You would think that savvy, sophisticated companies would have an easy time figuring out whether a move they are considering would blow up on them, wouldn't you? And yet, in the last few weeks we've seen some amazing examples of firms that seem to be tone deaf about how their customers feel about them. Take Bank of America. A month ago, it famously introduced a fee for using its debit cards, to a withering storm of protest. One customer was sufficiently enraged to gather 200,000 signatures asking the bank to reverse its decision. Oops. Yesterday, the bank announced plans to do just that. But…
Harvard Business
-
Most Topular Stories
-
Bank of America: A Case Study in Tone Deafness
Rita McGrath2 Nov 2011 | 9:33 am -
Make Time for Time
Anthony Tjan22 Dec 2011 | 9:00 am"Donner du temps au temps," the late French President François Mitterrand used to say. "Give time for time." The notion being that you need to make time in order to appreciate the ultimate gift we have been given: time on this earth. Every day, we make conscious and less conscious choices on time allocation. Some uses of our time are routine — dropping off kids, eating meals, or going for a daily run. In between those routines, we look to our agendas to see what we are meant to be doing, whom to meet, when and where to go next. Most of us will spend more than one-third of our lives and… -
Crowd-Sourced Labor: Will It Trump Permanent Employment?
Rita McGrath1 Feb 2012 | 10:50 amA few weeks ago, I wrote up some of the trends that I'm going to be watching in 2012. One was the interesting phenomena of access to assets replacing ownership of assets in more and more realms. Car-sharing services such as ZipCar, room-sharing services such as AirBnB, and project-based programming services from companies like odesk are upending a lot of our assumptions about what it takes to run a business. Indeed, owning anything may soon be seen as an industrial-age relic in a lot of cases. The trouble with assets is that owning them creates inflexibility that can cause problems when… -
How Many Customers Did You Lose Today?
Rita McGrath7 Dec 2011 | 12:36 pmMy theme this month appears to be tone deafness among business designers. Cue Bank of America! But genuinely, one of the most vexing dilemmas for senior executives is being plugged in to what is actually going on in the front lines of their business. It's all too easy to miss critically important customer experience information when one is engaging in the day-to-day grind that constitutes an executive's job. All the same, not being attuned to the way your business is perceived by customers can lead to a lot of damage. Here's a recent example. My husband and I were traveling from Edinburgh to… -
Africa's Chance to Leapfrog the West
HBR.org10 Feb 2012 | 9:47 amYou've heard about the African Renaissance, right? The Aid Bosses, once the unquestioned successors in Africa to the joint heirloom of Mother Teresa and Lord Clive of Chennai, are finding it harder and harder to get face time with the political grandees in our wheeling and dealing capitals. The Chinese are fawning all over our oil and copper, forcing once-aloof Westerners to write treatises about why China's engagement with the continent isn't all marshmallow candy. These concerns get polite nods here and there but, mostly, serious Africans ignore them and firmly redirect the conversation…
-
HBR.org
-
Africa's Chance to Leapfrog the West
10 Feb 2012 | 9:47 amYou've heard about the African Renaissance, right? The Aid Bosses, once the unquestioned successors in Africa to the joint heirloom of Mother Teresa and Lord Clive of Chennai, are finding it harder and harder to get face time with the political grandees in our wheeling and dealing capitals. The Chinese are fawning all over our oil and copper, forcing once-aloof Westerners to write treatises about why China's engagement with the continent isn't all marshmallow candy. These concerns get polite nods here and there but, mostly, serious Africans ignore them and firmly redirect the conversation… -
Wooing the Promiscuous Chinese Consumer
10 Feb 2012 | 9:36 amCompanies doing business in China constantly struggle to convert brand awareness into loyalty. A marketer will invest furiously to ensure that his or her brand is part of consumers' consideration sets — only to see them swayed by a slightly cheaper price, a flashier promotion, or a more aggressive in-store salesperson. Many marketers wonder just how to attract and retain Chinese consumers when they are so promiscuous. Chinese consumers will only consider buying brands they trust and like. According to a recent study we conducted, 45% of respondents believe that well-known brands stand… -
Idea Watch: Harnessing Creativity
9 Feb 2012 | 5:48 pmAn interview with Andy O'Connell and Scott Berinato, editors of the Idea Watch section of HBR and The Daily Stat. Download this podcast -
Are Successful People Nice?
