managers charged with coaching these young workers, who have a reputation for being attention sponges. However, recent research into the varying expectations and needs of employees across four generations, involving 2,200 professionals, offers a more nuanced view of Millennials and reveals several resource-efficient ways to mentor them: reverse mentoring, group mentoring, anonymous feedback, and microfeedback. Using such innovative approaches, companies can give Millennials the guidance that they need-and that they want immediately-without having their experienced managers spend all their time coaching. If you're concerned about who will take up the leadership torch at your company in the next decade, this Spotlight collection, which focuses on how to develop and nurture your next generation of leaders, is essential reading. Our authors tackle some fundamental questions: Are Gen Xers prepared to move into top roles? How do you hang on to your best talent? And how do you mentor the Millennials as they begin to come of age? (One suggestion, from authors Jeanne Meister and Karie Willyerd: Offer feedback in the form of tweet-length evaluations for this eager and attention-hungry generation.)    Life’s Work: Mario Batali   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Author(s): Batali, Mario; Bell, Katherine Publication Date: 05/01/2010 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: R1005M Subjects: Entrepreneurship; Managing people Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: One of America's most successful chef-entrepreneurs talks about leadership in the kitchen.    Life’s Work: James Dyson   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Author(s): Dyson, James; Beard, Alison Publication Date: 07/01/2010 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: R1007S Subjects: Innovation; Creativity; Experimentation Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: The inventor of the bagless vacuum cleaner talks about what innovation means to him and why experience is overrated.    Job-Hopping to the Top and Other Career Fallacies   Add   View  8 pp.  Article Author(s): Hamori, Monika Publication Date: 07/01/2010 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: R1007Q Subjects: Executives; Career advancement; Career changes; Managing careers Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: Executives stay with an organization for only 3.3 years, on average. But does switching employers offer a fast-track to the top jobs? Research suggests the answer is no. In fact, that's one of four career fallacies identified in a study examining how managers get ahead. Fallacy 1: Job hoppers prosper. An analysis of the career histories of 1,001 CEOs and 14,000 non-CEOs in top corporations shows that the more years executives stay with the company, the faster they make it to the top. Lesson: Build a r sum that demonstrates a balance between external and internal moves. Fallacy 2: A move should be a move up. Among the executives studied, about 40% of job changes were promotions, 40% were lateral, and 25% were demotions. Lesson: While a downward move will detract from your CV, a lateral move can often lead to a promotion or enhance your CV when the new company conveys brand value. Fallacy 3: Big fish swim in big ponds. When making a move, 64% of executives trade down to smaller, less-recognized firms. They gain better titles or positions, cashing in on the brand value of their former employer. Lesson: Join top companies as early in your career as you can, and transfer to a lesser company only if the job is very attractive. Fallacy 4: Career and industry switchers are penalized. It's not always a bad move to change industries, or even careers, as is often assumed. Firms hire employees from different businesses for many reasons: For example, another industry might simply offer superior human capital. Lesson: Look for industries where your skill    How Will You Measure Your Life?   Add   View  12 pp.  Article Author(s): Christensen, Clayton M. Publication Date: 07/01/2010 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: R1007B Subjects: Personal strategy & style; Ethics; Success; Work life balance; Job satisfaction; Values Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: Harvard Business School's Christensen teaches aspiring MBAs how to apply management and innovation theories to build stronger companies. But he also believes that these models can help people lead better lives. In this article, he explains how, exploring questions everyone needs to ask: How can I be happy in my career? How can I be sure that my relationship with my family is an enduring source of happiness? And how can I live my life with integrity? The answer to the first question comes from Frederick Herzberg's assertion that the most powerful motivator isn't money; it's the opportunity to learn, grow in responsibilities, contribute, and be recognized. That's why management, if practiced well, can be the noblest of occupations; no others offer as many ways to help people find those opportunities. It isn't about buying, selling, and investing in companies, as many think. The principles of resource allocation can help people attain happiness at home. If not managed masterfully, what emerges from a firm's resource allocation process can be very different from the strategy management intended to follow. That's true in life too: If you're not guided by a clear sense of purpose, you're likely to fritter away your time and energy on obtaining the most tangible, short-term signs of achievement, not what's really important to you. And just as a focus on marginal costs can cause bad corporate decisions, it can lead people astray. The marginal cost of doing something wrong “just this once” always seems alluringly low. You don't see the    Empowered   Add   View  16 pp.  Article Author(s): Bernoff, Josh; Schadler, Ted Publication Date: 07/01/2010 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: R1007H Subjects: Communication strategy; Crisis management; Information & technology; Social media; Employee engagement Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: After his guitar was broken on a United Air Lines flight and the airline rejected his damage claim, musician Dave Carroll made the YouTube video “United Breaks Guitars,” which more than 8 million people have viewed. Carroll is far from alone in having employed social media to lambaste a company for poor customer service. For example, one popular blogger advised her million-plus followers on Twitter not to buy Maytag appliances. But the very technologies that empower customers can also empower employees, write Bernoff and Schadler, of Forrester Research. Companies can build a strategy around freeing employees to experiment with new technologies, make high-profile decisions on the fly, and effectively speak for the organization in public. Companies that feel hesitant to give their employees such freedom can benefit from what the authors call the HERO Compact-whereby management, IT, and HEROes (for “highly empowered and resourceful operatives”) agree to work together to manage technological innovations. Management contracts to encourage innovation and manage risk, IT to support and scale employees' projects, and HEROes to innovate within a safe framework. Best Buy, Black & Decker, Vail Resorts, and Aflac are among the companies that have empowered their employees to take full advantage of social media. But it takes a while for corporate cultures to embrace this sort of innovation. In the meantime, managers can move forward on their own-building internal communities, looking outside the company for creative s    Three Keys to Getting an Overseas Assignment Right   Add   View  7 pp.  Article Author(s): Clouse, Mark Alan; Watkins, Michael D. Publication Date: 10/01/2009 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article HBS Number: R0910N Subjects: Overseas employment Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: An international assignment can be among the most exciting and challenging transitions that an aspiring leader can undertake. With the right planning and attitudes, taking on that kind of leadership role can stretch capabilities, challenge assumptions, and steer both people and profits in a positive direction. But an expat assignment can also be a harrowing journey. Indeed, if they've never made an international move before, emerging leaders can fall into common traps that can severely stress their family bonds, negatively affect their performance at work, damage their businesses, and even lead to outright career derailment. In this article, Clouse, the managing director of Kraft Foods Brazil, and Watkins, the author of The First 90 Days: Critical Success Strategies for New Leaders at All Levels, offer three best practices for handling the personal-change challenges that go along with an overseas assignment. Settling the family in, adapting your communication style, and ensuring that you understand the new regulatory environment you're operating in are all critical for a successful transition, they advise.    You Are What You Measure   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Author(s): Ariely, Dan Publication Date: 06/01/2010 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: F1006G Subjects: Performance measurement; Human behavior; CEO; Executive compensation Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: To change CEOs' behavior, we need to change the numbers we measure and emphasize.    Why Is It So Hard to Tackle the Obvious?   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Author(s): Prahalad, C.K. Publication Date: 06/01/2010 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: F1006F Subjects: Leadership; Change management; Organizational transformations Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: Successful enterprises create and adhere to distinct business ideologies-such as the Toyota Way and the Xerox Way-over time. These doctrines contain specific ideas about how to compete, performance measures, organization structures, and whom to reward. Every employee knows: That's the way we do things here. The problem is that those success factors turn into entrenched orthodoxies over time, and no one challenges them. That's why during a corporate transformation, the forgetting curve is sometimes more important than the learning curve.    Turn the Job You Have into the Job You Want   Add   View  8 pp.  Article Author(s): Wrzesniewski, Amy; Berg, Justin M.; Dutton, Jane E. Publication Date: 06/01/2010 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: R1006K Subjects: Employee empowerment; Job satisfaction; Managing yourself Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: If you're unhappy at work, and changing roles or companies may be unrealistic given the tough economy, what can you do? A growing body of research suggests that a process called job crafting can be a powerful tool for reenergizing and reimagining your life at work. It involves redefining your current job description to better incorporate your motives, strengths, and passions. The exercise prompts you to visualize your job graphically, map its elements, and reorganize them to shape the job to better suit you. In this way, you can put your own personal touches on the way you see and do your job; and you'll gain a greater sense of control at work-all of which is especially critical at a time when you're probably working longer and harder and will be retiring later. Perhaps job crafting's best feature is that it's driven by you, not your supervisor. Research with a range of organizations indicates that employees who engage in job crafting often end up more engaged and satisfied with their work lives, achieve higher levels of performance in their organizations, and report greater personal resilience. And organizations have a lot to gain by enabling job crafting: The exercise lets managers turn the reins over to employees, empowering them to become “job entrepreneurs.” And when pay resources are constrained or promotions impossible, job crafting may give companies a different way to motivate and retain their most talented employees.    The Productivity Paradox: How Sony Pictures Gets More Out of People by Demanding Less   Add   View  12 pp.  Article Author(s): Schwartz, Tony Publication Date: 06/01/2010 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: R1006C Subjects: Productivity; Organizational culture; Managing workplace stress; Employee engagement Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: Companies are experiencing a crisis in employee engagement. One of the problems is all the pressure companies are putting on employees to produce. Workers are trying to get more done in less time-and are burning out. But while time is finite, energy is not; people can increase their reserves of personal energy. The key is to establish rituals-such as shutting down your e-mail for a couple of hours a day so you can focus on priorities, or taking a daily 3 p.m. walk to get a breather-that renew your physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual energy. These behavioral changes are sustainable, though, only if leaders at the most senior levels of an organization are willing to set a context for them, both by creating their own rituals and by setting a tone where people feel safe taking time out of the day on a regular basis. This is just what the leaders of Sony Pictures Entertainment did. Working with Tony Schwartz of the Energy Project, they implemented energy management training that has reached nearly half the company so far. To date, the reaction to the program has been overwhelmingly positive. Eighty-eight percent of participants say it has made them more focused and productive. More than 90% say it has helped them bring more energy to work every day. Eighty-four percent say they feel better able to manage their jobs' demands and are more engaged at work. Sony's leaders believe that these changes have helped boost the company's performance. Despite the recession, Sony Pictures had its most profitable year ever in 2008 and one of its highest revenue years i    Accelerating Corporate Transformations (Don’t Lose Your Nerve!)   Add   View  16 pp.  Article Author(s): Miles, Robert H. Publication Date: 01/01/2010 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: R1001C Subjects: Restructuring; Change management; Organizational change; Transformations; Implementing strategy Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: Ask any CEO who has overseen a corporate transformation what should have been handled differently, and you are likely to get this answer: “We should have - and could have - moved faster.” Such executives have a long list of regrets: They wish they had unified the leadership team right away. They wish they had quickly drummed up support for the new vision. They wish they hadn't waited so long to test their assumptions and refine their key initiatives. And they wish they had generated visible returns early on. Transformation launches must be bold and rapid to succeed. Yet embedded in most organizations are six kinds of “speed brakes” that can slow things down to a grinding pace. During business-as-usual periods, these brakes may be irritating, but their effects on performance are reasonably benign. When a bold transformation is required, however, any one of them can derail the larger effort. To accelerate transformations, managers need to release each of the following brakes, in this order. Speed Brake #1: Cautious management culture-To address this problem, compel all executives to confront reality and agree on ground rules for working together. Speed Brake #2: Business-as-usual management process-Run a no-slack launch on a parallel track with other systems; secure early, visible victories. Speed Brake #3: Initiative gridlock-Limit the company to three or four initiatives. Speed Brake #4: Recalcitrant executives-Compress launch to quickly engage key executives and to identify and confront those not on    Make Better Decisions   Add   View  12 pp.  Article Author(s): Davenport, Thomas H. Publication Date: 11/01/2009 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: R0911L Subjects: Decision analysis Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: Traditionally, decision making in organizations has rarely been the focus of systematic analysis. That may account for the astounding number of recent poor calls, such as decisions to invest in and securitize subprime mortgage loans or to hedge risk with credit default swaps. Business books are rich with insights about the decision process, but organizations have been slow to adopt their recommendations. It's time to focus on decision making, Davenport says, and he proposes four steps: (1) List and prioritize the decisions that must be made; (2) assess the factors that go into each, such as who plays what role, how often the decision must be made, and what information is available to support it; (3) design the roles, processes, systems, and behaviors your organization needs; and (4) institutionalize decision tools and assistance. The Educational Testing Service and The Stanley Works, among others, have succeeded in improving their decisions. ETS established a centralized deliberative body to make evidence-based decisions about new-product offerings, and Stanley has a Pricing Center of Excellence with internal consultants dedicated to its various business units. Leaders should bring multiple perspectives to their decision making, beware of analytical models that managers don't understand, be clear about their assumptions, practice “model management,” and - because only people can revise decision criteria over time - cultivate human backups.    Highway of the Mind   Add   View  8 pp.  Article Author(s): Stewart, Thomas A. Publication Date: 01/01/2004 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: R0401L Subjects: Management styles; Human behavior; Leadership; Personal strategy & style; Psychology; Interpersonal skills Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: Businesspeople tend to be extroverts, taking a lively interest in others and preferring action to introspection. But to be fully effective as leaders, they must learn to navigate the twists and turns of their emotions and those of the people around them.    The HBR Interview: Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz   Add   View  12 pp.  Article Author(s): Schultz, Howard; Ignatius, Adi Publication Date: 07/01/2010 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: R1007K Subjects: CEO; Brand management; Business growth Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: Two years ago Starbucks ran into trouble, and Schultz was called on to serve a second time as its CEO. In this edited interview, he talks about the effects of the financial crisis on Starbucks's sales, the surge of competition, the blogosphere, and retaining authenticity in spite of growth. Schultz calls values, culture, and Starbucks's reservoir of trust with its employees “the only assets we have as a company.” He saw preserving and enhancing the integrity of those assets as his primary challenge. That meant declining to franchise the system or compromise on quality or change the company's generous health care coverage. One bold move was to take 10,000 store managers to New Orleans for a conference that began with more than 50,000 hours of community service and an investment in local projects of $1 million. The purpose of the conference was to galvanize the entire leadership of the company and to stress personal accountability and responsibility. Schultz believes that without that experience, he couldn't have turned things around for Starbucks.    The Execution Trap   Add   View  12 pp.  Article Author(s): Martin, Roger L. Publication Date: 07/01/2010 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: R1007D Subjects: Decision making; Organizational structure; Execution; Strategy Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: The realization of a strategy depends on countless employees. So it's no surprise that when a strategy fails, the reason cited is usually poor execution. But this view of strategy and execution relies on a false metaphor in which senior management is a choosing brain while those in the rest of the company are choiceless arms and legs that merely carry out the brain's bidding. The approach does damage to the corporation because it alienates the people working for it. A better metaphor for strategy is a white-water river, in which choices cascade from its source in the mountains (the corporation) to its mouth (the rest of the organization). Executives at the top make the broader choices involving longterm investments while empowering employees toward the bottom to make more concrete, day-to-day decisions that directly influence customer service and satisfaction. For the cascade to flow properly, a choice maker upstream can set the context for those downstream by doing four things: explaining what the choice is and why it's been made, clearly identifying the next downstream choice, offering help with making choices as needed, and committing to revisit and adjust the choice based on feedback. When downstream choices are valued and feedback is encouraged, employees send information upward, improving the knowledge base of decision makers higher up and helping everyone in the organization make better choices. The most basic-and the most complicated- problem in business is figuring out how to move from a great, high-level idea to practical, operational success. In this issue's Sp    The Early Bird Really Does Get the Worm   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Author(s): Randler, Christoph; Berinato, Scott Publication Date: 07/01/2010 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: F1007E Subjects: Human behavior; Success; Work hours Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: A survey by biologist Christoph Randler reveals that morning people are more proactive than evening people. That makes them more likely to succeed, especially since corporate schedules are geared to their peak performance hours. Though evening people may be more intelligent and more creative, when it comes to the business world, morning people hold the important cards.    Powerlessness Corrupts   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Author(s): Kanter, Rosabeth Moss Publication Date: 07/01/2010 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: F1007F Subjects: Human behavior; Employee empowerment; Motivation; Managing people Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: Powerlessness damages organizations-especially in the middle ranks, says HBR columnist Rosabeth Moss Kanter. Hemmed in by rules and treated as unimportant, people get even with management by overcontrolling their own turf. Kanter urges leaders to give employees opportunities to make meaningful contributions, because small wins along those lines can propel big changes.    Power Play   Add   View  16 pp.  Article Author(s): Pfeffer, Jeffrey Publication Date: 07/01/2010 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: R1007G Subjects: Organizational behavior; Power & influence; Personal strategy & style; Strategy; Implementing strategy; Managing yourself Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: If you want to get anything done in a large corporation, you need power. And it won't just fall into your lap: You have to go after it and learn how to use it. Many highly competent people get stuck because they're uncomfortable with that reality. Stanford University professor Pfeffer offers a primer on why power matters, how to get it, and how to use it to advance your organization's agenda-thus, not incidentally, furthering your career. When push comes to shove, the author explains, there are several things powerful people do to prevail. They mete out resources; deploy rewards and punishments to shape others' behavior; advance on multiple fronts; make the first move; co-opt antagonists; remove rivals (nicely, if possible); avoid drawing unnecessary fire; use a personal touch; persist; attend to important relationships; and make their vision compelling. Throughout, Pfeffer draws on real-world examples of people who exercised power skillfully to implement their plans-people ranging from the director of UCSF's breast cancer center to a successful software executive to an Indian cricket mogul. And Pfeffer identifies three big barriers that can make you your own worst enemy unless you learn how to get over them and embrace the power you need. The most basic-and the most complicated- problem in business is figuring out how to move from a great, high-level idea to practical, operational success. In this issue's Spotlight, HBR looks at some of the most vexing strategy-execution challenges: how to organize for innova    My Inglorious Road to Success   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Author(s): Bennis, Warren Publication Date: 07/01/2010 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: F1007G Subjects: Success; Motivation; Personal transformations Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: Warren Bennis, the pioneering management professor, looks back on his career-and at the events that turned a 19-year-old army lieutenant from a blue-collar background into a university president and a leadership scholar.    The Science of Thinking Smarter: A Conversation with Brain Expert John J. Medina   Add   View  8 pp.  Article Author(s): Medina, John J.; Coutu, Diane Publication Date: 05/01/2008 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: R0805B Subjects: Intellectual capital; Productivity; Stress; Human capital Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: Advances in neurobiology have demonstrated that the brain is so sensitive to external experiences that it can be rewired through exposure to cultural influences. Experiments have shown that in some people, parts of the brain light up only when they are presented with an image of Bill Clinton. In others, it's Jennifer Aniston. Or Halle Berry. What other stimuli could rewire the brain? Is there a Boeing brain? A Goldman Sachs brain? No one really knows yet, says Medina, a developmental molecular biologist, who has spent much of his career exploring the mysteries of neuroscience with laypeople. As tempting as it is to try to translate the growing advances to the workplace, he warns, it's just too early to tell how the revolution in neurobiology is going to affect the way executives run their organizations. “If we understood how the brain knew how to pick up a glass of water and drink it, that would represent a major achievement,” he says. Still, neuroscientists are learning much that can be put to practical use. For instance, exercise is good for the brain, and long-term stress is harmful, inevitably hurting productivity in the workplace. Stressed people don't do math very well, they don't process language very efficiently, and their ability to remember - in both the short and long terms - declines. In fact, the brain wasn't built to remember with anything like analytic precision and shouldn't be counted on to do so. True memory is a very rare thing on this planet, Medina says. That's because the brain isn't really interested in reality; it's interested in surv    The HBR Interview: Cisco Sees the Future   Add   View  12 pp.  Article Author(s): Chambers, John; Fryer, Bronwyn; Stewart, Thomas A. Publication Date: 11/01/2008 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: R0811D Subjects: Management styles; CEO; Information & technology; Computer networks; Internet; Collaboration; Customer feedback Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: During his nearly 14 years at the helm of networking giant Cisco Systems, Chambers has developed an uncanny ability to sense market trends long before others do. He predicted, for instance, that voice transmission would become free long before computer networks could even carry it. And Cisco was one of the first to shift from call centers to web-based customer service. Seeing the future is essential for a company that must start developing a product some six years before it goes to market. How does Chambers do it? He looks for what he calls “market transitions” - subtle social, economic, or technological signs of an impending disruptive shift - which, he says, start turning up five to seven years before the market actually grasps their significance. The move to open-source software development was one that Chambers saw and Microsoft did not. Early on, Chambers learned to sense market transitions by listening closely to customers, connecting individual dots of behavior into patterns that indicated future trends. Later, he realized he needed to turn Cisco's management processes upside down to benefit from that foresight. In this interview, Chambers describes how he was able to surrender his role as a command-and-control CEO and institute a collaborative decision-making model that allows the company to respond speedily to emerging transitions. Managers throughout Cisco now form cross-functional teams, working together to identify and exploit new opportunities quickly. The model allows Ci    The Five Traps of Performance Measurement   Add   View  12 pp.  Article Author(s): Likierman, Andrew Publication Date: 10/01/2009 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: R0910L Subjects: Competition; Metrics Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: Evaluating a company's performance often entails wading through a thicket of numbers produced by a few simple metrics, writes the author, and senior executives leave measurement to those whose specialty is spreadsheets. To take ownership of performance assessment, those executives should find qualitative, forward-looking measures that will help them avoid five common traps: Measuring against yourself. Find data from outside the company, and reward relative, rather than absolute, performance. Enterprise Rent-A-Car uses a service quality index to measure customers' repeat purchase intentions. Looking backward. Use measures that lead rather than lag the profits in your business. Humana, a health insurer, found that the sickest 10% of its patients account for 80% of its costs; now it offers customers incentives for early screening. Putting your faith in numbers. The soft drinks company Britvic evaluates its executive coaching program not by trying to assign it an ROI number but by tracking participants' careers for a year. Gaming your metrics. The law firm Clifford Chance replaced its single, easy-to-game metric of billable hours with seven criteria on which to base bonuses. Sticking to your numbers too long. Be precise about what you want to assess and explicit about what metrics are assessing it. Such clarity would have helped investors interpret the AA ratings involved in the financial meltdown. Really good assessment will combine finance managers' relative independence with line managers' expertise.    The Best-Performing CEOs in the World   Add   View  16 pp.  Article Author(s): Hansen, Morten T.; Ibarra, Herminia; Peyer, Urs Publication Date: 01/01/2010 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: R1001H Subjects: Leadership; CEO; Business leaders Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: A lot of people have blamed short-term thinking for causing our current economic troubles, which has set off a debate about what time window we should use to assess a CEO's performance. Today boards of directors, senior managers, and investors intensely want to know how CEOs handle the ups and downs of running businesses over an extended period. Many executive compensation plans define the “long term” as a three-year horizon, but the real test of a CEO's leadership has to be how the company does over his or her full tenure. This article contains a list of the 50 CEOs of large public companies who performed best over their entire time in office-or, for those still in the job, up until September 30, 2009. To compile the results, the authors collected data on close to 2,000 CEOs worldwide. They asked, Who had led firms that, on the basis of stock returns, outperformed other firms in the same country and industry? The ranking combines three measures: country-adjusted return, industry-adjusted return, and change in market capitalization during tenure. While it may come as no shock that Steve Jobs of Apple tops the list, the ranking does contains a few surprises. You'll see some relatively unknown faces at the top. The inverse is also true: Some obvious candidates based on reputation don't make the top 50. The authors' analysis of the factors that increased the likelihood that an executive would place high in the ranking turned up a few more surprises. Although one might expect context to have a big effect, they found a wide diversity of countries and industries    Smart Power: A Conversation with Leadership Expert Joseph S. Nye, Jr.   Add   View  12 pp.  Article Author(s): Nye, Joseph S., Jr.; Coutu, Diane Publication Date: 11/01/2008 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: R0811B Subjects: Power & influence; Government Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: The next U.S. administration will face enormous challenges to world peace, the global economy, and the environment. Exercising military and economic muscle alone will not bring peace and prosperity. According to Nye, a former U.S. government official and a former dean at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, the next president must be able to combine hard power, characterized by coercion, and what Nye calls “soft” power, which relies instead on attraction. The result is smart power, a tool great leaders use to mobilize people around agendas that look beyond current problems. Hard power is often necessary, Nye explains. In the 1990s, when the Taliban was providing refuge to Al Qaeda, President Clinton tried - and failed - to solve the problem diplomatically instead of destroying terrorist havens in Afghanistan. In other situations, however, soft power is more effective, though it has been too often overlooked. In Iraq, Nye argues, the use of soft power could draw young people toward something other than terrorism. “I think that there's an awakening to the need for soft power as people look at the crisis in the Middle East and begin to realize that hard power is not sufficient to resolve it,” he says. Solving today's global problems will require smart power - a judicious blend of the other two powers. While there are notable examples of men who have used smart power - Teddy Roosevelt, for instance - it's much more difficult for women to lead with smart power, especially in the United States, where women feel pressure to prove that they are not “sof    Seven Ages of the Leader   Add   View  12 pp.  Article Author(s): Bennis, Warren G. Publication Date: 01/01/2004 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: R0401D Geographic Setting: Ohio; Belgium Subjects: Leadership; Hiring; New hires; Listening; Interpersonal skills; Mentoring; Autobiographical narratives Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: Leaders go through many transitions in their careers. Each brings new crises and challenges that are predictable. Knowing what to expect can help you get through and perhaps emerge stronger. In this engaging article, Warren G. Bennis, professor and founding chairman of the University of Southern California's Leadership Institute, reflects on leadership, recounting his own experiences as a young lieutenant in the infantry in World War II, as the new president of a university, and as the mentor to a unique nursing student. Bennis also describes the experiences of other leaders he has known throughout his career. Drawing on more than 50 years of academic research and business expertise — and borrowing from Shakespeare's seven ages of man — Bennis says the leader's life unfolds in seven stages. “The infant executive” seeks to recruit a mentor for guidance. “The schoolboy” must learn how to do the job in public. “The lover with a woeful ballad” struggles with the tsunami of problems every organization presents. “The bearded soldier” must be willing to hire people better than he is, because he knows that talented underlings can help him shine. “The general” must become adept at allowing people to speak the truth and being able to hear what they are saying. “The statesman” is hard at work preparing to pass on wisdom in the interests of the organization. And, finally, “the sage” embraces the role of mentor to young execu    September 11, 2001: A CEO’s Story   Add   View  8 pp.  Article Author(s): Greenberg, Jeffrey W. Publication Date: 10/01/2002 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: R0210D Subjects: Organizational behavior; Leadership; Vision; CEO; Organizational culture; Values; Solving business problems Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: On the day of the terrorist attacks on New York's World Trade Center, 1,779 employees of Marsh & McLennan Co. (MMC) had office space in the twin towers and another 129 were visiting that day. From his office at MMC headquarters in midtown, CEO Jeffrey Greenberg watched in horror as the second plane hit. By the time the towers fell, he had gathered a team of his colleagues to begin to outline how the company would respond. In this first-person account, Greenberg relates what it was like to manage through the unimaginable. The needs of MMC's people and the families of employees who perished took top priority. In the midst of chaos and unforeseeable problems, Greenberg and his colleagues improvised ways of communicating and assembled a broad-based program of support. Help appeared from all sides from people of various rank, title, and functional expertise within MMC as well as past chairmen, outside directors, and retired executives. An emergency communications center was immediately set up at MMC headquarters and became a centralized location for messages and information and a memorial to colleagues lost in the attacks. The company arranged for grief counselors and established a family assistance center and a Family Relationship Management Program for those who had lost MMC employees. It has also provided families with access to long-term psychological and financial counseling. At the same time, Greenberg offers lessons about leadership, company culture, and adaptability. He and his colleagues held responsibility for a business    Reawakening Your Passion for Work   Add   View  12 pp.  Article Author(s): Boyatzis, Richard; McKee, Annie; Goleman, Daniel Publication Date: 04/01/2002 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: R0204G Subjects: Leadership; Personal strategy & style; Career planning; Career changes; Self-assessment; Improving performance Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: All of us struggle from time to time with the question of personal meaning: “Am I living the way I want to live?” This type of questioning is healthy; business leaders need to go through it every few years to replenish their energy, creativity, and commitment — and their passion for work. In this article, the authors describe the signals that it's time to reevaluate your choices and illuminate strategies for responding to those signals. Such wake-up calls come in various forms. Some people feel trapped or bored and may realize that they have adjusted to the frustrations of their work to such an extent that they barely recognize themselves. For others, the signal comes when they are faced with an ethical challenge or suddenly discover their true calling. Once you have realized that it's time to take stock of your life, there are strategies to help you consider where you are, where you're headed, and where you want to be. Many people find that calling a time-out — either in the form of an intense, soul-searching exercise or a break from corporate life — is the best way to reconnect with their dreams. People no longer expect their leaders to have all the answers, but they do expect them to try to keep their own passion alive and to support employees through that process.    Putting Leaders on the Couch: A Conversation with Manfred F.R. Kets de Vries   Add   View  12 pp.  Article Author(s): Coutu, Diane L. Publication Date: 01/01/2004 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: R0401F Subjects: Management styles; Human behavior; Leadership; CEO; Personal strategy & style; Psychology Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: Although a number of business scholars have explored the psychology of executives, Manfred F.R. Kets de Vries has made the analysis of CEOs his life's work. In this article, Kets de Vries, a psychoanalyst, author, and Insead professor, draws on three decades of study to describe the psychological profile of successful CEOs. He explores senior executives' vulnerabilities, which are often intensified by followers' attempts to manipulate their leaders. Leaders, he says, have an uncanny ability to awaken transferential processes — in which people transfer the dynamics of past relationships onto present interactions — among their employees and even in themselves. These processes can present themselves in a number of ways, sometimes negatively. What's more, many top executives, being middle-aged, suffer from depression. Midlife prompts a reappraisal of career identity, and by the time a leader is a CEO, an existential crisis is often imminent. Not all CEOs are psychologically unhealthy, of course. Healthy leaders are talented in self-observation and self-analysis, Kets de Vries says. The best are highly motivated to spend time on self-reflection. Their lives are in balance, they can play, they are creative and inventive, and they have the capacity to be nonconformist. “Those who accept the madness in themselves may be the healthiest leaders of all,” he concludes.    Timberland’s CEO on Standing Up to 65,000 Angry Activists   Add   View  8 pp.  Article Author(s): Swartz, Jeff Publication Date: 09/01/2010 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: R1009A Geographic Setting: Brazil Subjects: Communication strategy; Public relations; Corporate image; Supply chain management; Green business Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: Swartz awoke on June 1, 2009, to find the first of what, over time, would amount to 65,000 angry e-mails accusing Timberland of destroying Amazon rain forests and exacerbating global warming. The senders were reacting to a Greenpeace report alleging that Brazilian cattle farmers were illegally clearcutting forests to create pastures, and leather from their cows might be winding up in Timberland's boots. Swartz and his team had to craft a response immediately: The brand's reputation was at stake. He realized that the underlying question-Where did Timberland's leather come from?-was legitimate, and that he didn't know the answer. The idea of tracing hides back from tannery to pasture was daunting, but he saw the issue as a battle for the hearts and minds of environmental activists. The company opened a dialogue with Greenpeace and worked with its Brazilian supplier to get the origin of its hides certified. Meanwhile, Swartz made sure that all those e-mails received replies. In the end, Timberland praised Greenpeace for bringing the issue to the industry's attention, and Greenpeace acknowledged that Timberland had taken a leadership position on it.    The Judgment Deficit   Add   View  16 pp.  Article Author(s): Bhide, Amar Publication Date: 09/01/2010 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: R1009B Subjects: Decision making; Risk management; Judgment Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: Individual judgment and initiative are essential to the success of the modern capitalist economy. At the same time, rules and centralized systems are needed to bring order and prevent waste. Balancing decentralization and command-and-control modes of decision making has always been a struggle, and organizations have experience managing the tension. In recent times, though, a new form of centralized control has taken root: mechanistic decision making based on top-down statistical models and algorithms. This has been especially true in finance, where risk models have replaced the judgments of thousands of individual bankers and investors, to disastrous effect. The problem with the statistical approach is that it cannot adequately account for the uncertainty inherent in economic decisions or the idiosyncratic nature of human activity. What finance in particular needs is a return to judgment. The author offers some broad guidelines for this: Computerized controls work best with inanimate products and processes that can be physically shielded so that the variations of conditions can be minimized. Computers also shine when, like the configuration of pieces on a chess set, the number of possible outcomes is vast-in fact, this vastness often gives the computer its edge-but they all conform to well-specified rules. Conversely, human judgment is favored when shielding is difficult, outcomes are ambiguous, and the possibilities are open-ended. Ultimately, however, the “right-sizing” of judgment is itself a matter of judgment.    The Boss as Human Shield   Add   View  8 pp.  Article Author(s): Sutton, Robert I. Publication Date: 09/01/2010 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: R1009K Subjects: Superior & subordinate; Leadership; Management skills; Managing people Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: As employees strive to do their jobs, they face threats to productivity from all quarters-disruptive technology, meddlesome superiors, senseless organizational practices, and abusive clients and customers. Sutton, of Stanford University, reminds us that the best bosses identify and slay those dragons, thereby protecting the time and the dignity of their people and enabling them to focus on real work. Self-awareness is the key to defending employees effectively. Good leaders resist their own tendency to exercise power: They keep meetings short, listen to their followers, and make it safe to disagree with the boss. They also work to reduce outside distractions by, for example, championing mornings free of e-mail or streamlining performance review processes. When their own bosses are the problem, they occasionally defy orders. Once in a while, they encourage their people to overtly comply with misguided demands from on high without actually buying in to them. Good bosses fight enemies. They take the heat for their teams. They have their employees' backs. Stepping on to this battlefield requires humility, intelligence, and bravery. In leading the charge to make the workplace safe and productive, however, you may risk martyrdom. Don't lose sight of the need to retain your own political power as you defend against the institutional forces that threaten your employees. And remember that preserving your own well-being will ensure that you have the energy to fight the good fight.    Redefining Failure   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Author(s): Godin, Seth Publication Date: 09/01/2010 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: F1009F Subjects: Business failures; Entrepreneurship; Innovation; Risk Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: One surefire way to avoid failure is to narrowly define it. If you care about your company and your customers, entrepreneur Seth Godin argues, you'll take a much more inclusive view.    Life’s Work: Ben Bradlee   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Author(s): Bradlee, Ben; Beard, Alison Publication Date: 09/01/2010 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: R1009N Subjects: Journalists; Leadership; Managing people Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: One of the world's most famous newspaper editors talks about leading the Washington Post through Watergate and beyond-and reflects on the future of print journalism.    It’s Not “Unprofessional” to Gossip at Work   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Author(s): Labianca, Giuseppe “Joe”; Berinato, Scott Publication Date: 09/01/2010 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: F1009E Subjects: Communication in organizations; Interpersonal relations; Human behavior; Group dynamics Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: Contrary to what most people think, gossip is actually good for organizations. It can spread valuable information to employees and helps networks establish norms and censure those who don't adhere to them. So why do managers dislike it? Because it threatens their control. Research shows that the more you gossip, the higher your peers rate your informal influence.    How Anger Poisons Decision Making   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Author(s): Lerner, Jennifer S.; Shonk, Katherine Publication Date: 09/01/2010 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: F1009C Subjects: Decision making; Human behavior; Anger Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: Many organizations have anger-management programs for their most egregious bullies, but the reality is that the vast majority of employees will experience anger triggered by anything from a family quarrel to a lost parking space-and their work will suffer for it. Here's some fresh research on how anger affects cognitive function.    Four Mistakes Leaders Keep Making   Add   View  12 pp.  Article Author(s): Schaffer, Robert H. Publication Date: 09/01/2010 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: R1009G Subjects: Organizational behavior; Communication in organizations; Leadership; Change management; Managing people Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: Again and again, senior managers fall into four behavioral traps that thwart organizational change. The behaviors are difficult to recognize and reverse because they serve to protect egos and prevent anxiety-but executives can overcome them. First, managers fail to set proper expectations. When they announce major directional changes or new goals, they don't spell out credible plans or specify who's accountable. Second, they excuse subordinates from the pursuit of overall goals, allowing people to remain preoccupied with their own units. Third, executives essentially collude with staff experts and consultants by going along with a deeply flawed contract: The experts agree to deliver and implement a “product” (a new system, for instance) but don't include measurable gains as part of the deal. Fourth, managers wait while associates overprepare. After challenging their employees to make needed improvements, they accept the response “Yes, but first we have to “ Finish the sentence: Train our people. Set up focus groups. Bring in Six Sigma. And so on. The best way to confront the traps is to conduct small personal experiments that rapidly produce tangible results, incur little risk of failure, and are confined enough to demonstrate a clear link between trial and outcome. For example, one iron plant addressed quality problems by targeting five areas for improvement, setting clear and measurable goals for each, and holding team leaders accountable for outcomes. All five experiments succeeded and were extende    Be a Better Manager: Live Abroad   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Author(s): Maddux, William W.; Galinsky, Adam D.; Tadmor, Carmit T. Publication Date: 09/01/2010 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: F1009B Subjects: Global business; Leadership development; Problem solving Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: Fresh research shows that people who've lived abroad are more creative problem solvers and effectively better managers.    A New Will to Win   Add   View  8 pp.  Article Author(s): McGinn, Daniel Publication Date: 09/01/2010 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: R1009L Subjects: Crisis management; Leadership; Organizational transformations; Personal transformations Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: In 2004, Rick Hendrick, owner of the NASCAR racing operation Hendrick Motorsports, lost most of his management team in a plane crash. Among those killed was his brother and his only son, Ricky, whom Hendrick had been grooming to take over the business. Yet this devastating accident would inspire everyone in the company to fight harder, and would transform Hendrick into a wiser leader.    Worse Than Enemies: The CEO’s Destructive Confidant   Add   View  12 pp.  Article Author(s): Sulkowicz, Kerry J. Publication Date: 02/01/2004 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: R0402D Subjects: Interpersonal relations; Leadership; CEO; Personal strategy & style; Interpersonal skills Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: The CEO is often the most isolated and protected employee in the organization. Few leaders, even veteran CEOs, can do the job without talking to someone about their experiences, which is why most develop a close relationship with a trusted colleague, a confidant to whom they can tell their thoughts and fears. In his work with leaders, the author has found that many CEO-confidant relationships function very well. The confidants keep their leaders' best interests at heart. They derive their gratification vicariously, through the help they provide rather than through any personal gain, and they are usually quite aware that a person in their position can potentially abuse access to the CEO's innermost secrets. Unfortunately, almost as many confidants will end up hurting, undermining, or otherwise exploiting CEOs when the executives are at their most vulnerable. The leader is often the last one to know when or how the confidant relationship became toxic. The author has identified three types of destructive confidants. The reflector mirrors the CEO, constantly reassuring him that he is the “fairest CEO of them all.” The insulator buffers the CEO from the organization, preventing critical information from getting in or out. And the usurper cunningly ingratiates himself with the CEO in a desperate bid for power.    Why Repressing Emotions Is Bad for Business   Add   View  8 pp.  Article Author(s): Shapiro, Daniel Publication Date: 11/01/2009 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: R0911A Subjects: Emotions Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: Emotional investment improves relationships and promotes satisfying, enduring agreements. In a difficult economy, when other kinds of rewards are scarce, making people in your organization feel upbeat and engaged can yield considerable value.    Why Good Projects Fail Anyway   Add   View  12 pp.  Article Author(s): Matta, Nadim F.; Ashkenas, Ronald N. Publication Date: 09/01/2003 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: R0309H Geographic Setting: Nicaragua; North America Subjects: Teams; Goal setting; Project management Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: Big projects fail at an astonishing rate — more than half the time, by some estimates. It's not hard to understand why. Complicated long-term projects are customarily developed by a series of teams working along parallel tracks. If managers fail to anticipate everything that might fall through the cracks, those tracks will not converge successfully at the end to reach the goal. Take a companywide CRM project. Traditionally, one team might analyze customers, another select the software, a third develop training programs, and so forth. When the project is finally complete, though, it may turn out that the salespeople won't enter in the requisite data because they don't understand why they need to. There is a way to uncover unanticipated problems while the project is still in development. The key is to inject into the overall plan a series of miniprojects, or “rapid-results initiatives,” that each have as their goal a miniature version of the overall goal. In the CRM project, a single team might be charged with increasing the revenues of one sales group in one region by 25% within four months. To reach that goal, team members would have to draw on the work of all the parallel teams. But in just four months, they would discover the salespeople's resistance and probably other unforeseen issues, such as, perhaps, the need to divvy up commissions for joint-selling efforts. The World Bank has used rapid-results initiatives to great effect to keep a sweeping 16-year project on track and deliver visible results years a    When Winning Is Everything   Add   View  16 pp.  Article Author(s): Malhotra, Deepak; Ku, Gillian; Murnighan, J. Keith Publication Date: 05/01/2008 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: R0805E Subjects: Competitive bidding; Decision making; Acquisitions Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: This article includes a one-page preview that quickly summarizes the key ideas and provides an overview of how the concepts work in practice along with suggestions for further reading. In the heat of competition, executives can easily become obsessed with beating their rivals. This adrenaline-fueled emotional state, which the authors call competitive arousal, often leads to bad decisions. Managers can minimize the potential for competitive arousal and the harm it can inflict by avoiding certain types of interaction and targeting the causes of a win-at-all-costs approach to decision making. Through an examination of companies such as Boston Scientific and Paramount, and through research on auctions, the authors identified three principal drivers of competitive arousal: intense rivalry, especially in the form of one-on-one competitions; time pressure, found in auctions and other bidding situations, for example; and being in the spotlight - that is, working in the presence of an audience. Individually, these factors can seriously impair managerial decision making; together, their consequences can be dire, as evidenced by many high-profile business disasters. It's not possible to avoid destructive competitions and bidding wars completely. But managers can help prevent competitive arousal by anticipating potentially harmful competitive dynamics and then restructuring the deal-making process. They can also stop irrational competitive behavior from escalating by addressing the causes of competitive arousal. When rivalry is intense, for instance, managers ca    When Internal Collaboration Is Bad for Your Company   Add   View  12 pp.  Article Author(s): Hansen, Morten T. Publication Date: 04/01/2009 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: R0904G Subjects: Collaboration; Value creation Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: This article includes a one-page preview that quickly summarizes the key ideas and provides an overview of how the concepts work in practice along with suggestions for further reading. Without question, internal collaboration can produce benefits for an organization. This doesn't mean, however, that the more your employees collaborate, the better off the company will be. It may, in fact, be worse off. The author, a professor at UC Berkeley and at Insead, offers a simple method for determining when collaborating on a project makes sense. He calls it calculating the collaboration premium - what's left after you subtract opportunity costs and collaboration costs from a project's expected financial return. The opportunity cost is what's lost by devoting resources to the collaboration project rather than to something else - particularly something that doesn't require collaboration. Collaboration costs arise from the challenges - conflict over goals and budgets, competing objectives, logistical roadblocks - involved in working across organizational boundaries. Sometimes those costs are so high that the project results in a collaboration penalty. The Norwegian company Det Norske Veritas (DNV) would have done well to apply Hansen's calculation before it launched a food-safety initiative combining the expertise, resources, and customer bases of two business units: standards certification and risk-management consulting. According to initial projections, from 2004 to 2008 the joint effort would quadruple the growth to be realized if the two units operated separately. Unfortunately, DNV hadn't formally evaluated fo    When Followers Become Toxic   Add   View  12 pp.  Article Author(s): Offerman, Lynn G.; Offermann, Lynn R. Publication Date: 01/01/2004 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: R0401E Subjects: Management styles; Leadership; Personal strategy & style; Psychology; Interpersonal skills Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: Leaders are vulnerable, too. That is, they can be led astray just as their followers can — actually, by their followers. Sometimes, good leaders end up making poor decisions because well-meaning followers are united and persuasive about a course of action. This is a particular problem for leaders who attract and empower strong followers. These executives need to become more skeptical of the majority view and push followers to examine their opinions more closely. At other times, leaders get into trouble because they are surrounded by followers who fool them with flattery and isolate them from uncomfortable realities. Charismatic leaders, who are most susceptible to this problem, need to make an extra effort to unearth disagreement and to find followers who are not afraid to pose hard questions. Organizational mechanisms like 360-degree feedback and executive coaching can help these leaders get at the truth within their companies. Finally, unscrupulous and ambitious followers may end up encroaching on the authority of the leader to such an extent that the leader becomes little more than a figurehead who has responsibility but no power. There's not much leaders can do to guard completely against a determined corporate Iago, but those who communicate and live by a positive set of values will find themselves better protected. And because followers tend to model themselves after their leaders, the straightforward leader is less likely to have manipulative followers. In this article, George Washington University Professor Lynn Of    Understanding Leadership (HBR Classic)   Add   View  12 pp.  