9 Feb 2012 | 2:23 pmSince Daniel Goleman's Emotional Intelligence, we've recognized the importance of tuning into social and emotional factors in the workplace. But many popular depictions of the workplace don't show any evidence of that sensitivity. Mad Men, Wall Street, and others impress that in business, only the strong survive. But emotional intelligence implies that successful leaders should be nice. And while being nice may have social benefits, does it pay? The key is in how agreeable you are. Timothy Judge, Beth Livingston, and Charlice Hurst examined this trait in a paper [PDF] in the Journal of… -
Managing the "Crazy Ideas" Conundrum
9 Feb 2012 | 1:49 pmThe most painfully awkward debates I hear in ostensibly innovative organizations revolve around "crazy ideas." When unexpected challenges arise, what ideas are acceptably crazy? Which ideas are too crazy? Which ideas are so crazy that no one looks at or listens to their champions quite the same way ever again? Consequently, top management teams tend to be the Goldilocks of crazy: They don't want insane, and they don't need conventional; they want their craziness to be "just right." Defining those crazy zones is one of the most difficult but more important cultural decisions innovation…
-
HBR IdeaCast
-
287: Idea Watch: Harnessing Creativity
9 Feb 2012 | 5:48 pmAndy O'Connell and Scott Berinato, editors of the Idea Watch section of HBR and The Daily Stat. -
286: The End of Customer Service Heroes
2 Feb 2012 | 5:58 pmFrances Frei and Anne Morriss, authors of "Uncommon Service: How to Win by Putting Customers at the Core of Your Business." -
285: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar on Teamwork and Career Transitions
26 Jan 2012 | 5:37 pmKareem Abdul-Jabbar, basketball legend, New York Times best-selling author, and filmmaker. -
284: Designing Spaces for Creative Collaboration
19 Jan 2012 | 5:06 pmScott Doorley and Scott Witthoft, co-directors of the Environments Collaborative at the Stanford University d.school and authors of "Make Space." -
283: The Right Mindset for Success
12 Jan 2012 | 5:32 pmCarol Dweck, professor at Stanford University and author of "Mindset: The New Psychology of Success."
-
Our Editors
-
Wanted: Idea Fusers
7 Feb 2012 | 8:40 amIt's become pretty much common knowledge that great innovation springs from the ability to pull two unlike things together to create a beautiful third. Steve Jobs famously shifted a paradigm when he fused calligraphy with technology to create the Mac's graphical user interface. Many great inventions fuse something very simple, cheap and widely accessible — say, a small piece of paper — with something expensive and complex — say, a medical laboratory test — to come up with a marvelous solution, such as George Whitesides' postage-stamp sized diagnostic tool. And though… -
HBR's Best Videos, Infographics, Podcasts, and Slideshows of 2011
29 Dec 2011 | 10:13 amAs you take some time to reflect, relax, and renew before the year to come, we offer you our most popular multimedia content from the year that was: podcasts, videos, slideshows, and infographics that we hope help you chart a successful course in 2012. First off, our most popular podcast this year was Justin Fox's interview with Bob Pozen, "Productivity Secrets of a Very Busy Man." Perhaps if I, too, were willing to eat the same bowl of cold cereal every morning — all in the name of simplifying and streamlining — I could be as prolifically perspicacious as the Harvard Business… -
Amazon Should Partner with Independent Bookstores
27 Dec 2011 | 1:48 pmI didn't buy any gifts from Amazon this year. I, whose entire job basically depends on the Internet — including editing HBR Singles like this and this, both sold through Amazon — developed a moral and intellectual aversion to purchasing goods from this Internet stalwart. Here's what happened. My original plan this holiday shopping season was, as usual, to order a pile of books — and kitchen gizmos, and DVDs, and who knows what all — from the online giant. I'd re-up my Prime membership, have everything shipped directly, and be done with it less than an hour. Merry… -
The Euro Crisis: Was Cameron Right?
13 Dec 2011 | 9:52 amIn yet another effort to solve the euro crisis, France and Germany last week agreed on a stability pact that essentially offers increased bailout funds in return for even stronger fiscal austerity on the part of the major debtor countries of Europe. But the deal arguably necessitated changes to the Treaties governing the European Union and as such required assent from all 27 EU member countries, ten of which are not members of the euro zone but whose economies are nonetheless closely integrated with it. To get around this problem and to provide the markets with a united front of governments,… -
How Technology Made Me Love to Shop
21 Nov 2011 | 10:01 amThis blog post is part of the HBR Online Forum The Future of Retail. Like many men, I've never been very enthusiastic about shopping. That's partly because I'm frugal, and don't enjoy spending money. It's partly due to the hassles I associate with visiting retail stores — a series of inconveniences that begins in the parking lot (hunting for spaces), continues in the aisles (where I can never find what I need), and ends at the cash registers (where I have little patience for long lines). Much of the problem, though, lies in psychology. While I can be confident of my decision-making…
-
Tammy Erickson
-
The Case of the Rolling Stone (that Gathers No Moss) Resume
9 Feb 2012 | 9:30 amWhat would you think if a job candidate sent you a resume listing six jobs held in the last four years? Some of you would probably have an instinctively negative reaction: "This is someone who can't make up her mind or settle down — probably a flake. In 'my day' everyone knew that you couldn't change jobs more often than once every two years." Or would you have a more sympathetic interpretation? Perhaps that this is evidence of a candidate who is willing to take risks and seek out new opportunities? Resumes must be truthful — if you've had six jobs in four years, you need to say… -
Your Diversity Officer Should Be a Cruise Director
11 May 2011 | 8:09 amI'm uneasy with the idea of affinity groups, the single-dimension networks that are all the rage in the corporate diversity world. Seems every company I know is forming affinity groups centered on various differences: race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, generation, and so on. I understand why they're popular. We all like to feel we belong, and identifying with a similarly-defined set of individuals is comfortable and slows the assimilation of the smaller group into the dominate group norm. Rather than forcing a corporation of clones, affinity groups help maintain some of the outward… -
Don't Let the Absence of Facts Slow You Down
6 May 2011 | 7:52 amWe've all read articles bemoaning how calculators and their digital cousins have destroyed our children's motivation to memorize the multiplication tables, crippling their mental math skills for life. Recent experience prompts me to put another such burning proposition on the table: Google may have ruined our ability to estimate. Last year I spent a great deal of time working with a corporation that was tackling a critically important issue: whether it would have access to the talent it needs over the next several decades. This is a complicated and interesting question. To answer it properly,… -
Rethinking Performance Assessment
20 Apr 2011 | 11:25 amHere's another assumption that is deeply embedded in much of our organizational behavior, but sadly out-of-date: If I keep my head down and do my own task well, I'll be fine. This assumes that an individual's responsibility is simply to do a "good job." In hierarchical organizations, the standard for gauging an individual's performance is typically whether an employee has met specific objectives. As a corollary, the unwritten rule among colleagues in most organizations today assumes individual autonomy — "you do your job and I'll do mine." Peer relationships are typically characterized… -
Generations Around the Globe
4 Apr 2011 | 7:50 amGeography significantly influences the formation of generational beliefs and behavior. Each country's unique social, political, and economic events shape specific views and attitudes among today's adults. Western generational models cannot be applied broadly to a global workforce. My latest research builds on an approach of understanding the generations by looking at the shared formative events that shaped their early years. We did in-depth research into the events occurring in each country during the time each generational cohort would have been in their teens and pre-teens. Understanding…