Article Author(s): Prentice, W.C.H. Publication Date: 01/01/2004 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: R0401K Subjects: Organizational behavior; Management styles; Human behavior; Leadership; Personal strategy & style; Psychology; Motivation; Management skills Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: The would-be analyst of leadership usually studies popularity, power, showmanship, or wisdom in long-range planning. But none of these qualities is the essence of leadership. Leadership is the accomplishment of a goal through the direction of human assistants — a human and social achievement that stems from the leader's understanding of his or her fellow workers and the relationship of their individual goals to the group's aim. To be successful, leaders must learn two basic lessons: People are complex, and people are different. Human beings respond not only to the traditional carrot and stick but also to many desires and emotions. For example, someone may find satisfaction in solving intellectual problems but may never be given the opportunity to explore how that satisfaction can be applied to business. In this article, first published in HBR's September-October 1961 issue, W.C.H. Prentice argues that by responding to individual patterns, the leader can create genuinely intrinsic interest in the work. Ideally, Prentice says, managerial dominions should be small enough that every supervisor can know those who report to him or her as human beings. Prentice calls for democratic leadership that, without creating anarchy, gives employees opportunities to learn and grow. This concept, along with his rejection of the notion that leadership is the exercise of power or the possession of extraordinary analytical skill, foreshadows the work of more recent authors such as Abraham Zaleznik and Daniel Go    Narcissistic Leaders: The Incredible Pros, the Inevitable Cons (HBR Classic)   Add   View  16 pp.  Article Author(s): Maccoby, Michael Publication Date: 01/01/2004 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: R0401J Subjects: Organizational behavior; Management styles; Human behavior; Leadership; Personal strategy & style; Psychology; Personality Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: In the winter of 2000, at the height of the dot-com boom, business leaders posed for the covers of Time, BusinessWeek, and the Economist with the aplomb and confidence of rock stars. These were a different breed from their counterparts of just 10 or 20 years before, who shunned the press and whose comments were carefully crafted by corporate PR departments. Such love of the limelight often stems from what Freud called a narcissistic personality, says psychoanalyst and anthropologist Michael Maccoby in this HBR classic, first published in the January-February 2000 issue. Narcissists are good for companies in extraordinary times — those that need people with the passion and daring to take them in new directions. But narcissists can also lead companies into disaster by refusing to listen to the advice and warnings of their managers. It's not always true, as Andy Grove famously put it, that only the paranoid survive. Most business advice is focused on the more analytic personality that Freud labeled obsessive. But recommendations about creating teamwork and being more receptive to subordinates will not resonate with narcissists. Narcissists who want to overcome the limits of their personalities must work as hard at that as they do at business success. One solution is to find a trusted sidekick who can point out the operational requirements of the narcissistic leader's often overly grandiose vision and keep him or her rooted in reality. Another is to take a leap of faith and go into psychoanalysis, which can give the    Listening Begins at Home   Add   View  16 pp.  Article Author(s): Stengel, James R.; Dixon, Andrea L.; Allen, Chris T. Publication Date: 11/01/2003 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: R0311H Subjects: Employee training; Employee promotions; Morale; Interviews; Marketing organization; Focus groups; Surveys; Listening; Workplace; Rewards Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: Procter & Gamble has long been regarded as a major power of the marketing world and a prime training ground for marketers. But in the summer of 2000, with half of P&G's top 15 brands losing market share and employee morale in ruins, company executives realized that the marketing organization was in trouble. In an attempt to rebuild P&G's marketing strength, James Stengel, the heir apparent to the chief marketing officer position, began working with University of Cincinnati professors Chris Allen and Andrea Dixon on a new training program to fix the weaknesses in the marketing organization. But when the two professors began interviewing P&G senior executives, they discovered that the plans in motion for mapping out the marketing group's recovery were based not on data but on the intuition of a few individuals at corporate headquarters. So began the most comprehensive internal research endeavor in P&G marketing's history. Using the company's existing process for consumer research, Allen and Dixon shadowed employees, conducted one-on-one interviews, held focus-group sessions, and surveyed 3,500 members of the marketing staff to learn what the company was doing right — and wrong — and what mattered most to its people. The results led to the most sweeping redesign of P&G's marketing organization in 60 years.    Life’s Work: Condoleezza Rice   Add   View  8 pp.  Article Author(s): Rice, Condoleezza; Bell, Katherine Publication Date: 01/01/2010 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: R1001P Subjects: Crisis management; Leadership; Managing people Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has made a career of arriving in positions of power during difficult times and, critics say, without the requisite experience. HBR talks to Dr. Rice about making transitions between sectors, managing without management experience, and relearning lessons in new contexts.    Letter to the Chief Executive   Add   View  8 pp.  Article Author(s): Fuller, Joseph Publication Date: 10/01/2002 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: R0210G Subjects: Decision making; Leadership; Corporate governance; CEO; Strategic planning Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: Beyond the recent accounting scandals, something is wrong with the way most companies are managed today. That's the message of this fictional letter from a board member to a CEO, written by Joseph Fuller, CEO of the strategy consulting firm Monitor Group. The letter highlights the challenges and complexities of running a business in today's uncertain environment. The letter addresses a single CEO and company, yet it is intended to speak to executives and boards everywhere: “It wasn't the recession that caused us to make 3 acquisitions in 2 years at very, very high prices; the need to fuel [unreasonable] growth did. Nor was it the recession that caused us to expand our capacity in anticipation of gaining market share; rather, it was our own overly optimistic sales forecasts that led us to that decision. Where did those forecasts originate? From line managers trying to fulfill profit goals that we created after meeting with the analysts. The root cause of many of the problems that became apparent in the last 24 months lies not with the economy, not with September 11, and not with the dot-com bubble. Rather, it lies with that willingness to be led by outside forces — indeed, our own lack of conviction about setting a course.” Restoring sound, strategic decision making — thinking that looks beyond tomorrow's analyst reports — will go a long way toward keeping those outside forces at bay, according to Fuller.    Let’s Hear It for B Players   Add   View  8 pp.  Article Author(s): Delong, Thomas J.; Vijayaraghavan, Vineeta Publication Date: 06/01/2003 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: R0306F Subjects: Management styles; Leadership; Change management; Middle management; Personal strategy & style; Personality Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: In the much-heralded war for talent, it's hardly surprising that companies have invested a lot of time, money, and energy in hiring and retaining star performers. For most CEOs, recruiting stars is simply more fun; for one thing, the young A players they interview often remind them of themselves at the same age. For another, A players' brilliance and drive is infectious; you simply want to be in their company. Besides, in these troubled times, when businesses are so vulnerable, people who seem to have what it takes to turn around a company's performance are almost irresistible. But our understandable fascination with star performers can lure us into the dangerous trap of underestimating the vital importance of the supporting actors. It's true that A players can make enormous contributions to performance. Yet, as the authors have found, companies' long-term performance — even survival — depends far more on the unsung commitment and contributions of their B players. These capable, steady performers are the best supporting actors of the corporate world. They counterbalance the ambitions of the company's high-performing visionaries. Unfortunately, organizations rarely learn to value their B players in ways that are gratifying for either the company or these employees. This article will help you to rethink the role of your organization's B players.    Leading by Feel   Add   View  16 pp.  Article Publication Date: 01/01/2004 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: R0401B Subjects: Leadership; Emotional intelligence; Self-awareness Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: Like it or not, leaders need to manage the mood of their organizations. The most gifted leaders accomplish that by using a mysterious blend of psychological abilities known as emotional intelligence. They are self-aware and empathetic. They can read and regulate their own emotions while intuitively grasping how others feel and gauging their organization's emotional state. But where does emotional intelligence come from, and how do leaders learn to use it? In this article, 18 leaders and scholars (including business executives, leadership researchers, psychologists, an autism expert, and a symphony conductor) explore the nature and management of emotional intelligence. Their responses varied, but some common themes emerged: the importance of consciously — and conscientiously — honing one's skills, the double-edged nature of self-awareness, and the danger of letting any one emotional intelligence skill dominate. Among their observations: Psychology Professor John Mayer, who codeveloped the concept of emotional intelligence, warns managers not to be confused by popular definitions of the term, which suggest that if you have a certain set of personality traits then you automatically possess emotional intelligence. Neuropsychologist Elkhonon Goldberg agrees with professors Daniel Goleman and Robert Goffee that emotional intelligence can be learned — but only by people who already show an aptitude for it.    Leadership — Warts and All   Add   View  12 pp.  Article Author(s): Kellerman, Barbara Publication Date: 01/01/2004 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: R0401C Subjects: Management styles; Leadership; Personal strategy & style; Ethics; Moral leadership Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: Does using Tyco's funds to purchase a $6,000 shower curtain and a $15,000 dog-shaped umbrella stand make Dennis Kozlowski a bad leader? Is Martha Stewart's career any less instructive because she may have sold some shares on the basis of a tip-off? Is leadership synonymous with moral leadership? Before 1970, the answer from most leadership theorists would certainly have been no. Look at Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao Tse-tung — great leaders all, but hardly good men. In fact, capricious, murderous, high-handed, corrupt, and evil leaders are effective and commonplace. Everywhere, power goes hand in hand with corruption — everywhere, that is, except in the literature of business leadership. To read Tom Peters, Jay Conger, John Kotter, and most of their colleagues, leaders are, as Warren Bennis puts it, individuals who create shared meaning, have a distinctive voice, have the capacity to adapt, and have integrity. According to today's business literature, to be a leader is, by definition, to be benevolent. But leadership is not a moral concept, and it is high time we acknowledge that fact. Leaders are like the rest of us: trustworthy and deceitful, cowardly and brave, greedy and generous. To assume that all good leaders are good people is to be willfully blind to the reality of the human condition.    Leadership’s Online Labs   Add   View  16 pp.  Article Author(s): Reeves, Byron; Malone, Thomas W.; O?CODriscoll, Tony Publication Date: 05/01/2008 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: R0805C Subjects: Leadership; Virtual environments Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: Multiplayer online role-playing games are sprawling cybercommunities that offer a sneak preview of tomorrow's business environment. Players who lead teams in these online worlds hone the skills that they will need as business leaders in the future. Games also provide an environment that makes being an effective leader easier and that today's businesses might try to replicate selectively in their own organizations. Those are the principal findings by Reeves, of Stanford University; Malone, of MIT's Sloan School; and O'Driscoll, of North Carolina State. As part of an analysis conducted by Seriosity, a company that develops game-inspired enterprise software, the authors studied people who headed up teams in online games. They also sought the insights of gamers who have led real-world business teams at IBM. The authors identified three distinctive characteristics of leadership in online games that, as workplaces and the overall business climate become more dynamic and gamelike, will be essential for tomorrow's leaders: speed, risk taking, and acceptance of leadership roles as temporary. The most important finding, say the authors, is that getting the leadership environment right can be as important as choosing the right leader. They point out two aspects of game environments that companies might consider adopting: One, nonmonetary incentives built into a game economy strongly motivate individuals to accomplish group aims. Two, hypertransparency of information about, for example, team members' capabilities and teams' real-time performance makes it simpler to match pe    Leadership Lessons from Abraham Lincoln: A Conversation with Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin   Add   View  12 pp.  Article Author(s): Goodwin, Doris Kearns; Coutu, Diane Publication Date: 04/01/2009 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: R0904C Subjects: Management styles; Leading teams Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: In January 2008, CBS anchor Katie Couric asked then-candidate Barack Obama what single book, apart from the Bible, he would bring with him to the White House. He cited Team of Rivals, Doris Kearns Goodwin's account of Abraham Lincoln's leadership during the Civil War. It was a signal that Obama intended to model his leadership during the current crisis on the style of his presidential predecessor from Illinois. By bringing heavyweight politicians who are themselves past and future presidential contenders into his cabinet, Obama has indeed reprised Lincoln's strategy of creating a team composed of his most able rivals. If the new U.S. president can learn from Lincoln so, too, can business executives now grappling with similar questions of how to lead in turbulent times. To draw out the lessons of Lincoln's administration, HBR senior editor Diane Coutu interviewed Goodwin, a Pulitzer Prize winning historian whose other books include No Ordinary Time (about Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt and their era), The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys, and Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream. In their wide-ranging conversation, Goodwin discusses the advantages of forming an executive committee of strong-willed, forthright individuals who won't insulate a leader from uncomfortable but important dissent. She describes how Lincoln managed a group of people who were capable of taking over the top job - and sometimes plotting to do so. She sheds light on Lincoln's magic, which she says was not so much a matter of charisma as of emotional intelligence. And she takes the historian's long view on the current ec    Is Silence Killing Your Company?   Add   View  8 pp.  Article Author(s): Perlow, Leslie A.; Williams, Stephanie Publication Date: 05/01/2003 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: R0305C Subjects: Communication in organizations; Employee attitude; Morale; Employee problems; Conflict; Organizational culture Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: Many times, often with the best of intentions, people at work decide it's more productive to remain silent about their differences than to air them. But as new research by the authors shows, silencing doesn't smooth things over or make people more productive. It merely pushes differences beneath the surface and can set in motion powerfully destructive forces. When people stay silent about important disagreements, they can begin to fill with anxiety, anger, and resentment. As long as the conflict is unresolved, their repressed feelings remain potent, making them increasingly distrustful, self-protective, and all the more fearful that if they speak up they will be embarrassed or rejected. Their sense of insecurity grows, leading to further acts of silence, more defensiveness, and more distrust, thereby setting into motion a destructive “spiral of silence.” Sooner or later, they mentally opt out. These vicious spirals of silence can be replaced with virtuous spirals of communication, but that requires individuals to find the courage to act differently and executives to create the conditions in which people will value the expression of differences.    In Praise of Boundaries: A Conversation with Miss Manners   Add   View  12 pp.  Article Author(s): Martin, Joanne; Martin, Judith Publication Date: 12/01/2003 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: R0312B Subjects: Organizational behavior; Communication in organizations; Personal strategy & style; Creativity Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: The past three decades have been a time of increasing informality in the American workplace. It's easy to characterize this growing comfort with the casual as a positive step for workplace culture, an outgrowth of the American democratic belief in workers' equality. Informal environments are said to be more trusting and open, and workers who are free to express their personalities are more comfortable and, thus, more creative — right? According to etiquette guru Judith Martin — known far and wide as Miss Manners — informality in the workplace may do more harm than good. Without some formality in social intercourse, Miss Manners argues, human interactions end up being governed by laws, which are too heavy-handed to serve as a guide through the nuances of personal — or professional — behavior. On the whole, Miss Manners argues, informality in the workplace leads to a host of problems, from making employees feel pressured to “socialize” with coworkers during weekends and evenings to sexual harassment. Despite the shortcomings of informality in the American workplace, though, Miss Manners believes that we have the best code of manners the world has ever seen — in theory. In practice, American etiquette is undoubtedly still a work in progress.    If You Want Honesty, Break Some Rules   Add   View  8 pp.  Article Author(s): Graham, Ginger L. Publication Date: 04/01/2002 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: R0204B Subjects: Communication; Organizational behavior; Communication in organizations; Organizational change Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: We've all heard, or perhaps even told, the “organizational lie”: We're customer centric; everyone's performance is above average; we're the darling of our industry, coming up with one innovation after another. That last one was true of Advanced Cardiovascular Systems (ACS) in the past, but not when Ginger Graham took over as CEO. From that first moment in 1993, Graham chose to tell the truth about ACS's situation — that R&D was practically at war with product development, yields were down, and customers were disgruntled. And ever since, she's seen the benefits of exploding organizational lies. Truth telling is something that's hard to argue with but difficult to do. And, indeed, ACS instituted some radical practices to create its culture of honesty. Every senior manager was assigned a coach from the ranks who regularly solicited feedback from everyone, high and low, about the executive's performance. To get the truth, though, ACS executives learned that they had to offer it up themselves — the whole truth about the company's financial state, its problems, and its triumphs. In return, they could ask their employees for help in solving the problems; passive complainers became active partners in the company's fortunes. ACS management spreads the word about the virtues of honesty through vivid stories of corporate history and quirky rituals. Every quarter, it holds companywide meetings in which the faults of top managers are examined — to keep them honest and tough enough to go on telling the truth. In fact, in the proc    How to Pitch a Brilliant Idea   Add   View  12 pp.  Article Author(s): Elsbach, Kimberly D Publication Date: 09/01/2003 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: R0309J Geographic Setting: California Subjects: Communication; Communication strategy; Personal strategy & style; Creativity; Interviews; Market failures; Making presentations Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: Coming up with creative ideas is easy; selling them to strangers is hard. Entrepreneurs, sales executives, and marketing managers often go to great lengths to demonstrate how their new concepts are practical and profitable — only to be rejected by corporate decision makers who don't seem to understand the value of the ideas. Why does this happen? Having studied Hollywood executives who assess screenplay pitches, the author says the person on the receiving end — the “catcher” — tends to gauge the pitcher's creativity as well as the proposal itself. An impression of the pitcher's ability to come up with workable ideas can quickly and permanently overshadow the catcher's feelings about an idea's worth. To determine whether these observations apply to business settings beyond Hollywood, the author attended product design, marketing, and venture-capital pitch sessions and conducted interviews with executives responsible for judging new ideas. The results in those environments were similar to her observations in Hollywood, she says. Catchers subconsciously categorize successful pitchers as showrunners (smooth and professional), artists (quirky and unpolished), or neophytes (inexperienced and naive). The research also reveals that catchers tend to respond well when they believe they are participating in an idea's development. As Oscar-winning writer, director, and producer Oliver Stone puts it, screenwriters pitching an idea should “pull back an    How to Pick a Good Fight   Add   View  16 pp.  Article Author(s): Joni, Saj-Nicole A.; Beyer, Damon Publication Date: 12/01/2009 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: R0912D Subjects: Creativity; Conflict; Organizational culture; Managing creativity & innovation Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: Peace and harmony are overrated. Though conflict-free teamwork is often held up as the be-all and end-all of organizational life, it actually can be the worst thing to ever happen to a company. Look at Lehman Brothers. When Dick Fuld took over, he transformed a notoriously contentious workplace into one of Wall Street's most harmonious firms. But his efforts backfired - directors and managers became too agreeable, afraid to rock the boat by pointing out that the firm was heading into a crisis. Research shows that the single greatest predictor of poor company performance is complacency, which is why every organization needs a healthy dose of dissent. Not all kinds of conflict are productive, of course - companies need to find the right balance of alignment and competition and make sure that people's energies are pointed in a positive direction. In this article, two seasoned business advisers lay down ground rules for the right kinds of fights. First, the stakes must be worthwhile: The issue should involve a noble purpose or create noticeable - preferably game-changing - value. Next, good fights focus on the future; they're never about placing blame for the past. And it's critical for leaders to keep fights sportsmanlike, allow informal give-and-take in the trenches, and help soften the blow for the losing parties.    How to Have an Honest Conversation About Your Business Strategy   Add   View  16 pp.  Article Author(s): Beer, Michael; Eisenstat, Russell A. Publication Date: 02/01/2004 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: R0402F Subjects: Organizational behavior; Communication in organizations; Leadership; Change management; Organizational culture; Organizational problems; Implementing strategy Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: Too many organizations descend into underperformance because they can't confront the painful gap between their strategy and the reality of their capabilities, their behaviors, and their markets. That's because senior managers don't know how to engage in truthful conversations about the problems that threaten the business — and because lower level managers are afraid to speak up. These factors lie behind many failures to implement strategy. Indeed, the dynamics in almost any organization are such that it's extremely difficult for senior people to hear the unfiltered truth from managers lower down. Beer and Eisenstat's methodology for getting the truth about an organization's problems onto the table in a way that allows senior management to do something useful with it is to assemble a task force of the most effective managers to collect data about strategic and organizational problems. In this way, the senior team sends a clear message that it is serious about uncovering the truth. Task force members present their findings to the senior team in the form of a discussion. This conversation needs to move back and forth between advocacy and inquiry; it has to be about the issues that matter most; it has to be collective and public; it has to allow employees to be honest without risking their jobs; and it has to be structured. This direct feedback from a handful of their best people moves senior teams to make changes they otherwise might not have.    How to Bounce Back from Adversity   Add   View  12 pp.  Article Author(s): Margolis, Joshua D.; Stoltz, Paul G. Publication Date: 01/01/2010 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: R1001E Subjects: Crisis management; Managerial behavior; Resilience; Leadership qualities Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: When bad things happen, most of us have a gut reaction. Psychological resilience-the capacity to respond quickly and constructively in a crisis-can be hard to muster when a manager is paralyzed by fear, anger, confusion, or a tendency to assign blame. Resilient managers are able to shift quickly from endlessly dissecting traumatic events to looking forward, determining the best course of action given new realities. They understand the size and scope of the crisis and the levels of control and impact they may have in a bad situation. The authors present a regimen for boosting personal resilience that begins with recognizing four dimensions of an adverse event- influence, impact, breadth, and duration-and continues with a series of pointed questions designed to get managers out of their own heads. Specifying questions help them identify particular points of intervention when dealing with a crisis. Visualizing questions help them look beyond problems and toward actual solutions. Collaborating questions inspire them to reach out to others, not for affirmation of wrongdoing, or commiseration, but for assistance. Managers can use these questions to tamp down unproductive responses to adversity, to replace negativity with creativity and resourcefulness, and to get things done despite real or perceived obstacles. As the new year dawns-and as businesses crawl out from under the weight of the global recession-our focus is on reinvention. This HBR Spotlight examines that theme from various perspectives: how to manage corporate transformation, what we un    How to Become an Authentic Speaker   Add   View  12 pp.  Article Author(s): Morgan, Nick Publication Date: 11/01/2008 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: R0811H Subjects: Communication in organizations; Management communication; Authenticity; Emotions Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: This article includes a one-page preview that quickly summarizes the key ideas and provides an overview of how the concepts work in practice along with suggestions for further reading. Like the best-laid schemes of mice and men, the best-rehearsed speeches go oft astray. No amount of preparation can counter an audience's perception that the speaker is calculating or insincere. Why do so many managers have trouble communicating authenticity to their listeners? Morgan, a communications coach for more than two decades, offers advice for overcoming this difficulty. Recent brain research shows that natural, unstudied gestures - what Morgan calls the “second conversation” - express emotions or impulses a split second before our thought processes have turned them into words. So the timing of practiced gestures will always be subtly off - just enough to be picked up by listeners' unconscious ability to read body language. If you can't practice the unspoken part of your delivery, what can you do? Tap into four basic impulses underlying your speech - to be open to the audience, to connect with it, to be passionate, and to “listen” to how the audience is responding - and then rehearse your presentation with each in mind. You can become more open, for instance, by imagining that you're speaking to your spouse or a close friend. To more readily connect, focus on needing to engage your listeners and then to keep their attention, as if you were speaking to a child who isn't heeding your words. To convey your passion, identify the feelings behind your speech    High Cost of Accurate Knowledge   Add   View  12 pp.  Article Author(s): Sutcliffe, Kathleen M.; Weber, Klaus Publication Date: 05/01/2003 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: R0305E Subjects: Communication in organizations; Decision making; Leadership; Executives; Information management; Competitive advantage; Strategy formulation Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: Many business thinkers believe it's the role of senior managers to scan the external environment to monitor contingencies and constraints and to use that precise knowledge to modify the company's strategy and design. As these thinkers see it, managers need accurate and abundant information to carry out that role. According to that logic, it makes sense to invest heavily in systems for collecting and organizing competitive information. Another school of pundits contends that because today's complex information often isn't precise anyway, it's not worth going overboard with such investments. How information is interpreted is what should matter to top executives. The role of senior managers isn't just to make decisions; it's to set direction and motivate others in the face of ambiguities and conflicting demands. Top executives must interpret information and communicate those interpretations — they must manage meaning more than they must manage information. So which of these competing views is the right one? Research conducted by academics Sutcliffe and Weber found that how accurate senior executives are about their competitive environments is indeed less important for strategy and corresponding organizational changes than the way in which they interpret information about their environments. Investments in shaping those interpretations, therefore, may create a more durable competitive advantage than investments in obtaining and organizing more information. And what kinds of inte    Harder They Fall   Add   View  16 pp.  Article Author(s): Kramer, Roderick M. Publication Date: 10/01/2003 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: R0310C Geographic Setting: California Subjects: Organizational behavior; Decision making; Management styles; Leadership; Power & influence; Personality; Success; Values; Self-awareness; Judgment; Humor; Rewards; Scandals; Autobiographical narratives Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: The past decade may well be remembered as the era of the high-flying, aggressive leader. Corner-office titans like Kenneth Lay, Dennis Kozlowski, and Bernard Ebbers graced the covers of business magazines. Then scandal set in, and the stars fell to earth. In this article, social psychologist Roderick M. Kramer asks an important question: Why do so many leaders — not just in business, but also in politics, religion, and the media — display remarkable adeptness and ability while courting power, only to engage in even more remarkable bouts of folly once that power has been secured? Kramer, who has spent most of his career researching how leaders get to the top, says that the systems through which we select our leaders force executives to sacrifice the attitudes and behaviors that are essential to their survival once they have reached the top. Society has learned to consider risk taking and rule breaking as markers of good leadership. As a result, leaders come to believe that normal limits don't apply to them and that they are entitled to any spoils they can seize. The leaders who do remain grounded exhibit five common psychological and behavioral habits: They simplify their lives, remaining humble and “awfully ordinary.” They shine a light on their weaknesses instead of trying to cover them up. They float trial balloons to uncover the truth and prepare for the unexpected    Go Ahead, Have Regrets   Add   View  8 pp.  Article Author(s): Miller, Michael Craig, M.D. Publication Date: 04/01/2009 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: R0904A Subjects: Emotions Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: In this first in a series of articles created in partnership with Harvard Health Publications, a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School discusses regret and its potential benefits. Regret needn't be a self-flagellating emotion, he says. In fact, when asked to rank negative emotions in terms of value, people placed regret at the top, crediting it with helping them make sense of life events and remedy what went wrong.    Five Ways to Bungle a Job Change   Add   View  12 pp.  Article Author(s): Groysberg, Boris; Abrahams, Robin Publication Date: 01/01/2010 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: R1001M Subjects: Career advancement; Career changes; Managing yourself Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: The average baby boomer switches jobs 10 times in his or her career. Though such moves are just about inevitable, they're seldom easy-and they often lead to a noticeable decline in both short- and long-term performance. That's because people make them for the wrong reasons. Drawing on an extensive survey of executive search consultants, as well as surveys of HR heads and interviews with C-level executives around the world, the authors have identified senior managers' five most common career missteps: not doing enough research, leaving for money, going “from” rather than “to,” overestimating yourself, and thinking short term. These mistakes follow predictable patterns and persist throughout the course of a career; they're often a direct result of psychological, social, and time pressures. What if you do take the wrong job? The authors' research indicates that you should cut your losses and leave. But fleeing to another bad situation is not the answer. Make your next move strategically-and wherever you are in the search process, don't hesitate to go down another road when it becomes evident that a certain kind of change wouldn't be right.    Five Minds of a Manager   Add   View  16 pp.  Article Author(s): Gosling, Jonathan; Mintzberg, Henry Publication Date: 11/01/2003 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: R0311C Geographic Setting: Canada; India Subjects: Analysis; Thinking; Leadership; Management development; Managerial behavior; Collaboration; Management skills Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: Managers are told: Be global and be local. Collaborate and compete. Change perpetually, and maintain order. Make the numbers while nurturing your people. To be effective, managers need to consider the juxtapositions to arrive at a deep integration of these seemingly contradictory concerns. That means they must focus not only on what they have to accomplish but also on how they have to think. When the authors, respectively the director of the Centre for Leadership Studies at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom and the Cleghorn Professor of Management Studies at McGill University in Montreal, set out to develop a master's program for practicing managers, they saw that they could not rely on the usual MBA educational structure, which divides the management world into discrete business functions such as marketing and accounting. They needed an educational structure that encouraged synthesis rather than separation. Managing, they determined, involves five tasks, each with its own mindset: managing the self (the reflective mindset); managing organizations (the analytic mindset); managing context (the worldly mindset); managing relationships (the collaborative mindset); and managing change (the action mindset). The program is built on the exploration and integration of those five aspects of the managerial mind.    DHL EuroCup: Shots on Goal   Add   View  16 pp.  Article Author(s): Hemp, Paul Publication Date: 11/01/2003 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: R0311B Geographic Setting: Europe Subjects: Organizational behavior; Employees; Competition; Interpersonal skills; Leading teams Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: Deutsche Post World Net, the German postal monopoly, faced significant challenges as it began the process of integrating three businesses: Deutsche Post Euro Express, its own ground-based parcel delivery service, and two companies it had acquired — DHL, the worldwide express delivery service, and Danzas, a worldwide air and ocean freight company. The cultural differences alone were imposing. Enter EuroCup. For 20 years, DHL employees had held a soccer tournament to strengthen company culture across national boundaries. Canceled the previous year due to budget constraints, the EuroCup tournament was revived in 2003 — in part to help with the postmerger integration. But did the event really help? HBR senior editor Paul Hemp attended EuroCup 2003. He set out to answer a number of questions relevant to any company staging an ambitious off-site intended to encourage teamwork and boost morale. How does a company determine whether such a large-scale event, even one that generates goodwill, is worth the investment? Does the team building extend to those back home who don't get to attend? Can intense competition between teams begin to overshadow the spirit of cooperation that such an event is meant to engender?    Are You In with the In Crowd?   Add   View  12 pp.  Article Author(s): Kleiner, Art Publication Date: 07/01/2003 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: R0307G Subjects: Organizational behavior; Communication in organizations; Innovation; Leadership; Power & influence; Knowledge transfer; Organizational change; Networks Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: At the core of your company, there is a group of people who seem to call the shots — or, rather, all the shots seem to be called for their benefit. This core group can't be found on any organization chart. It exists in people's hearts and minds. It comprises the people whose perceived interests and needs are taken into account as decisions are made throughout the organization. In the best organizations, the core group can be a resource: Members represent the unique values and knowledge that distinguish their companies. When core groups display independence, creativity, and power, the rest of the company follows. Such behavior on the part of the company, in turn, creates value for shareholders, especially over the long term. But because of the core group's enormous power, members need to make themselves aware of the signals they send, both intended and unintended. For better and for worse, the core group reinforces whatever it pays attention to. If you do not know who constitutes the core group in your organization, or what the members stand for, you may find that leading will be extremely difficult — even if you are ostensibly the person in charge.    Bringing Out the Best in Your People   Add   View  8 pp.  Article Author(s): Wiseman, Liz; McKeown, Greg Publication Date: 05/01/2010 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: R1005K Subjects: Management styles; Leadership; Talent management; Managing people Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: Some leaders drain all the intelligence and capability out of their teams. Because they need to be the most capable person in the room, these managers shut down the smarts of others, ultimately stifling the flow of ideas. At the other extreme are leaders who care less about flaunting their own IQs and more about fostering a culture of intelligence in their companies. Under these “multipliers,” employees don't just feel smarter; they become smarter. This article explores the ways in which multipliers manage five areas-talent, culture, strategy, decision making, and execution-much differently than their less-enlightened colleagues (the diminishers).    Making It Overseas   Add   View  8 pp.  Article Author(s): Javidan, Mansour ; Teagarden, Mary ; Bowen, David Publication Date: 04/01/2010 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: R1004L Subjects: Global business; Cross cultural relations; Leadership development; Country managers Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: The conventional wisdom holds that the best way to develop global leaders is to circulate talent through positions overseas. Expose promising managers to new cultures, the thinking goes, and they'll grow and thrive. Unfortunately, that approach isn't enough. Plenty of smart, talented executives fail spectacularly in expatriate assignments. So what does prepare people to thrive in leadership roles abroad? Years of research by the Thunderbird School of Global Management, involving more than 5,000 managers around the world, reveals that success abroad hinges on something called a global mind-set. This mind-set allows executives to cope with the challenges of working in unfamiliar cultures and helps them influence stakeholders who are unlike them. It has three main components: intellectual capital (global savvy, cognitive complexity, and a cosmopolitan outlook); psychological capital (passion for diversity, thirst for adventure, self-assurance); and social capital (intercultural empathy, interpersonal impact, and diplomacy.) It can be measured-with a diagnostic developed at Thunderbird. And it can also be measurably improved-through a development plan that focuses on building each kind of capital.    Envy at Work   Add   View  12 pp.  Article Author(s): Menon, Tanya ; Thompson, Leigh Publication Date: 04/01/2010 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: R1004F Subjects: Human behavior; Collaboration; Leading teams; Managing yourself Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: As you enter your recently promoted colleague's office, you notice a photo of his beautiful family in their new vacation home. He casually adjusts his custom suit and mentions his upcoming speech in Davos. On one hand, you want to feel happy for him and celebrate his successes. On the other, you hope he falls into a crevasse in the Alps. Envy-the distress we feel when others get what we want-is universal. It affects people at all levels, and it can damage your organization's performance by disrupting teams and undermining knowledge sharing. Research demonstrates that people would much rather learn about ideas that come from other companies than from their internal rivals-and that leads to inefficiencies and missed opportunities. But envy harms the person who feels it most of all. When you're obsessed with someone else's success, your self-respect suffers, and you may neglect or even sabotage your own performance and even your career. Though it isn't easy to manage this emotion, it is possible to prevent yourself from being consumed by it and even harness it to your advantage. A few tested techniques can help you recognize destructive thoughts and behaviors and refocus them into more generous, productive ones. With the right managerial approach, you can also tamp down envy on your team.    Think Outside the Building   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Author(s): Kanter, Rosabeth Moss Publication Date: 03/01/2010 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: F1003H Subjects: Innovation; Product development; Organizational change Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: The greatest future breakthroughs will come from leaders who encourage thinking that extends beyond the company.    Leadership Lessons from India   Add   View  16 pp.  Article Author(s): Cappelli, Peter ; Singh, Harbir ; Singh, Jitendra V.; Useem, Michael Publication Date: 03/01/2010 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: R1003G Geographic Setting: India Subjects: Management styles; Leadership; Organizational culture; Developing employees Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: Until recently India was seen by Western businesses primarily as a source of cheap, low-skill labor. But over the past decade the country has attracted a flood of high-skill jobs from the West. Meanwhile, India's economy has grown at roughly 9% a year, and some of its largest companies have grown at twice that rate. What accounts for this? A host of economic, policy, and other environmental factors have played important roles, but the authors ascribe much of this success to the distinctively inward-focused managerial approach of Indian leaders. Through interviews at 98 of the largest India-based companies, they have identified four ways in which these leaders develop and motivate employees: Far more than their Western counterparts, they create a sense of social mission, engage employees in give-and-take, empower them to find solutions, and invest in their training and development. Western leaders should understand the managerial approaches that have fueled the rise of India's largest companies, and mindfully adapt them.    Keeping Your Colleagues Honest   Add   View  12 pp.  Article Author(s): Gentile, Mary C. Publication Date: 03/01/2010 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: R1003K Subjects: Ethics; Organizational change; Whistleblowing Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: Just promoted from the accounting group at headquarters, Jonathan is now the controller for a regional sales unit of a consumer electronics company-and he realizes in short order that the next quarter's sales are being reported early to boost bonus compensation. The group manager's silence suggests that this sort of thing has probably happened before. This may seem like a mundane accounting matter, but the consequences-in terms of carrying costs, distorted forecasting, compromised ethical culture, and even legal ramifications-are very serious. And except in extraordinarily well-run corporations, managers face situations like this all the time. You know something's wrong. You know you need to make it stop. But you don't necessarily know when to speak up, how to speak up, and, most important, how to be effective. Drawing on the author's research over the past four years, this article walks you through the rationalizations commonly used to justify unethical behavior-everything from “this is just how things work in our industry” to “it's not your job to fix this; stick to your knitting.” It also gives concrete advice about how to raise your voice effectively. For example, treat the conflict as a business matter. Nobody wants to hear a self-righteous little speech about honesty, so get your facts in order and present them effectively. You should also challenge the rationalizations. If this is “just how things work,” ask whether the organization is comfortable going public with the practice. All managers should know how to respond constructively to ethical issues, and    “A Players” or ‘’A Positions’‘? The Strategic Logic of Workforce Management   Add   View  16 pp.  Article Author(s): Huselid, Mark A.; Beatty, Richard W.; Becker, Brian E. Publication Date: 12/01/2005 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article HBS Number: R0512G Industry Setting: High technology; Pharmaceutical industry; Retail industry Subjects: Authority; Compensation; Differentiation; Employee development; High performance; Human resources management; Job analysis; Strategy implementation; Succession planning; Surveys; Value creation; Work force management Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership Product Description: Companies simply can't afford to have “A players” in all positions. Rather, businesses need to adopt a portfolio approach to workforce management, systematically identifying their strategically important A positions, supporting B positions and surplus C positions, then focusing disproportionate resources on making sure A players hold A positions. This is not as obvious as it may seem, because the three types of positions do not reflect corporate hierarchy, pay scales, or the level of difficulty in filling them. A positions are those that directly further company strategy and, less obviously, exhibit wide variation in the quality of the work done by the people who occupy them. Why variability? Because raising the average performance of individuals in these critical roles will pay huge dividends in corporate value. If a company like Nordstrom, for example, whose strategy depends on personalized service, were to improve the performance of its frontline sales associates, it could reap huge revenue benefits. B positions are those that support A positions or maintain company value. Inattention to them could represent a significant downside risk. (Think how damaging it would be to an airline, for example, if the quality of its pilots were to drop.) Yet investing in them to the same degree as A positions is ill-advised because B positions don't offer an u    “A Players” or ‘’A Positions’‘? The Strategic Logic of Workforce Management (HBR OnPoint Enhanced Edition)   Add   View  16 pp.  Article Author(s): Huselid, Mark A.; Beatty, Richard W.; Becker, Brian E. Publication Date: 12/01/2005 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article HBS Number: 2424 Subjects: Employee development; Human resources management; Job analysis; Organizational design; Performance effectiveness; Strategy implementation; Work force Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership Product Description: Companies simply can't afford to have “A players” in all positions. Rather, businesses need to adopt a portfolio approach to workforce management, systematically identifying their strategically important A positions, supporting B positions and surplus C positions, then focusing disproportionate resources on making sure A players hold A positions. This is not as obvious as it may seem, because the three types of positions do not reflect corporate hierarchy, pay scales, or the level of difficulty in filling them. A positions are those that directly further company strategy and, less obviously, exhibit wide variation in the quality of the work done by the people who occupy them. Why variability? Because raising the average performance of individuals in these critical roles will pay huge dividends in corporate value. If a company like Nordstrom, for example, whose strategy depends on personalized service, were to improve the performance of its frontline sales associates, it could reap huge revenue benefits. B positions are those that support A positions or maintain company value. Inattention to them could represent a significant downside risk. (Think how damaging it would be to an airline, for example, if the quality of its pilots were to drop.) Yet investing in them to the same degree as A positions is ill-advised because B positions don't offer an upside potential. (Pilots are already highly trained, so channeling resources into improving their performance would probably not create much competitive adv    “Head in, hands on”: Ram Charan on How to Lead Right Now   Add   View  5 pp.  Article Author(s): Bielaszka-DuVernay, Christina; Charan, Ram Publication Date: 03/12/2009 Product Type: Harvard Management Update Article HBS Number: U0903A Subjects: Authenticity; Leadership; Leadership styles; Recessions Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership Product Description: What's the single most valuable piece of advice for leaders in this time of economic crisis? World-renowned business strategist Ram Charan says it's demonstrating personal integrity and credibility; being authentic and telling people the truth. He also advises leaders to practice what he calls “management intensity” — an immersion in your business's operational details and the competitive climate surrounding it, combined with hands-on involvement and follow through. No matter where you sit in the corporate hierarchy, this interview is a must read.    10 Myths About Post-heroic Leadership — And Why They’re Wrong   Add   View  6 pp.  Article Author(s): Stauffer, David Publication Date: 04/01/1998 Product Type: Harvard Management Update Article Product Description: Increasingly, the heroic model of leadership is being challenged by a movement toward shared responsibility. Post-heroic managers allow their employees to contribute to the process of managing and thereby produce better results and higher morale. As good as this sounds, the concept of post-heroic management is often met with strong resistance, particularly at upper levels. This article discusses 10 misunderstandings about post-heroic leadership and offers suggestions for getting past them. HBS Number: U9804A Geographic Setting: Industry Setting: Subjects: Employee morale; Leadership; Managers; Participatory management Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership    21st-Century Job Descriptions   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Publication Date: 02/01/2001 Product Type: Harvard Management Communication Letter Article Product Description: The traditional job description has failed to keep pace with the fast-moving world of work. But there are ways to make these documents useful. One key: describe the results the company wants from the employee, rather than focusing on how he or she should spend his or her time. HBS Number: C0102E Subjects: Communication; Management communication; Recruitment Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership    360-Degree Mentoring   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Author(s): Collins, Elizabeth Publication Date: 03/01/2008 Product Type: Harvard Management Update Article HBS Number: U0803B Subjects: Management development; Mentors; Organizational learning; Peer assist Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership Product Description: In today's business culture, your ideal mentor is not necessarily several rungs up the corporate ladder. Instead, your mentor might actually be a network of five or six individuals from all levels in your organization. Think of it as the 360-degree model of mentoring. In this article, thought leaders and practitioners lay out specific steps to take to wring the most value from your mentoring relationships. Among their advice: Clarify learning goals and expectations upfront. Make every mentoring relationship reciprocal. Keep the commitment strong on both sides — and know how to end the relationship when it's run its course.    3G Mobile Phone: A Manager’s Guide   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Publication Date: 01/01/2001 Product Type: Harvard Management Communication Letter Article Product Description: The latest wireless telephone technology may have enormous implications on the way people communicate. Donal O'Shea and Mary Crowe, two technology experts, offer insight on how this technology could change the way business will be done. HBS Number: C0101D Subjects: Communication; Management communication; Technology Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership    A New Governance Model   Add   View  3 pp.  Article Author(s): Catucci, Bill Publication Date: 01/15/2005 Product Type: Balanced Scorecard Report Article Product Description: A combination of necessity and happenstance led this CEO to create an organizational governance model -- striking its logic and simplicity -- that helped him pull off stunning and rapid turnarounds at two ailing corporations. Today, it's the lifeblood of the successful start-up he now heads. HBS Number: B0501C Subjects: Balanced scorecard; Business models; Organizational development; Process innovation Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership

A Practical Guide to Social Networks   Add   View  16 pp.  Article Author(s): Cross, Rob ; Liedtka, Jeanne M.; Weiss, Leigh Publication Date: 03/01/2005 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: R0503H Subjects: Organizational behavior; Communication in organizations; Operations; Knowledge transfer; Networks Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: Saying that networks are important is stating the obvious. But harnessing the power of these seemingly invisible groups to achieve organizational goals is an elusive undertaking. Most efforts to promote collaboration are haphazard and built on the implicit philosophy that more connectivity is better. In truth, networks create relational demands that sap people's time and energy and can bog down entire organizations. It's crucial for executives to learn how to promote connectivity only where it benefits an organization or individual and to decrease unnecessary connections. In this article, the authors introduce three types of social networks, each of which delivers unique value. The customized response network excels at framing the ambiguous problems involved in innovation. Strategy consulting firms and new-product development groups rely on this format. By contrast, surgical teams and law firms rely mostly on the modular response network, which works best when components of the problem are known but the sequence of those components in the solution is unknown. And the routine response network is best suited for organizations like call centers, where the problems and solutions are fairly predictable but collaboration is still needed. Executives shouldn't simply hope that collaboration will spontaneously occur in the right places at the right times in their organizations. They need to develop a strategic, nuanced view of collaboration, and they must take steps to ensure that their companies support the types of soci    Abrasive Personality   Added   View  8 pp.  Article Levinson, Harry Abrasive personalities frequently prevent young, high-powered, and capable executives from gaining top positions in companies. A profile of the problem personality reveals a generally intelligent, analytical, hard worker who exhibits impatience with others and reluctance to delegate assignments. These highly competent people become key to the organization yet their political insensitivity makes them unpromotable. They tend to overorganize and oversupervise and often demoralize their subordinates. Their problems must be approached in a forthright manner. HBS Number: 78307 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 5/1/1978 Subjects: Human behavior; Personal strategy & style    Add a Customer Profitability Metric to Your Balanced Scorecard   Add   View  5 pp.  Article Author(s): Kaplan, Robert S. Publication Date: 07/15/2005 Product Type: Balanced Scorecard Report Article Product Description: It's no news that increasing the customer base doesn't necessarily translate into higher profits. In fact, at too many companies, the quest to expand the number of customers -- and find new ways to please them -- translates into reduced profitability. What can companies do to prevent this self-defeating practice? Simple: Incorporate customer profitability metrics into their Balanced Scorecard. By applying the principles of time-driven, activity-based costing (a new variation on Robert S. Kaplan's accounting methodology), companies can more readily identify unprofitable customer relationships. The BSC can then help them take corrective action to better align internal and customer processes with the company's ultimate financial goals. HBS Number: B0507D Subjects: Alignment; Balanced scorecard; Customer relationship management; Customer retention; Performance measurement; Profit planning Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership    Align the Organization to the Strategy   Add   View  7 pp.  Article Author(s): Norton, David P.; Russell, Randall H. Publication Date: 09/15/2004 Product Type: Balanced Scorecard Report Article Product Description: The point of an organization is to make the whole greater than the sum of its parts--to create synergies. Whether it's about sharing resources (to cut costs) or sharing customers (to boost revenues), creating these new resources of value requires organizational alignment. In this article, authors David Norton and Randall Russell explore best practices in alignment--between and among corporate, its business and support units, external partners, and the board. HBS Number: B0409A Subjects: Balanced scorecard; Organizational development; Performance measurement; Strategy implementation Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership    Aligning Employees at Unibanco: A Unit Executive’s View   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Publication Date: 11/15/2004 Product Type: Balanced Scorecard Report Article Product Description: Read this interview with Jose Rudge, CEO, Unibanco AIG Insurance and Private Pensions. A 15-year veteran of Unibanco, Brazil's fourth-largest bank, Rudge is also one of the champions of the bank's BSC program. His was the first of Unibanco's four business units to integrate fully the BSC into its operations. Rudge offers an inside look at the bank's BSC-guided transformation, with details on how the insurance unit and the company as a whole make strategy everyone's job. HBS Number: B0411C Subjects: Balanced scorecard; Banking industry; Insurance; Interviews; Knowledge management; South America; Strategy implementation Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership    Aligning Enterprise Risk Management with Strategy Through the BSC: The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi Approach   Add   View  6 pp.  Article Author(s): Nagumo, Takehiko Publication Date: 09/15/2005 Product Type: Balanced Scorecard Report Article Product Description: Following the wide-scale success of its Americas headquarters' Balanced Scorecard (BSC) implementation (BSR November-December 2002), international banking giant Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi (BTM) launched a global BSC implementation from its Tokyo headquarters. Led by President and CEO Nobuo Kuroyanagi, BTM has thus embarked on a journey to use BSC as an enterprisewide strategic management tool. In the process, BTM is undertaking a groundbreaking application of the BSC: integrating it with enterprise risk management. As a corporate governance instrument, this integrated model -- and BTM's application of it -- is sure to capture attention. HBS Number: B0509D Geographic Setting: Tokyo Industry Setting: Banking industry Subjects: Balanced scorecard; Corporate governance; Risk assessment; Risk management; Strategic management; Strategy formulation Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership    Aligning Support Functions   Add   View  7 pp.  Article Author(s): Kaplan, Robert S.; Norton, David P. Publication Date: 01/15/2006 Product Type: Balanced Scorecard Report Article Product Description: Historically, support units have been regarded as ``discretionary expense centers.'' But it's a mistake to view them this way. When aligned to the strategy of the enterprise and the business units they support — through strategy maps and Balanced Scorecards — support units can become value-creating organizations. But alignment isn't a one-time event; sustaining it calls for establishing processes, relationships, and tools with which the support unit can carry out its partnership with corporate and the business units. HBS Number: B0601A Subjects: Alignment; Balanced scorecard; Organizational development; Strategy alignment; Strategy execution; Support network; Value creation Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership    Aligning the Board of Directors   Add   View  9 pp.  Article Author(s): Kaplan, Robert S.; Norton, David P. Publication Date: 03/15/2006 Product Type: Balanced Scorecard Report Article Product Description: In the post-Enron era, few tools have come to the fore that remedy the gaping information holes, process flaws, and time constraints that hamstring boards of directors in executing their corporate governance responsibilities. And new regulations have created even more requirements for corporate governors. Yet, a solution already exists for getting the board and top executives on the same page. Learn how a Balanced Scorecard program for the board of directors provides the checks and balances the board needs to do its job efficiently and effectively while fulfilling its ultimate responsibility to shareholders, the capital markets, and the public. HBS Number: B0603A Subjects: Accountability; Alignment; Balanced scorecard; Board of directors; Corporate governance; Organizational development; Sarbanes-Oxley Act; Strategy maps Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership    Alignment at Tata Motors’ Commercial Vehicle Business Unit   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Author(s): Johnson, Lauren Keller Publication Date: 09/15/2004 Product Type: Balanced Scorecard Report Article Product Description: Alignment at Tata Motors is a vertical, horizontal, cross-functional, and external experience. With unrelenting focus, India's largest commercial vehicle maker (and one of the world's top 10) has 26,000 employees, more than 100 dealerships, and three manufacturing plants on the same page--and has turned loss into profit in two years. HBS Number: B0409E Subjects: Automobile industry; Balanced scorecard; India; Manufacturing strategy; Performance measurement Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership    Almost Ready: How Leaders Move Up   Add   View  16 pp.  Article Author(s): Ciampa, Dan Publication Date: 01/01/2005 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article HBS Number: R0501D Subjects: Career advancement; CEO; Executive selection; Executives; Leadership; Management development; Succession planning Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership Product Description: Most designated CEO successors are talented, hardworking, and smart enough to go all the way — yet fail to land the top job. What they don't realize is, the qualities that helped them in their climb to the number two position aren't enough to boost them to No. 1. In addition to running their businesses well, the author explains, would-be CEOs must master the art of forming coalitions and winning support. They must also sharpen their self-awareness and their sensitivity to the needs of bosses and influential peers because they typically receive little performance feedback once they're on track to become CEO. Indeed, the ability to pick up on subtle cues is often an important part of the test. When succession doesn't go well — or fails altogether — many people pay the price. Among those at fault are boards that do not keep a close watch on the succession process, human resources organizations that should have the capacity to help but are not up to the task, and CEOs who do a poor job coaching potential successors. But the aspiring CEO also bears some responsibility. He can dramatically increase his chances of success by understanding his boss's point of view, knowing his own limitations, and managing what psychologist Gerry Egan has called the “shadow organization” — the political side of a company, characterized by unspoken relationships and alliances — without being labeled “political.” Most of all, he must learn to conduct himself with a level of maturity and wisdom that signals he is ready — not almost ready — to be chief executi    Anatomy of an Early OSM Adoption: Suzano Petroquimica’s Office of Strategy Management   Add   View  6 pp.  Article Author(s): Winkler, Carole Publication Date: 03/15/2006 Product Type: Balanced Scorecard Report Article Product Description: To thrive in an era of global competition and increasing price volatility, commodity producers must run a tight ship. Many have adopted the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) to help clarify strategy, sharpen performance, and fortify their competitive strengths by thinking and planning long term. It's no coincidence that Polibrasil Resinas (now Suzano Petroquimica) had an Office of Strategy Management (OSM) in place a mere six months after adopting the BSC. Here's an inside look at the company's OSM -- in particular, its innovative initiative management tool. HBS Number: B0603C Subjects: Balanced scorecard; Motivation; Organizational development; Organizational transformations; Strategic intent; Strategy formulation; Strategy implementation; Strategy management Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership    Anxiety of Learning: An Interview with Edgar H. Schein   Add   View  8 pp.  Article Author(s): Schein, Edgar H.; Coutu, Diane L. Publication Date: 03/01/2002 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Product Description: Despite all of the time, money, and energy that executives pour into corporate change programs, the stark reality is that few companies ever succeed in genuinely reinventing themselves. That's because the people at those companies rarely master the art of transformational learning--that is, eagerly challenging deeply held assumptions about a company's processes and, in response, altering their thoughts and actions. Instead, most people just end up doing the same old things in superficially tweaked ways. Why is transformational learning so hard to achieve? HBR senior editor Diane Coutu explores this question with psychologist and MIT professor Edgar Schein, a world-renowned expert on organizational development. In sharp contrast to the optimistic rhetoric that permeates the debate on corporate learning and change, Schein is cautious about what companies can and cannot accomplish. Corporate culture can change, he says, but this kind of learning takes time, and it isn't fun. In this article, he describes two basic types of anxiety--learning anxiety and survival anxiety--that drive radical relearning in organizations. Schein's theories spring from his early research on how American prisoners of war in Korea were brainwashed by their captors. Heavy socialization is back in style in U.S. corporations today, Schein says, even if no one is calling it that. HBS Number: R0203H Subjects: Corporate culture; Interviews; Learning; Management of change; Organizational change; Organizational learning; Psychology Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership    Appendix: The Knowing-Doing Survey   Add   View  7 pp.  Article Author(s): Pfeffer, Jeffrey; Sutton, Robert I. Publication Date: 10/05/1999 Product Type: HBS Press Chapter HBS Number: 2402BC Subjects: Business education; Knowledge management; Knowledge transfer; Organizational behavior; Organizational learning; Performance management; Performance measurement; Strategy implementation Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership Product Description: Organizations should work to identify the gaps in what leaders know, and what is actually going on in the company can provide an agenda for action. This chapter is a tutorial in asking managers the right questions to identify and tackle knowing-doing gaps. May be used with: (2394BC) Knowing “What” to Do Is Not Enough: Understanding the Knowing-Doing Gap; (2395BC) When Talk Substitutes for Action: Understanding the Knowing-Doing Gap; (2396BC) When Memory Substitutes for Thinking: Understanding the Knowing-Doing Gap; (2397BC) When Fear Prevents Acting on Knowledge: Understanding the Knowing-Doing Gap; (2398BC) When Measurement Obstructs Good Judgment: Understanding the Knowing-Doing Gap; (2399BC) When Internal Competition Turns Friends into Enemies: Understanding the Knowing-Doing Gap; (2400BC) Firms That Surmount the Knowing-Doing Gap; (2401BC) Turning Knowledge into Action: Reducing the Knowing-Doing Gap.    Appraising Employee Performance in a Downsized Organization   Add   View  5 pp.  Article Author(s): Krattenmaker, Tom Publication Date: 05/01/2009 Product Type: Harvard Management Update Article HBS Number: U0905B Subjects: Downsizing; Job satisfaction; Performance appraisals Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership Product Description: In the wake of layoffs, when morale is low and workers are taking on the duties of missing colleagues, managers can be tempted to back away from performance appraisals. But especially in hard times, employees need honest feedback on their performance and the reassurance that they are part of your organization's future. Don't withhold this from them — they need it now more than ever.    Are Leaders Portable?   Add   View  12 pp.  Article Author(s): Groysberg, Boris; McLean, Andrew N.; Nohria, Nitin Publication Date: 05/01/2006 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article HBS Number: R0605E Subjects: CEO; Executive ability; Executive selection; Executives; Human capital; Leadership; Performance appraisal; Succession planning Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership Product Description: Does management talent transfer from one company to another? The market certainly seems to think so. Stock prices spike when companies announce new CEOs from a talent generator like General Electric. But how do these executives perform over the long term? The authors studied the careers of 20 former GE executives who went on to lead other major organizations, with strikingly uneven results. Even the best management talent, the authors found, is transferable only if it maps to the challenges of the new environment. More specifically, the authors identified five types of skills that may or may not transfer to a new job: general management human capital, or the skills to gather, cultivate, and deploy financial, technical, and human resources; strategic human capital, or individuals' expertise in cost cutting, growth, or cyclical markets; industry human capital, meaning the technical and regulatory knowledge unique to an industry; relationship human capital, or the extent to which a manager's effectiveness can be attributed to his or her experience working with colleagues or as part of a team; and company-specific human capital, or the knowledge about routines and procedures, corporate culture and informal structures, and systems and processes that are unique to a company. The GE executives' performance as CEOs depended on whether their new organizations were able to leverage each type of skill. The authors' findings challenge the conventional wisdom on human capital, which holds that there are two types of skill: general manageme    Are Leaders Portable? (HBR OnPoint Enhanced Edition)   Add   View  16 pp.  Article Author(s): Groysberg, Boris; McLean, Andrew N.; Nohria, Nitin Publication Date: 05/01/2006 Product Type: HBR OnPoint Article HBS Number: 429X Subjects: CEO; Executive ability; Executive selection; Executives; Leadership; Succession planning Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership Product Description: Does management talent transfer from one company to another? The market certainly seems to think so. Stock prices spike when companies announce new CEOs from a talent generator like General Electric. But how do these executives perform over the long term? The authors studied the careers of 20 former GE executives who went on to lead other major organizations, with strikingly uneven results. Even the best management talent, the authors found, is transferable only if it maps to the challenges of the new environment. More specifically, the authors identified five types of skills that may or may not transfer to a new job: general management human capital, or the skills to gather, cultivate, and deploy financial, technical, and human resources; strategic human capital, or individuals' expertise in cost cutting, growth, or cyclical markets; industry human capital, meaning the technical and regulatory knowledge unique to an industry; relationship human capital, or the extent to which a manager's effectiveness can be attributed to his or her experience working with colleagues or as part of a team; and company-specific human capital, or the knowledge about routines and procedures, corporate culture and informal structures, and systems and processes that are unique to a company. The GE executives' performance as CEOs depended on whether their new organizations were able to leverage each type of skill. The authors' findings challenge the conventional wisdom on human capital, which holds that there are two types of skill: general management, which is readily transferable, and company speci    Are Some Customers More Equal than Others?   Add   View  12 pp.  Article Author(s): Nunes, Paul F.; Johnson, Brian A.; Harrington, John; Goldman, Edward; Labak, Alexander; Crandall, Robert Publication Date: 11/01/2001 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article HBS Number: R0110A Subjects: Career changes; CEO; Customer service; Employee morale; Leadership; Management of professionals; Management styles; Managerial behavior Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership Product Description: Jill Hoover was looking skyward, marveling at the heart-stopping beauty of Paradise Park-Seattle's newest attraction, its tallest and scariest roller coaster to date: the Anaconda. “Quite impressive,” Jill thought. But a scuffle in the ride queue quickly brought the CEO of Paradise Parks back to earth. The company's 19 seasonal and year-round amusement parks had always been popular — ever since Jill's father founded the original Paradise Park just after the Second World War — but they hadn't been very profitable of late. Operating costs had been spiraling, and every dollar of extra revenue had been hard won. At the company's annual management off-site meeting, held that morning at the Seattle park, CFO Nathan Cortland proposed that Paradise offer its customers the option of a “preferred guest” card. Cardholders would pay more, but they would get first crack at the rides — entering through separate lines — and would get seated immediately at any of the parks' restaurants. According to Nathan, the plan would bolster Paradise's sagging finances because it would target the “mass affluents” — a rising demographic of moneyed but time-pressed people who might visit the park more often and spend more if it weren't for long lines at the rides. Jill respects Nathan's idea — but hasn't her plan to upgrade some of the parks' souvenir shops to gift boutiques already shown some promise? And doesn't Nathan's plan smack of el    Are You a Strategist or Just a Manager?   Add   View  12 pp.  Article Hinterhuber, Hans H.; Popp, Wolfgang Successful managers are born with the potential to be good strategists, but they must develop their natural talents. CEOs and top management can help by identifying and promoting such talents in their employees. A questionnaire has been developed to help measure strategic management competence. Strategic managers provide subordinates with general guidelines, just as the Prussian military strategist Helmuth von Moltke issued directives to his officers. Outstanding entrepreneurs and managers create a corporate culture in which their vision, philosophy, and business strategies are implemented by employees who think independently. HBS Number: 92104 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 1/1/1992 Subjects: Creativity; Leadership; Management philosophy; Management styles; Strategic planning    Are You Being Set Up to Fail?   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Author(s): Von Hoffman, Constantine Publication Date: 11/01/1998 Product Type: Harvard Management Update Article Product Description: A recent study published in Harvard Business Review shows that managers all over the world "create their own poor performers" by setting employees up to fail. The warning signs may be familiar--your boss seems to trust you less, questions your suggestions, and watches your every move. HMU consulted HR experts to find out how to cope if you find yourself in a set-up-to-fail situation. Includes a sidebar for managers who may be setting someone else up to fail. HBS Number: U9811C Geographic Setting: Industry Setting: Subjects: Management styles; Managers; Performance effectiveness; Supervision Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership    Are You Delegating So It Sticks?   Add   View  5 pp.  Article Author(s): Johnson, Lauren Keller Publication Date: 07/01/2004 Product Type: Harvard Management Update Article Product Description: Managers have come under increasing pressure to generate measurable results faster than ever. And during tough economic times, some managers fear being viewed as unimportant or unnecessary if they delegate more to employees; they assume that there's only so much power and authority to go around. But just as delegating can be difficult, it also can be crucial for companies seeking to compete. Fortunately, experts and executives across a wide range of industries have developed techniques aimed at making delegation easier and more effective. HBS Number: U0407A Subjects: Delegation of authority; Management by objectives; Managerial behavior; Managerial skills Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership    Are You Giving Your Top Performers a Reason to Stay?   Add   View  5 pp.  Article Author(s): Field, Anne Publication Date: 05/01/2006 Product Type: Harvard Management Communication Letter Article Product Description: Career development communication is crucial to retaining talent. Employees need to know that development opportunities exist and that their managers will work with them to make the most of those opportunities. Yet, many managers give career development short shrift in their discussions with employees. This article features concrete advice from development and retention experts on how to make career development conversations less difficult and more effective. HBS Number: C0605B Subjects: Career changes; Careers & career planning; Coaching; Employee development; Employee retention; Interpersonal communications; Learning; Training Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership    Are You Listening to Me?   Add   View  5 pp.  Article Author(s): Bierck, Richard Publication Date: 04/01/2001 Product Type: Harvard Management Communication Letter Article Product Description: How can you tell when you've lost someone's attention? And, more importantly, what can you do to get it back? The answers to these two questions take on new importance in today's information-flooded world. Even the best communications are worthless if they fall on deaf ears. Communication experts weigh in with advice on capturing--and retaining--your audience's attention. Among their tips: When you suspect a listener of taking a mental vacation from the conversation, ask a question related to one of your points. Or, get the audience involved as a group by asking for a show of hands on a practice or opinion. HBS Number: C0104A Subjects: Communication; Interpersonal relations; Management communication; Meetings Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership    Are You Picking the Right Leaders?   Add   View  9 pp.  Article Author(s): Sorcher, Melvin; Brant, James Publication Date: 02/01/2002 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Product Description: When it comes time to hire or promote, top executives routinely overvalue certain skills and traits while overlooking others. Intuitively, for example, they might seek out team players, people who shine operationally, dynamic public speakers, or those who are demonstrably hungry for greater responsibility. But some attributes that seem like good indicators of leadership potential are, paradoxically, just the reverse. Team players and those who excel operationally often make better seconds in command. Unfortunately, few organizations have the right procedures in place to produce complete and accurate pictures of their top prospects. Assessments are often based on hearsay, gossip, and casual observation. A new evaluation process will help you avoid that trap. Candidates are assessed by a group of people who have observed their behavior directly over time and in different circumstances. HBS Number: R0202F Subjects: CEO; Human behavior; Leadership; Management styles; Personal strategy & style; Personality; Psychology; Succession planning Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership    Are You Picking the Right Leaders? (HBR OnPoint Enhanced Edition)   Add     16 pp.  Article Author(s): Sorcher, Melvin; Brant, James Publication Date: 02/01/2002 Product Type: HBR OnPoint Article Product Description: This is an enhanced edition of the HBR reprint R0202F, 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. When it comes time to hire or promote, top executives routinely overvalue certain skills and traits while overlooking others. Intuitively, for example, they might seek out team players, people who shine operationally, dynamic public speakers, or those who are demonstrably hungry for greater responsibility. But some attributes that seem like good indicators of leadership potential are, paradoxically, just the reverse. Team players and those who excel operationally often make better seconds in command. Unfortunately, few organizations have the right procedures in place to produce complete and accurate pictures of their top prospects. Assessments are often based on hearsay, gossip, and casual observation. A new evaluation process will help you avoid that trap. Candidates are assessed by a group of people who have observed their behavior directly over time and in different circumstances. HBS Number: 892X Subjects: CEO; Human behavior; Leadership; Management styles; Personal strategy & style; Personality; Psychology; Succession planning Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership    Are You Prepared for Change?   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Author(s): Johnson, Lauren Keller Publication Date: 09/01/2008 Product Type: Harvard Management Update Article HBS Number: U0809C Subjects: Change management; Leadership development; Leadership styles Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership Product Description: “Be Prepared” isn't just the Boy Scout motto — it's a critical prerequisite for success in today's fast-moving, fast-changing business world. Prepared leaders anticipate change, envision the new opportunities change presents, and enable their organizations to seize those opportunities. This article focuses on the work of Bill Welter and Jean Egmon, authors of The Prepared Mind of a Leader: Eight Skills Leaders Use to Innovate, Make Decisions, and Solve Problems, to identify eight skills that are essential in preparing your mind to react positively to change. Learn how to use these skills to develop not only your own preparedness for change, but to develop and retain forward-looking talent in your organization.    Are You Promoting Change — or Hindering It?   Add   View  6 pp.  Article Author(s): Fendt, Jacqueline Publication Date: 02/01/2006 Product Type: Harvard Management Communication Letter Article Product Description: Most organizations today are busy changing direction in some way. Successful change requires not only sound strategic and financial decisions, but also effective leadership communication. Yet, many leaders inadvertently undermine the very commitment to change that they seek to foster; their communication style, rather than inspiring trust, hope, and optimism, demoralizes the work force and, thus, diminishes their chances of success. Based on extensive research, the author proposes that most leaders fall into one of three major communication styles: cartel, aesthetic, or video game. By identifying one's dominant style and consciously adopting the strengths of the other styles, the author argues, a leader can become a Holistic Communicator -- someone with the communication flexibility, consistency, and creativity to navigate an organization successfully through major change. HBS Number: C0602A Subjects: Change management; Communication; Communication in organizations; Communication strategy; Employee morale; Influence; Leadership; Personal strategy & style Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership    Are You Ready for an Executive Coach?   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Author(s): Williams, Monci J. Publication Date: 10/01/1996 Product Type: Harvard Management Update Article Product Description: In this age of customization, managers are benefiting from many services tailored to specific circumstances--including the ultimate educational service for managers: the executive coach. Proactive companies such as American Express, Corning, Hewlett-Packard, Morgan Stanley, and Philip Morris have begun to offer private coaching as part of leadership development. When contacting prospective coaches, the recipient should be mindful of confidentiality concerns at the outset and ask for an agreement about what a coach will tell the employer. And don't try this at home by yourself: Coaches discourage coaching yourself--most of us toss out the truths we most need to hear. HBS Number: U9610D Geographic Setting: Industry Setting: Subjects: Executives; Management development Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership    Are You Ready to Get Serious About Networking?   Add   View  5 pp.  Article Author(s): Parker, Susan G. Publication Date: 02/01/2003 Product Type: Harvard Management Communication Letter Article Product Description: Although networking groups have been around for a long time, you might want to think about joining one. The knowledge you gain from a networking group may help you take your business to the next level. What sets networking groups apart from simple one-on-one networking is that members are explicitly expected to help one another generate business and offer business services. Learn how to find networking groups where you live. Includes the sidebar "Finding a Networking Group." HBS Number: C0302D Subjects: Communication; Communication strategy; Group dynamics; Interpersonal behavior; Networking Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership    Are You Working Too Hard? A Conversation with Herbert Benson, M.D.   Add   View  12 pp.  Article Author(s): Benson, Herbert Publication Date: 11/01/2005 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: R0511B Geographic Setting: China Subjects: Productivity; Stress; Interviews; Workplace health & safety; Wellness programs Academic Discipline: Organizational Behavior & leadership Product Description: Stress is an essential response in highly competitive environments. Before a race, before an exam, before an important meeting, your heart rate and blood pressure rise, your focus tightens, you become more alert and more efficient. But beyond a certain level, stress overloads your system, compromising your performance and, eventually, your health. So the question is: When does stress help and when does it hurt? To find out, HBR talked with Harvard Medical School professor Herbert Benson, M.D., founder of the Mind/Body Medical Institute. Having spent more than 35 years conducting worldwide research in the fields of neuroscience and stress, Benson is best known for his 1975 best seller The Relaxation Response, in which he describes how the mind can influence stress levels through such tools as meditation. His most recent research centers on what he calls “the breakout principle,” a method by which stress is not simply reduced but carefully controlled so that you reap its benefits while avoiding its dangers. He describes a four-step process in which you first push yourself to the most productive stress level by grappling intently with a problem. Next, just as you feel yourself flagging, you disengage entirely by doing something utterly unrelated — going for a walk, petting a dog, taking a shower. In the third step, as the brain quiets down, activity paradoxically increases in areas associated with attention, space-time concepts, and decision making, leading to a sudden, creative insight — the breakout. S    Are Your Employees Bowling Alone?: How to Build a Trusting Organization   Add   View  5 pp.  