-
Umair Haque
-
Create a Meaningful Life Through Meaningful Work
30 Jan 2012 | 9:03 amIn case you haven't been following my tell-all confessional — I mean Twitter feed — lately, I've been in Manhattan for the last few weeks. Hanging out in all the wrong places (read: painfully hip power hotels), I've had the questionable privilege of overhearing more than my fair share of Very Serious Conversations from the movers and shakers of the world. And boy, have they been tedious: mostly, about eking out slightly sharper terms for deals for more yawn-inducing stuff (whether flicks, financial instruments, or kicks) that's destined not to matter. So here's a tiny hypothesis:… -
Mastering the Art of Living Meaningfully Well
28 Dec 2011 | 2:01 pmSo, how's your 2011 been? Mine: the proverbial best and worst of times. I had my first book published, finished my second, and made it (much to my own massive surprise) onto the Thinkers50 list. But I also lost, in the same month, two of the people I loved the most. That's life: the act of living in the human universe — in the full ebb and flow of its deep tides of joy, sorrow, accomplishment, and grief. All of which made me reflect on (if you've been following me on Twitter lately, perhaps even brood over) a Big Question: what does it mean to live meaningfully well? If you accept the… -
Is America a Failing State?
20 Dec 2011 | 7:48 amCurrencies imploding, markets fluctuating, politicians dithering, economies stagnating, societies fracturing, unrest spreading. Welcome to the winter of our discontent — again. Is America failing? And are the other advanced economies following in its staggering footsteps (UK, I'm looking at you)? Consider my very crude, edited, back-of-the-envelope take on a few of the criteria outlined in the Failed States index, one by one. Uneven, stratified, exclusionary economic development, accompanied by economic flatlining? Sounds familiar. Mounting demographic pressures, including slum… -
America: Excelling at Mediocrity
28 Oct 2011 | 1:26 pmRecently, I've been around the world and then back to the US of A. And what strikes me is how fast many parts of the globe are forging ahead — and how decrepit coming home can feel in comparison (JFK airport, I'm looking at you). It's got me wondering: what is America still the best at? Consider this thought experiment. If you were really, really, really rich — say, not just part of the routinely opulent 1%, but a card-carrying member of the eye-poppingly decadent .01% — what part of your life would be American? If you had the money, I'd bet you'd drive a German car, wear… -
Make the Dangerous Choice to Dissent
13 Oct 2011 | 2:45 pmWork harder, feel emptier, buy more, grow poorer...work harder. Sound familiar? That's the conventional wisdom of the omnipresent church of more, bigger, faster, cheaper, nastier, now. The problem is that the conventional wisdom isn't just wrong. If we want real human prosperity, the ability to live a live that not merely glitters, but that matters — well, then it was never right. That's the nightmare whirling noiselessly within the dilapidated American dream. And while the dream's being furiously exported around the globe — and while the world might be seduced, despite lingering…
-
Best Practices
-
When to Share Sensitive Information with Your Team
31 Jan 2012 | 9:25 amBeing the boss means you are often privy to information that your team isn't. You may learn that a major client is unhappy with your service, or that senior leaders are considering outsourcing your team's work. At these moments, it's easy to feel stuck between your bosses and the people you manage. Do you share the information? Or do you protect your employees from it? Whatever the news, it's up to you to decide whether, when, and how to tell your team. What the Experts Say There are of course times when you are not allowed to share the news — your company has been acquired but the deal… -
How to Work with Someone You Hate
30 Jan 2012 | 9:29 amWorking with someone you hate can be distracting and draining. Pompous jerk, annoying nudge, or incessant complainer, an insufferable colleague can negatively affect your attitude and performance. Instead of focusing on the work you have to do together, you may end up wasting time and energy trying to keep your emotions in check and attempting to manage the person's behavior. Fortunately, with the right tactics, you can still have a productive working relationship with someone you can't stand. What the Experts Say If you work with someone you don't like, you're not alone. The detested… -