Article Author(s): Smith, Douglas Publication Date: 09/01/1998 Product Type: Harvard Management Update Article Product Description: From 1980 to 1993, the number of bowlers grew by 10%, while league membership shrank by 40%. In his widely read 1994 essay, "Bowling Alone: America's Declining Social Capital," sociologist Robert Putnam used this statistic as a metaphor for civic disengagement. Putnam was writing about civic society, but his observations apply to business as well. The same erosion of social cohesion and trust occurring in society at large operates in the corporate sector--affecting the work environment, productivity, and profits. This article suggest that a company's ability to promote cohesion, community spirit, and mutual accountability depends entirely on its leaders, and reveals the five identifying hallmarks shared by genuinely trusting organizations. HBS Number: U9809C Geographic Setting: Industry Setting: Subjects: Accountability; Human behavior; Leadership; Loyalty; Social issues Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership    Are Your Meetings Like This One?   Add   View  11 pp.  Article Author(s): Golde, Roger A. Publication Date: 01/01/1972 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Product Description: A case study of a meeting conducted by the general manager of a company with four subordinate executives illustrates common pitfalls in the management of meetings. Approximately 200 executives discussed the case as part of a videocassette workshop. The three dimensions of meetings that were developed and examined at the workshop are: clarification of purpose, classification of behavior patterns, and the effect of physical surroundings. HBS Number: 72107 Subjects: Group dynamics; HBR Case Discussions; Management communication Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership    Are Your Presentations Inspiring?   Add   View  5 pp.  Article Publication Date: 01/01/2001 Product Type: Harvard Management Communication Letter Article Product Description: Many presentations are long-winded and simpleminded; few manage to say the right thing at the right time in the fewest possible words. One speech that did exactly that was John F. Kennedy's speech to the citizens of West Berlin in June of 1963. Kennedy's intent was to connect with the people of Berlin, to reassure them that they were not alone in spite of being isolated by the Berlin Wall. An analysis of Kennedy's brief but powerful speech reveals six lessons for making an impact on your audience: 1) write the speech yourself; 2) keep it simple and true; 3) meet the needs of the audience; 4) appeal to something larger than self-interest; 5) identify with your audience early on; and 6) repeat memorable phrases often. HBS Number: C0101A Subjects: Management communication; Meetings; Presentations Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership    Art of Managing Virtual Teams: Eight Key Lessons   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Author(s): Wardell, Charles Publication Date: 11/01/1998 Product Type: Harvard Management Update Article Product Description: A company's ability to seize an opportunity often depends on how fast it can field a team of talented individuals, wherever they may be. That puts a big premium on the skills of virtual management--the ability to run a team whose members are not in the same location, don't report to you, and may not even work for your company. Methodologies for managing virtual teams are still pretty rare, but the subject is being studied extensively. This article provides eight key lessons from authorities on virtual management. HBS Number: U9811B Geographic Setting: Industry Setting: Subjects: Organizational change; Teams; Virtual communities Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership    Asinine Attitudes Toward Motivation   Add   View  7 pp.  Article Levinson, Harry American management attempts to motivate employees through the carrot-and-stick approach. According to the Great Jackson Fallacy executives unconsciously envision themselves as manipulators and controllers, and their subordinates as jackasses chasing the carrot. This attitude can place severe strain on management/employee relations and lead to employee inefficiency and low productivity. Executives should change their attitudes toward subordinates in order to ensure effective job performance. HBS Number: 73106 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 1/1/1973 Subjects: Employee attitude; Leadership; Motivation; Organizational structure; Personnel management    Asserting Yourself: How to Say “No” and Mean It   Add   View  5 pp.  Article Author(s): Saunders, Rebecca Publication Date: 07/01/2000 Product Type: Harvard Management Communication Letter Article Product Description: Many senior executives find it difficult to be assertive. Rather, they'll ignore the poor performance of a senior staff member, say "yes" to a team decision they know has no chance of working, and even do their own clerical work rather than delegate it to a hot-tempered assistant who is likely to make a fuss. You can conquer this nonassertive behavior by making a commitment to change that behavior, learning to think of yourself positively, and developing a plan that helps you play to your strengths. The article includes a self-assessment: "How Assertive Are You?" HBS Number: C0007D Subjects: Communication; Management communication; Personal strategy & style; Power & influence Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership    Assess Your Own Performance as a Leader (HBR Article Collection)   Add   View  48 pp.  Article Author(s): Kaufman, Stephen P. Publication Date: 10/01/2008 Product Type: HBR OnPoint Collection HBS Number: 12163 Subjects: Leadership; Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership Product Description: When top executives stumble, they risk taking their companies down with them. How can you stay steady on your feet, so you keep delivering high-quality leadership? Feedback. But getting feedback on your own performance isn't easy. The higher you climb on the corporate ladder, the harder it is to get candid input from colleagues uneasy about criticizing a peer. Few direct reports feel safe telling the boss uncomfortable truths about his performance. And members of the board often focus exclusively on executives' ability to deliver financial results; directors may ignore additional essential skills of leadership, such as strategy execution and talent management. For all these reasons, you'll have to proactively generate the information you need to spot and address weak areas. For example, set up a formal process for board members to evaluate you on all the skills crucial to exceptional leadership. And learn how to identify problematic behaviors in yourself — so you can take action immediately. Take charge in these ways, and you tackle your weaknesses before they can tackle you.    Automating Strategic Management: Hilton Hotels’ Innovative InFocus System   Add   View  5 pp.  Article Author(s): Winkler, Carole A. Publication Date: 03/15/2005 Product Type: Balanced Scorecard Report Article Product Description: Hilton Hotels' string of successes reflects its evolution as a strategy-focused organization -- and the evolution of the systems and processes supporting its strategic management activities. This early adopter of the Balanced Scorecard (1997) and inaugural member of the Balanced Scorecard Hall of Fame (2000) has taken strategy execution to a whole new level with its new InFocus system. HBS Number: B0503C Subjects: Balanced scorecard; Hotels & motels; Strategic planning; Strategy implementation Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership    Avoiding Integrity Land Mines   Add   View  12 pp.  Article Author(s): Heineman, Ben W Publication Date: 04/01/2007 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article HBS Number: R0704G Subjects: Accountability; Corporate responsibility; Executives; Integrity; Legal aspects of business; Risk management Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership Product Description: How does a large multinational keep thousands of employees, operating in hundreds of countries, honest in a high-pressure business environment? As the chief legal officer at General Electric for nearly 20 years, Ben Heineman was part of the senior management group that sought to do just that — to make sure its executives and employees are moved to do the right thing as strongly as they are motivated to make their numbers. Heineman describes a set of systems that combine the communication of clear expectations with oversight, deterrence, and incentives. Nowhere are the expectations higher — and the sanctions more powerful — than for top executives. Heineman recounts example after example of senior leaders terminated for ethical lapses even when the business consequences of doing so were painful — and even when they had no direct knowledge of the violations occurring on their watch. To make expectations clear throughout the company, GE has systematically sought to set uniform standards that stay well ahead of current legal developments and stakeholders' changing attitudes about corporate accountability. Responsibility for implementing those standards, which are embedded in GE's operating practices, rests with the business leaders in the field. Oversight is both methodical and multifaceted. A host of auditing and assessment systems enables GE to compare the performance of its various business units against one another and against industry benchmarks. Perhaps the most powerful is the company's ombudsman system, which doesn't just allow but requires employees to lodge conc    Avoiding Nonverbal Blunders   Add   View  3 pp.  Article Publication Date: 09/01/2000 Product Type: Harvard Management Communication Letter Article Product Description: Many a cleverly-worded speech has gone down in flames because of some visual problem. What are some of the most common pitfalls to avoid?: 1) Not making eye contact; 2) Being defensive; 3) Doing the PowerPoint shuffle; 4) Doing the random walk; and 5) Making every statement sound like a question. HBS Number: C0009E Subjects: Communication; Management communication; Personal strategy & style Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership    Avoiding PR Disasters   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Author(s): Gosset, Steve Publication Date: 05/01/2001 Product Type: Harvard Management Communication Letter Article Product Description: Companies that try to figure out how to respond to a media relations crisis after it's occurred will find themselves playing catch-up long after everyone stops caring. With some careful planning and preparation, it doesn't have to be that way. Some keys: Be absolutely honest, convey empathy with authority, and get authoritative--and effective--company representatives out in front of the media. And don't let crises take you by surprise--prepare your company by having a crisis plan in place. HBS Number: C0105D Subjects: Management of crises; Media relations; Public relations; Publicity Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership    Avoiding the Mistakes that Plague New Leaders   Add   View  5 pp.  Article Author(s): Bielaszka-DuVernay, Christina Publication Date: 05/01/2009 Product Type: Harvard Management Update Article HBS Number: U0905C Subjects: Delegation of authority; Feedback; Leadership Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership Product Description: In this HMU interview, leadership expert Warren Bennis advises new leaders to make a conscious effort to create an environment in which others feel free to give them what he calls “reflective back talk.” Failure to actively encourage this kind of feedback is just one of the mistakes new leaders make — but there are others you should know about.    Back in Fashion: How We’re Reviving a British Icon   Add   View  12 pp.  Article Author(s): Rose, Stuart Publication Date: 05/01/2007 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article HBS Number: R0705B Subjects: Customer service; Department stores; Inventory management; Organizational transformations; Product management Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership Product Description: Back in 1998, Marks & Spencer (M&S) was the first British retailer to reach a profit of 1 billion pounds. Just a few years later, profits were down to 145 million pounds, and the company's share price stood at two-thirds of its previous high. The problem, says CEO Stuart Rose, was that M&S lost sight of what had made it great for more than a century. In this first-person account, Rose explains that he was hired in the spring of 2004 to turn the company around — just in time to stave off retail investor Philip Green's hostile takeover attempt. He spent his first six weeks convincing reporters, analysts, and investors that he was the one to lead Marks & Spencer back to prosperity. Then, after Green withdrew his bid, Rose put his plans for M&S to work. He knew that three things needed to be done right away: improve the product, improve the stores, and improve the service. One of his first and most important changes was to tighten the reins on inventory. When Rose arrived at M&S, assistant buyers were spending more than 300 million pounds of the company's money without oversight. Management now gets weekly inventory updates. With a keen eye on fundamentals like stock control, Rose has tried to return Marks & Spencer to the levels of profitability it achieved before its sharp decline. Although there is more to do, the company is back on track. In November 2006, M&S posted half-year profits of 405.1 million pounds — up 32.2% from the previous fiscal year. Rose attributes the turnaround almost entirely to a renewed focus on core values. Now, with signs of health in the business, he    Balancing Act: How to Capture Knowledge Without Killing It   Add   View  8 pp.  Article Brown, John Seely; Duguid, Paul Everyone knows that the way things are formally organized in most companies (their processes) is not the same as the way things are actually done (their practices). The difference between the two creates tension that can be very diffic HBS Number: R00309 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 5/1/2000 Subjects: Information management; Knowledge management; Knowledge transfer; Knowledge workers; Process innovation    Barbara Jordan Gives a History Lesson on the Constitution   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Author(s): Morgan, Nick Publication Date: 06/01/2001 Product Type: Harvard Management Communication Letter Article Product Description: U.S. Representative Barbara Jordan's address to the House Judiciary Committee concerning the impeachment of President Richard Nixon demonstrates the impact of carefully chosen language and ideas. Some lessons from Jordan's speech: establish a firm grasp of your subject, let your audience know the stakes, and keep it simple, blunt, and honest. HBS Number: C0106C Subjects: Federal government; Leadership; Personal strategy & style; Politics; Presentations Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership    Barriers and Gateways to Communication   Add   View  9 pp.  Article Author(s): Rogers, Carl R.; Roethlisberger, Fritz J. Publication Date: 11/01/1991 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Product Description: An analysis of the problems of interpersonal communication, as viewed from a human behavior standpoint. Real communication occurs when one listens to another person's viewpoint with empathic understanding. It is possible to facilitate achievement of this communication breakthrough by summarizing the speaker's thoughts and feelings to his or her satisfaction before presenting a rebuttal. This procedure leads to the reduction of defensiveness and gradual achievement of mutual communication. A second analysis deals with communication in an industrial context. An example illustrates how differently two supervisors interpret an employee's reaction to a suggestion. This article, first published in 1952, is reprinted to include a retrospective commentary by John J. Gabarro. HBS Number: 91610 Subjects: Communication in organizations; HBR Classics; Human behavior; Human relations; Interpersonal relations; Management communication Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership    Basic Presentation Checklist   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Publication Date: 10/01/2000 Product Type: Harvard Management Communication Letter Article Product Description: In a perfect world, you would have months to prepare for presentations. But the reality is usually last minute--picking material from various old talks and hoping that no one will notice that it hasn't really been thought through. Even though you have limited time, there are things you can do to make sure you don't miss anything obvious. This article offers an eight-step checklist as insurance for making sure your audience doesn't walk out or doze off halfway through your speech. HBS Number: C0010B Subjects: Communication; Communication in organizations; Presentations Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership    Be a Better Leader, Have a Richer Life   Add   View  16 pp.  Article Author(s): Friedman, Stewart D. Publication Date: 04/01/2008 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article HBS Number: R0804H Subjects: Leadership; Self-awareness; Work life balance Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership Product Description: Work fills most executives' lives to the brim, leaving insufficient time for their families, their communities, and themselves. But Wharton professor Friedman suggests that, rather than view the problem as a set of trade-offs, executives use their leadership talents to benefit all four domains at once. The idea is to design experiments — small, short-term adjustments to their daily routines — that incorporate and mutually benefit the various aspects of their lives. If an experiment works out, everyone wins — employer, employee, family, and community; if it doesn't, it simply becomes a low-cost learning opportunity. Over time, the combination of small gains and lessons learned can lead to larger-scale transformation. The “Total Leadership” process involves identifying what's important to you, identifying what's important to everyone in your life, using those insights to creatively explore possibilities for experiments, and then selecting and implementing a few at a time. Drawing on decades of experience, Friedman has distilled nine categories of experiments that offer a manageable, systematic approach to the daunting task of conceiving projects with four-way benefits. In one such experiment, an executive might raise money for a charity her company sponsors by running a marathon with her son, thus simultaneously gaining greater visibility at work, spending more time with her family, giving back to the community, and improving her health. To move toward the goal of becoming a CEO, another executive might join the board of a nonprofit agency in his neighborhood together with his wife. Friedman suspects that there are far m    Beauty of Buzzwords   Add   View  3 pp.  Article Author(s): Garber, Marjorie; Kirby, Julia; Coutu, Dia Publication Date: 05/01/2001 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Product Description: TQM, thought leadership, dot-com, dot-bomb, golden parachute: the litany of business jargon could go on for pages. HBR talks with Marjorie Garber about jargon, why we respond to it as we do, and why it's here to stay. HBS Number: F0105D Subjects: Communication; Interviews; Management communication Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership    Become a Better Manager in 15 Minutes a Day   Add   View  3 pp.  Article Author(s): Dowling, Daisy Wademan Publication Date: 05/01/2009 Product Type: Harvard Management Update Article HBS Number: U0905D Subjects: Coaching; Feedback; Managerial skills Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership Product Description: Are you feeling overwhelmed by the dual responsibilities of managing your direct reports and completing the work assigned to you as an individual? Here's a quick and practical way to be a terrific manager and coach without sacrificing your own productivity.    Becoming the Boss   Add   View  16 pp.  Article Author(s): Hill, Linda A. Publication Date: 01/01/2007 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article HBS Number: R0701D Subjects: Change agents; Influence; Leadership; Leadership development; Management; Management development; Managerial skills; Managers; Organizational change Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership Product Description: Even for the most gifted individuals, the process of becoming a leader is an arduous, albeit rewarding, journey of continuous learning and self-development. The initial test along the path is so fundamental that we often overlook it: becoming a boss for the first time. That's a shame, because the trials involved in this rite of passage have serious consequences for both the individual and the organization. For a decade and a half, the author has studied people — particularly star performers — making major career transitions to management. As firms have become leaner and more dynamic, new managers have described a transition that gets more difficult all the time. But the transition is often harder than it need be because of managers' misconceptions about their role. Those who can acknowledge their misconceptions have a far greater chance of success. For example, new managers typically assume that their position will give them the authority and freedom to do what they think is best. Instead, they find themselves enmeshed in a web of relationships with subordinates, bosses, peers, and others, all of whom make relentless and often conflicting demands. “You really are not in control of anything,” says one new manager. Another misconception is that new managers are responsible only for making sure that their operations run smoothly. But new managers also need to realize they are responsible for recommending and initiating changes — some of them in areas outside their purview — that will enhance their groups' performance.    Becoming the Boss (HBR OnPoint Enhanced Edition)   Add   View  16 pp.  Article Author(s): Hill, Linda A. Publication Date: 01/01/2007 Product Type: HBR OnPoint Article HBS Number: 1723 Subjects: Leadership; Leadership development; Management; Management development; Managerial skills; Managers Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership Product Description: Even for the most gifted individuals, the process of becoming a leader is an arduous, albeit rewarding, journey of continuous learning and self-development. The initial test along the path is so fundamental that we often overlook it: becoming a boss for the first time. That's a shame, because the trials involved in this rite of passage have serious consequences for both the individual and the organization. For a decade and a half, the author has studied people — particularly star performers — making major career transitions to management. As firms have become leaner and more dynamic, new managers have described a transition that gets more difficult all the time. But the transition is often harder than it need be because of managers' misconceptions about their role. Those who can acknowledge their misconceptions have a far greater chance of success. For example, new managers typically assume that their position will give them the authority and freedom to do what they think is best. Instead, they find themselves enmeshed in a web of relationships with subordinates, bosses, peers, and others, all of whom make relentless and often conflicting demands. “You really are not in control of anything,” says one new manager. Another misconception is that new managers are responsible only for making sure that their operations run smoothly. But new managers also need to realize they are responsible for recommending and initiating changes — some of them in areas outside their purview — that will enhance their groups' performance.    Before and After the Meeting   Add   View  5 pp.  Article Author(s): Krattenmaker, Tom Publication Date: 10/01/2000 Product Type: Harvard Management Communication Letter Article Product Description: Meetings are the kudzu of corporate life. They quickly cover everything, and nothing kills them. Can you think of a meeting that you wish had run longer? Fortunately, there is a way to make meetings work better. It requires thinking about meetings as a process that starts well in advance of the actual meeting and continues long after it's over. HBS Number: C0010A Subjects: Communication in organizations; Meetings Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership    Before You Say Yes, Negotiate for What You Need to Succeed   Add   View  5 pp.  Article Author(s): Kolb, Deborah M. Publication Date: 10/01/2008 Product Type: Harvard Management Update Article HBS Number: U0810E Subjects: Career advancement; Negotiations; Networking; Success Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership Product Description: What happened the last time you were offered a new leadership opportunity? Chances are you negotiated your title, salary, bonus, and benefits. But did you negotiate for what you would need to succeed? Leadership expert, professor, and author Deborah M. Kolb stresses the importance of negotiating for the tangible and intangible resources that will give you a leg up as you start your new job. She examines three faulty assumptions new leaders often make about their new roles and offers strategies to overcome them: (1) Negotiate the “fit” of your new position, (2) Negotiate a compelling introduction by key leaders, and (3) Negotiate for the resources you'll need to succeed.    Before You Split that CEO/Chair   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Author(s): Pozen, Robert C. Publication Date: 04/01/2006 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Product Description: What's the rationale for dividing the roles of chairman and CEO? Studies show that, usually, doing so has no effect on the company's performance. HBS Number: F0604J Geographic Setting: Switzerland; United Kingdom; United States Subjects: CEO; Chairman of the board; Corporate governance; Executive selection; Roles Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership    Behave Yourself: A Conversation with Executive Coach Marshall Goldsmith   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Author(s): Goldsmith, Marshall; Morse, Gardiner Publication Date: 10/01/2002 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Product Description: Executive consultant Marshall Goldsmith tells his CEO clients that he's not the real coach; the people around them are. To change your behavior, he says, quit whining about the past and start asking your colleagues how you can do better. You're not done until they think you are. HBS Number: F0210C Subjects: Coaching; Executive ability; Human resources management; Leadership; Performance effectiveness; Performance measurement; Personal strategy & style; Psychology Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership    Being Virtual: Character and the New Economy   Add   View  8 pp.  Article Carr, Nicholas G. Given the changes wrought by the new economy, it makes sense for companies to pursue ever-greater levels of flexibility. But does it make sense for human beings? Do we really want to be free agents, hopping from job to job and from cit HBS Number: 99301 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 5/1/1999 Subjects: Careers & career planning; Flexible hours; Information age; New economy; Social change; Technological change; Virtual communities    Benchmarking Your Staff   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Author(s): Goold, Michael; Collis, David Publication Date: 09/01/2005 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Product Description: Here's how you can decide on the right size and composition of your corporate staff. HBS Number: F0509H Subjects: Benchmarks; Corporate culture Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership    Best Advice I Ever Got: Fred Carl, Jr.   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Author(s): Carl, Fred, Jr.; Wademan, Daisy Publication Date: 11/01/2007 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article HBS Number: F0711C Subjects: Growth strategy; Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership Product Description: The founder and CEO of Viking Range recalls the eventful words of an early adviser: “You should run this from day one like it's a public company. Treat it like it's going to be big.” He did, and it was.    Best Advice I Ever Got: Hans-Paul Burkner   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Author(s): Wademan, Daisy Publication Date: 12/01/2007 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article HBS Number: F0712F Subjects: Diversity; Group dynamics; Team building; Team leadership Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership Product Description: By watching a colleague assemble diverse, high-performing teams, the CEO of the Boston Consulting Group learned the art of nurturing individual strengths and steering team members away from tasks that would expose their weaknesses.    Best Advice I Ever Got: Kris Gopalakrishnan   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Author(s): Wademan Dowling, Daisy Publication Date: 03/01/2008 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article HBS Number: F0803J Subjects: Employee attitude; Motivation Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership Product Description: The head of Infosys Technologies talks about the power of a well-placed word of encouragement and what it taught him about the CEO's toughest challenge — motivating people.    Best Advice I Ever Got: William S. Thompson, Jr.   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Author(s): Dowling, Daisy Wademan Publication Date: 04/01/2008 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article HBS Number: F0804E Subjects: Employee problems; Employee retention Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership Product Description: The managing director and CEO of PIMCO fondly remembers a boss who helped him find solace in failure. Bolstering your high performers when they fall short, he says, is the key to maximizing their potential.    Best Practices in Managing the Execution of Strategy   Add   View  10 pp.  Article Author(s): Norton, David P. Publication Date: 07/15/2004 Product Type: Balanced Scorecard Report Article Product Description: What separates successful users of the Balanced Scorecard from others? Is BSC success an art or a science? Is it luck, or is just that with so many BSC users, there are bound to be some successes? Over the past year, the Balanced Scorecard Collaborative engaged in a research study to help answer these questions. The results, as distilled in five key points, provide insights from which all BSC users can benefit. HBS Number: B0407A Subjects: Balanced scorecard; Performance appraisal; Performance measurement; Strategy implementation Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership    Better Brainstorming   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Author(s): Saunders, Rebecca Publication Date: 11/01/1999 Product Type: Harvard Management Communication Letter Article Product Description: What do you do when you need to generate new ideas, and traditional brainstorming sessions aren't doing the job? HMCL surveyed creativity experts and came up with ten tips for jumpstarting stalled brainstorming sessions. HBS Number: C9911C Subjects: Creativity; Innovation; Meetings Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership    Better Way to Deliver Bad News   Add   View  8 pp.  Article Author(s): Manzoni, Jean-Francois Publication Date: 09/01/2002 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Product Description: In an ideal world, a subordinate would accept critical feedback from a manager with an open mind. He or she would ask a few clarifying questions, promise to work on certain performance areas, and show signs of improvement over time. But things don't always turn out that way. Fearing that the employee will become angry and defensive, the boss all too often inadvertently sabotages the meeting by preparing for it in a way that stifles honest discussion. This unintentional--indeed, unconscious--stress-induced habit makes it difficult to deliver corrective feedback effectively. Insead professor Jean-Francois Manzoni says that by changing the mind-set with which they develop and deliver negative feedback, managers can increase their odds of having productive conversations without damaging relationships. Manzoni describes two behavioral phenomena that color the feedback process--the fundamental attribution error and the false consensus effect. Managers tend to frame difficult situations and decisions in a way that is narrow (alternatives aren't considered) and binary (there are only two possible outcomes--win or lose). And during the feedback discussion, managers' framing of the issues often remains frozen. Manzoni says that bosses need to consider an employee's circumstances rather than just attribute weak performance to a person's disposition. HBS Number: R0209J Subjects: Employee development; Employee empowerment; Employee morale; Employee problems; Human resources management; Interpersonal behavior; Management styles; Managerial skills Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership    Better Way to Deliver Bad News (HBR OnPoint Enhanced Edition)   Add   View  12 pp.  Article Author(s): Manzoni, Jean-Francois Publication Date: 09/01/2002 Product Type: HBR OnPoint Article HBS Number: 1776 Subjects: Employee development; Employee empowerment; Employee morale; Employee problems; Human resources management; Interpersonal behavior; Management styles; Managerial skills Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership Product Description: This is an enhanced edition of HBR article R0209J, originally published in September 2002. HBR OnPoint articles include the full-text HBR article, plus a synopsis and annotated bibliography. In an ideal world, a subordinate would accept critical feedback from a manager with an open mind. He or she would ask a few clarifying questions, promise to work on certain performance areas, and show signs of improvement over time. But things don't always turn out that way. Fearing that the employee will become angry and defensive, the boss all too often inadvertently sabotages the meeting by preparing for it in a way that stifles honest discussion. This unintentional — indeed, unconscious — stress-induced habit makes it difficult to deliver corrective feedback effectively. Insead professor Jean-Francois Manzoni says that by changing the mind-set with which they develop and deliver negative feedback, managers can increase their odds of having productive conversations without damaging relationships. Manzoni describes two behavioral phenomena that color the feedback process — the fundamental attribution error and the false consensus effect. Managers tend to frame difficult situations and decisions in a way that is narrow (alternatives aren't considered) and binary (there are only two possible outcomes — win or lose). And during the feedback discussion, managers' framing of the issues often remains frozen. Manzoni says that bosses need to consider an employee's circumstances rather than just attribute weak performance to a person    Beyond Corporate Loyalty: Toward a New Managerial Ethic   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Author(s): Heckscher, Charles C.; Billington, Jim Publication Date: 07/01/1996 Product Type: Harvard Management Update Article Product Description: As job security becomes less commonplace for most employees, there is a rising trend among a minority of managers to adopt a "professional ethic" with respect to their careers that builds a shared commitment between companies and individuals for a limited period of time. Charles Heckscher, chair of the Labor Studies and Employment Relations Department of Rutgers University, describes this approach as an alternative to both loyalty and free agency. He advocates that managers develop stronger networks and associations among themselves. Heckscher also discusses the need to build transferable skills and a way to make benefits portable between institutions. HBS Number: U9607C Geographic Setting: Industry Setting: Subjects: Careers & career planning; Employee attitude; Employment security Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership    Beyond Empowerment: Building a Company of Citizens   Add   View  8 pp.  Article Author(s): Manville, Brook; Ober, Josiah Publication Date: 01/01/2003 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Product Description: We live in a knowledge economy. The core assets of the modern business enterprise aren't its buildings, machinery, and real estate, but the intelligence, understanding, skills, and experience of its employees. Harnessing the capabilities and commitment of knowledge workers is arguably the central managerial challenge of our time. Unfortunately, it is a challenge that has not yet been met. Corporate ownership structures, governance systems, and incentive programs--despite the enlightened rhetoric of business leaders--remain firmly planted in the industrial age. In this article, the authors draw on history to lay out a model for a democratic business organization suited to the knowledge economy. The Athenian model of organizational democracy offers a window into how sizable groups of people can, in an atmosphere of dignity and trust, successfully govern themselves without resorting to a stifling bureaucracy. Such a system provides the synthesis of individual initiative and common cause that today's companies need to achieve if they're to realize the full power of their people and thrive in the knowledge economy. HBS Number: R0301C Subjects: Corporate culture; Corporate reorganization; Decision making; Employee empowerment; Knowledge management; Knowledge workers; Organizational development; Organizational structure Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership    Beyond the Carrot and Stick: New Alternatives for Influencing Customer Behavior   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Author(s): Frei, Frances X. Publication Date: 03/01/2003 Product Type: Harvard Management Update Article Product Description: Historically, companies have tried to influence and figure out their customers' needs and wants by using the carrot and the stick approach. However, some companies are having success with a third approach--using social norms and the power of the group. This guest column by Frances X. Frei, an assistant professor at Harvard Business School, can teach you a new way of looking at your customers to tap into what they really want. HBS Number: U0303D Subjects: Corporate strategy; Customer relations; Customer retention; Innovation; Marketing management; Strategy formulation; Strategy implementation Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership    Beyond the Charismatic Leader: Leadership and Organizational Change   Add   View  21 pp.  Article Author(s): Nadler, David A.; Tushman, Michael L. Publication Date: 01/01/1990 Product Type: CMR Article Publisher: California Management Review HBS Number: CMR024 Subjects: Leadership; Organizational change Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership Product Description: In ever more turbulent environments, executive leadership matters as never before. Organization speed, flexibility, and the need to execute discontinuous change require sharpened leadership skills. Charismatic leaders are important. These relatively rare leaders provide vision, direction, and energy for their firms. However, charisma is never enough to build competitive, agile organizations. Charismatic leadership must be bolstered by institutional leadership through attention to details on roles, structures, and rewards. Further, as most organizations are too large and complex for any one executive or senior team to manage directly, responsibility for managing in turbulent environments must be institutionalized throughout the management system.    Beyond the Chicken Cheer: How to Improve Your Creativity   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Author(s): Gary, Loren Publication Date: 07/01/1999 Product Type: Harvard Management Update Article Product Description: Don't waste your time at seminars that urge you to cluck like a chicken in an attempt to lose inhibition and inspire creativity. HMU asked some experts on creativity for tips on how to really improve your creative potential. Includes a sidebar entitled "5 Myths About Creativity." HBS Number: U9907D Subjects: Creativity Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership    Black Hawk Down at Work   Add   View  3 pp.  Article Author(s): Britt, Thomas W. Publication Date: 01/01/2003 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Product Description: Obstacles to high performance can be as profoundly demotivating on the shop floor as they are on the battlefield. And for high performers, factors they can't control can hinder their best work and may drive them to look elsewhere. The ones who stay behind may be the ones who don't care. HBS Number: F0301A Subjects: Motivation; Organizational development; Performance effectiveness Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership    Block That Defense: How to Make Sure Your Constructive Criticism Works   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Author(s): Field, Anne Publication Date: 09/01/2007 Product Type: Harvard Management Update Article HBS Number: U0709D Subjects: Communication in organizations; Communication strategy; Employee development; Employee problems; Interpersonal communications; Performance appraisals Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership Product Description: Why do top executives have difficulty receiving and responding to constructive criticism? Because so many highfliers have received little criticism in their careers. The result is that when receiving criticism, the highest-performing employees in an organization are the ones most likely to become defensive — to screen out criticism and place the blame on anyone and everyone but themselves. Although getting highfliers to take in and respond to honest feedback can be tough, it's not impossible. Learn how to get through your best managers' defenses and have your feedback heard.    Blockbuster Business Writing   Add   View  3 pp.  Article Publication Date: 12/01/2000 Product Type: Harvard Management Communication Letter Article Product Description: It's no secret that most business prose suffers from a deficit of excitement. Clumsy writing, unclear purpose, and arcane subject matter stand between the business writer and, say, the Pulitzer Prize. Here, HMCL suggests that you take a hint from successful Hollywood blockbusters: Find a hero, give her a challenge, test her, and then let her win the goal in the end. Includes a sidebar entitled "The Archetypal Hero." HBS Number: C0012D Subjects: Management communication; Writing Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership    Board Governance and Accountability   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Author(s): Howie, Robert Publication Date: 01/15/2003 Product Type: Balanced Scorecard Report Article Product Description: Known as much for his contributions to the field of human capital as for his work in organizational development and effectiveness, Professor Edward Lawler is director of USC's Center for Effective Organizations, which he founded in 1979. He is co-author, with Jay A. Conger and David L. Finegold, of Corporate Boards: New Strategies for Adding Value at the Top. As part of BSR's new publisher's interview series with leading management thinkers, BSC senior vice-president and BSR co-publisher Robert L. Howie, Jr., recently discussed board governance with Lawler. HBS Number: B0301D Subjects: Balanced scorecard; Board of directors; Corporate governance; Corporate strategy; Ethics; Strategic planning Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership    Board’s Missing Link   Add   View  16 pp.  Article Author(s): Montgomery, Cynthia A.; Kaufman, Rhonda Publication Date: 03/01/2003 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article HBS Number: R0303F Subjects: Corporate governance; Corporate responsibility; Shareholder relations Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership Product Description: The causes of many corporate governance problems lie well below the surface — specifically, in critical relationships that are not structured to support the players involved. In other words, the very foundation of the system is flawed. And unless we correct the structural problems, surface changes are unlikely to have a lasting impact. When shareholders, management, and the board of directors work together as a system, they provide a powerful set of checks and balances. But the relationship between shareholders and directors is fraught with weaknesses, undermining the entire system's equilibrium. As the authors explain, the exchange of information between these two players is poor. The authors suggest several ways to improve the relationship between shareholders and directors: Increase board accountability by recording individual directors' votes on key corporate resolutions, separate the positions of chairman and CEO, reinvigorate shareholders, and give boards funding to pay for outside experts who can provide perspective on crucial issues.    Board’s Missing Link (HBR OnPoint Enhanced Edition)   Add   View  16 pp.  Article Author(s): Montgomery, Cynthia A.; Kaufman, Rhonda Publication Date: 03/01/2003 Product Type: HBR OnPoint Article Product Description: This is an enhanced edition of HBR article R0303F, originally published in March 2003. HBR OnPoint articles include the full-text HBR article, plus a synopsis and annotated bibliography. The causes of many corporate governance problems lie well below the surface -- specifically, in critical relationships that are not structured to support the players involved. In other words, the very foundation of the system is flawed. And unless we correct the structural problems, surface changes are unlikely to have a lasting impact. When shareholders, management, and the board of directors work together as a system, they provide a powerful set of checks and balances. But the relationship between shareholders and directors is fraught with weaknesses, undermining the entire system's equilibrium. As the authors explain, the exchange of information between these two players is poor. The authors suggest several ways to improve the relationship between shareholders and directors: Increase board accountability by recording individual directors' votes on key corporate resolutions, separate the positions of chairman and CEO, reinvigorate shareholders, and give boards funding to pay for outside experts who can provide perspective on crucial issues. HBS Number: 3183 Subjects: Board of directors; Corporate governance; Corporate responsibility; Shareholder relations Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership    Boost Growth and Profitability — At the Same Time   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Author(s): Johnson, Lauren Keller Publication Date: 05/23/2008 Product Type: Harvard Management Update Article HBS Number: U0806C Subjects: Customer relationship management; Growth strategy; Marketing strategy; Profitability Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership Product Description: Getting the top line headed north without sending the bottom line south is the ideal, but most companies find the ideal difficult to realize. According to Dominic Dodd and Ken Favaro, authors of The Three Tensions: Winning the Struggle to Perform Without Compromise, companies often make these two goals mutually exclusive: either they can achieve growth or increase profitability. Instead of trying to beat the profitable-growth challenge by striking various forms of balance — for example, between growing organically and growing through acquisitions, or between focusing on core business and diversifying — Favaro and Dodd recommend looking beyond the notion of balance to focus on customer benefit, which they argue is the common bond between growth and profitability. To send your growth and your profitability spiraling upward together, they suggest three practices: 1) Make “customer benefit” your mantra; 2) Grow your market, not just your market share; and 3) Go for market strength, not market attractiveness.    Boosting Your Emotional Intelligence   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Author(s): Stauffer, David Publication Date: 10/01/1997 Product Type: Harvard Management Update Article Product Description: "What am I feeling right now? What do I want? How am I acting? What appraisals am I making? What do my senses tell me?" According to Hendrie Weisinger, author of Emotional Intelligence at Work: The Untapped Edge for Success, these are all questions you could be asking yourself if you are trying to boost your emotional intelligence. He suggests creating "a constructive internal dialogue" to manage your emotions so that they work for you--not against you. Recent studies indicate that intelligence and skills at work are not enough if we can't manage the human side of the equation. However, emotional intelligence, or self-awareness of your own feelings, can be learned and in turn can benefit you and your organization. Those individuals who have emotional self-awareness are better leaders and organizers, and are generally more positive people, thereby boosting productivity in organizations. HBS Number: U9710D Geographic Setting: Industry Setting: Subjects: Leadership; Self evaluation Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership    Brazilian Industry Association Shapes National Agenda — With the BSC   Add   View  6 pp.  Article Author(s): Johnson, Lauren Keller Publication Date: 07/15/2006 Product Type: Balanced Scorecard Report Article Product Description: In this unprecedented use of the Balanced Scorecard, a lobbying group sets out to create a compelling, shared vision of Brazil’s future as a global industrial competitor — and to realize that vision by 2015. HBS Number: B0607B Geographic Setting: Brazil Subjects: Balanced Scorecard; Business & government; Competitive strategy; Country analysis; Economic development; Economic infrastructure; Lobbying; Strategic planning Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership    Breaking the Functional Mind-Set in Process Organizations   Add   View  12 pp.  Article Majchrzak, Ann; Wang, Qianwei Thousands of businesses have reengineered work to focus employees on processes that clearly provide value to customers. They have done away with their functional silos and created process-complete departments, each able to perform all HBS Number: 96505 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 9/1/1996 Subjects: Corporate culture; Incentives; Organizational behavior; Organizational change; Reengineering; Teams    Brief History of Decision Making   Add   View  12 pp.  Article Author(s): Buchanan, Leigh; O'Connell, Andrew Publication Date: 01/01/2006 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article HBS Number: R0601B Subjects: Business history; Decision analysis; Decision making; Group dynamics; Human behavior; Risk management; Technology Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership Product Description: Sometime around the middle of the past century, telephone executive Chester Barnard imported the term “decision making” from public administration into the business world. There it began to replace narrower terms, like “resource allocation” and “policy making,” shifting the way managers thought about their role from continuous, Hamlet-like deliberation toward a crisp series of conclusions reached and actions taken. Yet, decision making is, of course, a broad and ancient human pursuit, dating back to a time when people sought guidance from the stars. From those earliest days, we have strived to invent better tools for the purpose, from the Hindu-Arabic systems for numbering and algebra to Aristotle's systematic empiricism to Friar Occam's advances in logic to Francis Bacon's inductive reasoning to Descartes' application of the scientific method. A growing sophistication with managing risk, along with a nuanced understanding of human behavior and advances in technology that support and mimic cognitive processes, has improved decision making in many situations. Even so, the history of decision-making strategies has not marched steadily toward perfect rationalism. Twentieth-century theorists showed that the costs of acquiring information lead executives to make do with only good-enough decisions. Worse, people decide against their own economic interests even when they know better. And in the absence of emotion, it's impossible to make any decisions at all. Erroneous framing, bounded awareness, excessive optimism: The debunking of Des    Bringing the Market Inside   Add   View  12 pp.  Article Author(s): Malone, Thomas W. Publication Date: 04/01/2004 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article HBS Number: R0404G Subjects: Decentralization; Decision making; Information management; Organizational behavior; Organizational structure; Technology Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership Product Description: During the dot-com boom, many people saw the potential for new communication technologies to enable radically new business models, but they were far too optimistic about the speed with which the revolution would occur. Now, as the bitter disillusionment of the dot-com bust begins to fade, we have a chance to think again — this time more rationally — about how best to take advantage of the remarkable changes these new technologies are gradually making possible. One such change is the ability to create markets inside companies, allowing decision making to be decentralized and introducing some of the efficiency, flexibility, and motivating influence of free markets. In this article, the author examines this nascent form of business organization, exploring the benefits as well as the potential risks. BP, for example, met its goal of reducing the company's greenhouse gas emissions nine years ahead of schedule, not by setting and enforcing targets for each division but by allowing business unit heads to buy and sell emissions permits among themselves using an electronic trading system. And Hewlett-Packard recently experimented with a system that allowed employees to buy and sell predictions about likely printer sales, using a kind of futures contract. The markets ended up predicting the actual printer sales with much more accuracy than official HP forecasts. At a fundamental level, these changes are enabled by the fact that electronic technologies allow information to be widely shared at little cost. This simple fact has a profound implication for organizing businesses    British Library CEO Lynne Brindley on helping to spur business innovation   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Author(s): Brindley, Lynne; Cliffe, Sarah Publication Date: 11/01/2007 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article HBS Number: F0711G Subjects: Corporate culture; Organizational transformations Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership Product Description: The CEO of the British Library explains how the United Kingdom's exclusive repository for rare books, manuscripts, and scientific papers has loosened up the design of its Business & IP Centre to encourage entrepreneurship and innovation.    Broadway Meets Wall Street: Theatre Training for Better Business Presentations   Add   View  5 pp.  Article Author(s): Krattenmaker, Tom Publication Date: 12/01/1999 Product Type: Harvard Management Communication Letter Article Product Description: What can managers learn from actors? Plenty. Several companies offer theatre-based training for executives who want to improve their presentation skills. First lesson: ditch the Power Point slides and learn how to really connect with your audience by showing real, honest emotion. Includes a sidebar entitled "Use stories to connect with your listeners." HBS Number: C9912E Subjects: Management communication; Personal strategy & style; Presentations Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership    BSC Goes to Jail: Strategic Transformation of Prison Fellowship Ministries   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Author(s): Anderson, Robert D. Publication Date: 05/15/2002 Product Type: Balanced Scorecard Report Article Product Description: Founded in 1976 by Watergate co-conspirator Chuck Colson, Prison Fellowship Ministries is today the world's largest prison and crime victim outreach. However, meeting donation targets may be an act of faith for this Christian ministry that is dedicated to serving millions of prisoners, their families, and their victims. To institute a radical new strategy was going to take something a bit more secular. Bob Anderson explains how the Balanced Scorecard and BSCol resources helped transform Prison Fellowship Ministries from a staff-based to a volunteer-based operation by rapidly mobilizing the troops and opening new lines of communication. HBS Number: B0205B Subjects: Balanced scorecard; Management of change; Nonprofit organizations; Strategic planning; Strategy formulation; Strategy implementation; Work force management Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership    BSC Software Enables Early Adopter to Gain Competitive Edge Amid Turmoil   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Author(s): Palazzolo, Christopher Publication Date: 01/15/2003 Product Type: Balanced Scorecard Report Article Product Description: Traditionally low-tech and tactical, travel agencies aren't known for their sophistication at performance measurement or strategic analysis. Adopting the Balanced Scorecard was, then, a daring move for McCord Travel Management (now WorldTravel BTI). Automating its BSC--an even bigger undertaking--proved farsighted. It paved the way for the company's standout growth and success amid the industry turbulence exacerbated by the rise of Internet travel services, 9/11, and today's uncertain economy. HBS Number: B0301F Subjects: Balanced scorecard; Corporate strategy; Performance measurement; Software; Strategy formulation; Strategy implementation; Travel Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership    Build a Presentation That Motivates   Add   View  3 pp.  Article Author(s): Morgan, Nick Publication Date: 07/01/2001 Product Type: Harvard Management Communication Letter Article Product Description: Today's economic climate signals tough times ahead for many companies. In this environment, the ability to persuade--whether it's employees, customers, or stockholders--becomes even more crucial. You can make your speeches more motivating by following a universal human pattern: decision making. This article describes the five steps of the decision-making process and shows how to apply them to your presentations. HBS Number: C0107D Subjects: Leadership; Motivation; Personal strategy & style; Presentations Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership    Build Your Company’s Deep Smarts   Add   View  5 pp.  Article Author(s): Gary, Loren Publication Date: 08/01/2005 Product Type: Harvard Management Update Article Product Description: Companies lose critical knowledge all the time. And, in many cases, it's knowledge they never really understood that they had. Experienced workers get promoted into new positions, move on to new companies, or retire. They may pass on the technical expertise required to perform their functions, but rarely do they have the opportunity to impart the full meaning of their experience -- that greater wherewithal they have culled from years on a job. Companies, therefore, need to cultivate, acquire, and transfer a deeper organizational expertise -- or what authors Dorothy Leonard and Walter Swap call ``deep smarts.'' Few companies manage this asset very well, however, which is why the impending retirement of so many baby boomers strikes fear into the hearts of human resources directors. But even if the coming retirement wave of baby boomers weren't about to crest, the situation would still be urgent. For 21st century business, the development of deep smarts throughout an organization is a critical element in sustaining competitive advantage. For these efforts to succeed, companies must not only improve their ability to transfer deep smarts within the organization but to bring it in from the outside as well. HBS Number: U0508C Subjects: Communication in organizations; Employee development; Human capital; Knowledge management; Knowledge transfer; Learning Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership    Building a Bridge over the River Boredom   Add   View  5 pp.  Article Author(s): Ballaro, Beverly; Bielaszka-DuVernay, Christina Publication Date: 01/01/2005 Product Type: Harvard Management Communication Letter Article Product Description: The best writers know that a catchy, engaging opening is only as effective as the text that follows it. After all, what is the value of hooking readers at the start of a report or memo if you let them go in the middle? Crafting written communications that command readers' attention from start to finish is not easy, especially when the topic in question is complex, dry, or both. Here's a strategy that can help: Approach the task by thinking like a speechwriter. Skilled speechwriters understand not only how to grab an audience, they understand how to focus their message so that the audience stays tuned in till the end. Read about some sure-fire speechwriting tips that can help you write to maximum effect. HBS Number: C0501D Subjects: Communication; Communication strategy; Interpersonal relations; Presentations; Writing Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership    Building a Leadership Brand   Add   View  16 pp.  Article Author(s): Ulrich, Dave; Smallwood, Norm Publication Date: 07/01/2007 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article HBS Number: R0707G Subjects: Corporate vision; Leadership development; Management development; Management training; Managerial skills; Performance management; Strategic planning Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership Product Description: How do some firms produce a pipeline of consistently excellent managers? Instead of concentrating merely on strengthening the skills of individuals, these companies focus on building a broad organizational leadership capability. It's what Ulrich and Smallwood — co-founders of the RBL Group, a leadership development consultancy — call a leadership brand. Organizations with leadership brands take an “outside-in” approach to executive development. They begin with a clear statement of what they want to be known for by customers and then link it with a required set of management skills. The Lexus division of Toyota, for instance, translates its tagline — “The pursuit of perfection” — into an expectation that its leaders excel at managing quality processes. The slogan of Bon Secours Health System is “Good help to those in need.” It demands that its managers balance business skills with compassion and caring. The outside-in approach helps firms build a reputation for high-quality leaders whom customers trust to deliver on the company's promises. In examining 150 companies with strong leadership capabilities, the authors found that the organizations follow five strategies. First, make sure managers master the basics of leadership — for example, setting strategy and grooming talent. Second, ensure that leaders internalize customers' high expectations. Third, incorporate customer feedback into evaluations of executives. Fourth, invest in programs that help managers hone the right skills by    Building an Innovation Factory   Add   View  12 pp.  Article Hargadon, Andrew; Sutton, Robert I. New ideas are the precious currency of the new economy, but generating them doesn't have to be a mysterious process. The image of the lone genius inventing from scratch is a romantic fiction. Businesses that constantly innovate have sy HBS Number: R00304 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 5/1/2000 Subjects: Creativity; Entrepreneurial management; Innovation    Building an Innovation Factory (HBR OnPoint Enhanced Edition)   Add   View  20 pp.  Article Author(s): Hargadon, Andrew; Sutton, Robert I. Publication Date: 02/01/2001 Product Type: HBR OnPoint Article HBS Number: 6102 Subjects: Creativity; Entrepreneurial management; Innovation Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership 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. New ideas are the precious currency of the new economy, but generating them doesn't have to be a mysterious process. The image of the lone genius inventing from scratch is a romantic fiction. Businesses that constantly innovate have systematized the production and testing of new ideas, and the system can be replicated by practically any organization. The best innovators use old ideas as the raw materials for new ideas, a strategy the authors call knowledge brokering. The system for sustaining innovation is the knowledge brokering cycle, and the authors discuss its four parts. The first is capturing good ideas from a wide variety of sources. The second is keeping those ideas alive by playing with them, discussing them, and using them. Imagining new uses for old ideas is the third part — some knowledge brokers encourage cross-pollination by creating physical layouts that allow, or even force, people to interact with one another. The fourth is turning promising concepts into real services, products, processes, or business models. Companies can use all or part of the cycle. Large companies in particular desperately need to move ideas from one place to another. Some will want to build full-fledged consulting groups dedicated to internal knowledge brokering. Others can hire people who have faced problems similar to the companies' current problems. The mos    Building Better Boards   Add   View  16 pp.  Article Author(s): Nadler, David A. Publication Date: 05/01/2004 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article HBS Number: R0405G Subjects: Accountability; Board of directors; Corporate governance; Corporate responsibility; Self evaluation; Shareholder relations; Teams Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership Product Description: Companies facing new requirements for governance are scrambling to buttress financial reporting systems, overhaul board structures — whatever it takes to comply. But there are limits to how much the outside can impose good governance. Boards know what they ought to be: seats of challenge and inquiry that add value without meddling and make CEOs more effective but not all-powerful. A board can reach that goal only by functioning as a high-performance team, one that is competent, coordinated, collegial, and focused on an unambiguous goal. Such entities don't just evolve; they must be constructed to an exacting blueprint — what the author calls “board building.” In this article, Nadler offers an agenda and a set of tools for boards to define and achieve their objectives. It's important for a board to conduct regular self-assessments and to pay attention to the results of those analyses. As a first step, the directors and the CEO should agree on which of the following common board models best fits the company: passive, certifying, engaged, intervening, or operating. The directors and the CEO should then analyze which business tasks are most important and allot sufficient time and resources to them. Next, the board should take inventory of each director's strengths to ensure that the group as a whole possesses the skills necessary to do its work. Directors must exert more influence over meeting agendas and make sure they have the right information at the right time and in the right format to perform their duties. Finally, the board needs to f    Building Better Boards (HBR OnPoint Enhanced Edition)   Add   View  20 pp.  Article Author(s): Nadler, David A. Publication Date: 05/01/2004 Product Type: HBR OnPoint Article HBS Number: 693X Subjects: Board of directors; Corporate governance; Corporate responsibility; Shareholder relations; Teams Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership Product Description: This is an enhanced edition of HBR article R0405G, originally published in May 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. Companies facing new requirements for governance are scrambling to buttress financial reporting systems, overhaul board structures — whatever it takes to comply. But there are limits to how much the outside can impose good governance. Boards know what they ought to be: seats of challenge and inquiry that add value without meddling and make CEOs more effective but not all-powerful. A board can reach that goal only by functioning as a high-performance team, one that is competent, coordinated, collegial, and focused on an unambiguous goal. Such entities don't just evolve; they must be constructed to an exacting blueprint — what the author calls “board building.” In this article, Nadler offers an agenda and a set of tools for boards to define and achieve their objectives. It's important for a board to conduct regular self-assessments and to pay attention to the results of those analyses. As a first step, the directors and the CEO should agree on which of the following common board models best fits the company: passive, certifying, engaged, intervening, or operating. The directors and the CEO should then analyze which business tasks are most important and allot sufficient time and resources to them. Next, the board should take inventory of each director's strengths to ensure that the group as a whole possesses the skills necessary to do its work. Direc    Building Organizational Integrity   Add   View  10 pp.  Article Author(s): Kayes, D. Christopher; Stirling, David; Nielsen, Tjai M. Publication Date: 01/15/2007 Product Type: Business Horizons Article Publisher: Business Horizons/Indiana University HBS Number: BH222 Subjects: Compliance; Corporate governance; Employee relations; Ethics; Human resources management; Integrity; Organizational environment Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership Product Description: Ethical lapses by employees can put organizations at substantial risk. Although improved compliance procedures can help limit this risk, successful efforts must extend beyond compliance to build a culture of organizational integrity. Recent changes in regulatory requirements and more stringent sentencing guidelines demand an integrated approach to ethical awareness, one that encompasses the four organizational practices of controls, clearly defined principles and purpose, core values, and culture. Inevitably, the most difficult of these is building a culture of high ethical standards that are reflected in day-to-day practice. To overcome the barriers to building organizational integrity, leaders must question key organizational practices while constructing a culture based on ethical behaviors.    Building the Emotional Intelligence of Groups   Added   View  12 pp.  Article Vanessa Urch Druskat; Steven B. Wolff The management world knows by now that to be effective in the workplace, an individual needs high emotional intelligence. What isn't so well understood is that teams need it, too. Citing such companies as IDEO, Hewlett-Packard, and the Hay Group, the authors show that high emotional intelligence is at the heart of effective teams. These teams behave in ways that build relationships both inside and outside the team and that strengthen their ability to face challenges. High group emotional intelligence may seem like a simple matter of putting a group of emotionally intelligent individuals together. It's not. For a team to have high EI, it needs to create norms that establish mutual trust among members, a sense of group identity, and a sense of group efficacy. These three conditions are essential to a team's effectiveness because they are the foundation of true cooperation and collaboration. Group EI isn't a question of dealing with a necessary evil--catching emotions as they bubble up and promptly suppressing them. It's about bringing emotions deliberately to the surface and understanding how they affect the team's work. Group emotional intelligence is about exploring, embracing, and ultimately relying on the emotions that are at the core of teams. HBS Number: R0103E Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 3/1/01 Subjects: Employee morale; Group behavior; Group dynamics; Organizational behavior; Teams    Building the Emotional Intelligence of Groups (HBR OnPoint Enhanced Edition)   Added   View  20 pp.  Article Author(s): Druskat, Vanessa Urch; Wolff, Steven B. Publication Date: 03/01/2001 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 management world knows by now that to be effective in the workplace, an individual needs high emotional intelligence. What isn't so well understood is that teams need it, too. Citing such companies as IDEO, Hewlett-Packard, and the Hay Group, the authors show that high emotional intelligence is at the heart of effective teams. These teams behave in ways that build relationships both inside and outside the team and that strengthen their ability to face challenges. High group emotional intelligence may seem like a simple matter of putting a group of emotionally intelligent individuals together. It's not. For a team to have high EI, it needs to create norms that establish mutual trust among members, a sense of group identity, and a sense of group efficacy. These three conditions are essential to a team's effectiveness because they are the foundation of true cooperation and collaboration. Group EI isn't a question of dealing with a necessary evil — catching emotions as they bubble up and promptly suppressing them. It's about bringing emotions deliberately to the surface and understanding how they affect the team's work. Group emotional intelligence is about exploring, embracing, and ultimately relying on the emotions that are at the core of teams. HBS Number: 620X Subjects: Employee morale; Group behavior; Group dynamics; Organizational behavior; Teams Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership    Building Your Company’s Vision   Added   View  16 pp.  Article Collins, James C.; Porras, Jerry I. Companies that enjoy enduring success have a core purpose and core values that remain fixed while their strategies and practices endlessly adapt to a changing world. The rare ability to balance continuity and change--requiring a consciously practiced discipline--is closely linked to the ability to develop a vision. Vision provides guidance about what to preserve and what to change. A new prescriptive framework adds clarity and rigor to the vague and fuzzy vision concepts at large today. Managers who master a discovery process to identify core ideology can link their vision statements to the fundamental dynamic that motivates truly visionary companies--that is, the dynamic of preserving the core and stimulating progress. HBS Number: 96501 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 9/1/1996 Subjects: Corporate culture; Creativity; Employee attitude; Human behavior; Organizational behavior; Political systems; Values; Vision    Building Your Company’s Vision (HBR OnPoint Enhanced Edition)   Add   View  24 pp.  Article Collins, James C.; Porras, Jerry I. 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: 410X Type: HBR OnPoint Article Publication Date: 2/1/2000 Subjects: Corporate culture; Creativity; Employee attitude; Human behavior; Organizational behavior; Political systems; Values; Vision    Bureaucracy Becomes a Four-Letter Word   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Author(s): Starbuck, William H. Publication Date: 10/01/2005 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Product Description: The tension between bureaucracy and innovation dates back to the reign of Louis XIV, says University of Oregon's William H. Starbuck. HBS Number: F0510B Geographic Setting: France Subjects: Business history; Innovation; Organizational behavior; Regulations Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership

Business Babble: “Resonate”   Add   View  3 pp.  Article Author(s): Bierck, Richard Publication Date: 08/01/2001 Product Type: Harvard Management Communication Letter Article Product Description: Writer Richard Bierck examines the business world's adoption of the word "resonate." HBS Number: C0108E Subjects: Communication Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership    Business Babble: “Value Added”   Add   View  3 pp.  Article Author(s): Bierck, Richard Publication Date: 10/01/1999 Product Type: Harvard Management Communication Letter Article Product Description: Writer Richard Bierck takes a stand against the abundant misuse of the term "value added." HBS Number: C9910D Subjects: EVA; Management communication Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership    Business Babble: American Business Jargon Takes Over the World   Add   View  3 pp.  Article Author(s): Bierck, Richard Publication Date: 06/01/2001 Product Type: Harvard Management Communication Letter Article Product Description: Writer Richard Bierck explores the growing influence of American business jargon over the global business community. HBS Number: C0106D Subjects: Communication; International relations; Management communication Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership    Business Babble: Consultantspeak   Add   View  3 pp.  Article Author(s): Bierck, Richard Publication Date: 04/01/2000 Product Type: Harvard Management Communication Letter Article Product Description: Do you or does someone you know suffer from Infectious Consultant Syndrome, or the tendency to spout "the vague, sterile, redundant, and trendy utterances of consultants"? Writer Richard Bierck offers an amusing list of phrases to watch out for. HBS Number: C0004E Subjects: Management communication Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership    Business Babble: Machismo-Speak   Add   View  3 pp.  Article Author(s): Bierck, Richard Publication Date: 09/01/2000 Product Type: Harvard Management Communication Letter Article Product Description: Writer Richard Bierck investigates the latest twists on macho metaphors. HBS Number: C0009C Subjects: Communication; Interpersonal relations Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership    Business Babble: The Language of Denial   Add   View  3 pp.  Article Author(s): Bierck, Richard Publication Date: 03/01/2001 Product Type: Harvard Management Communication Letter Article Product Description: In this installment of our occasional series on the verbal excesses of the business world, writer Richard Bierck takes on the new argot created when the dot-com bubble burst. HBS Number: C0103C Subjects: Communication; Management communication Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership    Business Babble: Verbing   Add   View  3 pp.  Article Author(s): Bierck, Richard Publication Date: 12/01/1999 Product Type: Harvard Management Communication Letter Article Product Description: Writer Richard Bierck takes on the business world's flagrant misuse of nouns as verbs. HBS Number: C9912C Subjects: Communication; Writing Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership    Business Babble: Webspeak   Add   View  3 pp.  Article Author(s): Bierck, Richard Publication Date: 03/01/2000 Product Type: Harvard Management Communication Letter Article Product Description: Now that the English language is in the hands of Web designers and computer engineers, should we be worried? Richard Bierck's quiz helps readers self-diagnose any incidents of "Webspeakitus." HBS Number: C0003C Subjects: Management communication; Writing Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership    Business Communications That Work   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Author(s): Turner, Chris Publication Date: 03/01/1999 Product Type: Harvard Management Communication Letter Article Product Description: Ever wonder why most corporate communications programs fail? Has your corporate headquarters attempted to start a new program by simply sending photocopies of a presentation to each employee explaining the new program? Has anybody at HQ ever thought about how people outside senior management might view the new program? Creating engaging communications is easy if you think about the issues from the recipient's point of view and get rid of your poor communications habits. This article offers several ways to get started on a new corporate communications program that your employees will embrace. HBS Number: C9903E Subjects: Business plans; Communication in organizations; Communication strategy; Corporate culture; Innovation; Management communication Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership    Business Lessons from Leeches   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Author(s): Abrahams, Marc Publication Date: 10/01/2006 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article HBS Number: F0610B Subjects: Best practices; Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership Product Description: The editor of the “Annals of Improbable Research ” observes that leeches have a thing or two to teach us about so-called best practices.    Call to Action for Business Writing   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Author(s): Clayton, John Publication Date: 10/01/2001 Product Type: Harvard Management Communication Letter Article Product Description: Just as people like movies filled with action and sculptures that show movement, they like business documents that indicate the actions being performed. But most business writing is inert, motionless. That's why it fails to grab the reader. Writing teacher John Clayton offers some solid tips for "verbifying" your writing. If your passive verb habit is too ingrained to kick altogether, don't despair--Clayton also tells how to search out and fix weak, passive verbs during the editing process. HBS Number: C0110C Subjects: Management communication; Writing Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership    Campaigning for Change   Add   View  16 pp.  Article Author(s): Hirschhorn, Larry Publication Date: 07/01/2002 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article HBS Number: R0207G Subjects: Change management; Communication in organizations; Implementation; Leadership; Organizational change; Organizational development; Organizational structure; Strategy implementation Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership Product Description: Most organizations must change if they're to stay alive. Change is tough to accomplish, but it's not impossible and can be systematized. The author, who has been involved in change initiatives at scores of companies, believes that the success of such programs has more to do with execution than with conceptualization. The successful change programs he observed had one thing in common: They employed three distinct but linked campaigns — political, marketing, and military. A political campaign creates a coalition strong enough to support and guide the initiative. A marketing campaign must go beyond simply publicizing the initiative's benefits. It focuses on listening to ideas that bubble up from the field as well as on working with lead customers to design the initiative. A clearly articulated theme for the transformation program must also be developed. A military campaign deploys executives' scarce resources of attention and time. Successful executives launch all three campaigns simultaneously. The three always feed on one another, and if any one campaign is not properly implemented, the change initiative is bound to fail.    Campaigning for Change (HBR OnPoint Enhanced Edition)   Add   View  16 pp.  Article Author(s): Hirschhorn, Larry Publication Date: 07/01/2002 Product Type: HBR OnPoint Article Product Description: This is an enhanced edition of HBR article R0207G, originally published in July 2002. HBR OnPoint articles include the full-text HBR article, plus a synopsis and annotated bibliography. Most organizations must change if they're to stay alive. Change is tough to accomplish, but it's not impossible and can be systematized. The author, who has been involved in change initiatives at scores of companies, believes that the success of such programs has more to do with execution than with conceptualization. The successful change programs he observed had one thing in common: They employed three distinct but linked campaigns -- political, marketing, and military. A political campaign creates a coalition strong enough to support and guide the initiative. A marketing campaign must go beyond simply publicizing the initiative's benefits. It focuses on listening to ideas that bubble up from the field as well as on working with lead customers to design the initiative. A clearly articulated theme for the transformation program must also be developed. A military campaign deploys executives' scarce resources of attention and time. Successful executives launch all three campaigns simultaneously. The three always feed on one another, and if any one campaign is not properly implemented, the change initiative is bound to fail. HBS Number: 1385 Subjects: Change management; Communication in organizations; Implementation; Leadership; Organizational change; Organizational development; Organizational structure; Strategy implementation Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership    Can a Shy Person Learn to Network?   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Author(s): Billington, Jim Publication Date: 09/01/1996 Product Type: Harvard Management Update Article Product Description: This case study considers a senior vice president in a financial institution who fears that his job may fall victim to changing business trends. Although he realizes that networking could help, he resists it. One expert says that a study shows that 88% of us identify ourselves as shy. So, how does one push through it? The experts advise paying attention to the three overlapping networks of contacts--the task network on the job, the career network in professional organizations, and the social network of friends and acquaintances. And remember, the true form of networking is not about getting a job, but about making--and maintaining--good human relationships that are held together by mutual interests. HBS Number: U9609C Geographic Setting: Industry Setting: Subjects: Career advancement; Interpersonal relations; Personal strategy & style Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership    Can Absence Make a Team Grow Stronger?   Add   View  12 pp.  Article Author(s): Majchrzak, Ann; Malhotra, Arvind; Stamps, Jeffrey; Lipnack, Jessica Publication Date: 05/01/2004 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article HBS Number: R0405J Subjects: Group behavior; Group dynamics; Organizational behavior; Teams; Telecommunications; Telecommuters; Virtual communities Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership Product Description: Some projects have such diverse requirements that they need a variety of specialists to work on them. But often the best-qualified specialists are scattered around the globe, perhaps at several companies. Remarkably, an extensive benchmarking study reveals, it isn't necessary to bring team members together to get their best work. In fact, they can be even more productive if they stay separated and do all their collaborating virtually. The scores of successful virtual teams the authors examined didn't have many of the psychological and practical obstacles that plagued their more traditional, face-to-face counterparts. Team members felt freer to contribute — especially outside their established areas of expertise. The fact that such groups could not assemble easily actually made their projects go faster, as people did not wait for meetings to make decisions, and individuals, in the comfort of their own offices, had full access to their files and the complementary knowledge of their local colleagues. Reaping those advantages, though, demanded shrewd management of a virtual team's work processes and social dynamics. Rather than depend on videoconferencing or e-mail, which could be unwieldy or exclusionary, successful virtual teams made extensive use of sophisticated online team rooms, where everyone could easily see the state of the work in progress, talk about the work in ongoing threaded discussions, and be reminded of decisions, rationales, and commitments. Differences were most effectively hashed out in teleconferences,    Can I Apologize by E-mail?: Guidelines for Delivering Difficult Messages   Add   View  5 pp.  Article Author(s): Stauffer, David Publication Date: 11/01/1999 Product Type: Harvard Management Communication Letter Article Product Description: With all the communications options that are available to us today, it's sometimes hard to choose the appropriate medium for delivering important, difficult, or sensitive messages. HMCL surveyed business communications experts and developed a set of guidelines for delivering difficult messages, whether in person, by written letter, or via telephone, e-mail, or fax. HBS Number: C9911B Subjects: Communication; Interpersonal relations; Management communication; Writing Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership    Can the Lion Lie Down with the Lion?: Learning the Art of Dialogue   Add   View  5 pp.  Article Author(s): Ehrenfeld, Tom Publication Date: 12/01/1999 Product Type: Harvard Management Communication Letter Article Product Description: What can you do when discussions become so adversarial that real communication becomes impossible? Try Dialogue. Dialogue is a structured form of communication that allows people to understand how they form assumptions and make decisions. It's a way of getting to the root of conflict without assigning blame. The key is learning to distinguish between one's self and one's views. Major companies are now using Dialogue in knowledge management programs and to deal with reorganization issues. Dialogue is also useful in large groups with diverse points of view. This article includes an annotated list of recent books on Dialogue. HBS Number: C9912A Subjects: Communication; Communication in organizations; Interpersonal relations Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership    Can This Partnership Be Saved? Getting an Alliance Back on Track   Add   View  4 pp.  Article Author(s): Segil, Larraine Publication Date: 10/01/2004 Product Type: Harvard Management Communication Letter Article Product Description: For most companies, an underperforming business relationship is a painful fact of life at one time or another. When alliances do not pay off, the working relationship between the organizations can become strained and communications acrimonious, which in turn makeS achieving business objectives even more difficult. Breaking out of this self-perpetuating "doom loop" and getting the relationship back on track becomes a real challenge. When faced with an underperforming key business relationship, companies commonly react in one of three ways: they terminate the relationship, throw additional resources at the relationship, or minimize the amount of time, energy, and money spent on it. Each approach produces significant problems. An alliance can be saved, however. Learn more about a "relationship relaunch," the process by which you examine how communication and collaboration between parties can be improved, allowing the relationship to deliver its true value. HBS Number: C0410B Subjects: Alliances; Communication; Communication in organizations; Communication strategy; Interpersonal relations; Partnerships Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership    Can You Create More Value?   Add   View  5 pp.  Article Author(s): Gary, Loren Publication Date: 08/01/2004 Product Type: Harvard Management Update Article Product Description: What is your company doing to get ahead? Few managers appreciate the value of activities in units outside their own. A multiple-perspective model helps you see how other activities contribute to the success of your own unit and the company as a whole. Read about the competing values model, which can help give you a richer sense of the possibilities for creating value on both an organizational and personal le