Boost Your Career with Social Media: Tips for the Uninitiated
20 Dec 2011 | 10:55 amYou've heard the horror stories: a job applicant gets turned down because his potential employer discovered his objectionable tweets, or saw pictures of his keg party on Facebook. There is a lot of advice out there about keeping your online activity from hurting your career. But there's a flip side. When handled correctly, social media can help you professionally. You can use it to enhance your personal brand, establish yourself as an expert in a field, or demonstrate fluency with all things digital. The key is to be proactive about managing your activity and image. What the Experts Say It… -
Job Seekers: Get HR on Your Side
30 Nov 2011 | 9:00 amEmployers are dealing with more job applicants than ever. With thousands of submissions for a single vacancy, companies must be more diligent when sorting the wheat from the chaff. Many rely on HR managers to screen out applicants who aren't qualified for the job or a good fit for the company. This step may feel like a roadblock to you as the applicant, but there are good reasons companies do it. Instead of thinking, "Ugh, I have to talk to HR," focus on how you can work with the department to pass this critical hurdle. What the Experts Say The majority of job applications die before the… -
Delivering an Effective Performance Review
3 Nov 2011 | 9:29 amIt's performance review season, and you know the drill. Drag each of your direct reports into a conference room for a one-on-one, hand them an official-looking document, and then start in with the same, tired conversation. Say some positive things about what the employee is good at, then some unpleasant things about what he's not good at, and end — wearing your most solicitous grin — with some more strokes of his ego. The result: a mixed message that leaves even your best employees feeling disappointed. But if you take the right approach, appraisals are an excellent opportunity to…
-
Scott Anthony
-
Don't Confuse Passion with Competence
8 Feb 2012 | 8:26 amThe most successful innovators are consistently portrayed as possessing a passion that borders on dogmatism. They work tirelessly to bend reality to achieve their vision, with Steve Jobs and his "reality distortion field" serving as the prototypical example. There's no doubt that passion is a critical component of innovation. After all, innovation is awfully hard work, with plenty of false starts. Rosabeth Moss Kanter teaches that everything can look like a failure in the middle. Mike Tyson puts it another way: "Everybody has a plan, until they get punched in the face." Passion is necessary… -
A.G. Lafley vs. Steve Jobs
23 Jan 2012 | 3:41 pmUsually the question comes right after I tell an audience that I put former Procter & Gamble CEO A.G. Lafley on my "Innovation Mount Rushmore" as a reminder of the importance of investing time and energy to understand the target market. "But how do you square that with Steve Jobs?" an intrepid audience member asks. "After all, Jobs said, 'It isn't the customer's job to know what they want.'" It feels like a classic battle — the scientific approach of a company that launches 80 market research studies a day versus the intuitive touch of the iconic innovator of our time. But it's a false… -
Kodak and the Brutal Difficulty of Transformation
17 Jan 2012 | 11:46 am2012 has not gotten off to a great start for Eastman Kodak. Three of the company's directors quit near the end of last year, and word recently emerged that the company was on the brink of filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The easy narrative is that Kodak is a classic case of a company blind to the disruptive changes in its marketplace. Like many easy narratives, this one is not quite right. In the 20th century, Kodak was truly one of the world's powerhouses. Its rise to prominence began when it launched its affordable Brownie camera in 1900. In the decades that followed Kodak… -
How to Choose the Ideas Your Company Should Invest In
11 Jan 2012 | 8:51 amMy last post described how Innosight follows a three-stage process to evaluate investment proposals from outside entrepreneurs. But deciding how to invest in ideas at a corporation is a different beast. In The Innovator's Guide to Growth we suggested that companies should create one-page "Idea Resumes" that capture the essence of an idea on a single PowerPoint slide. After this starting point, however, our VC process holds pretty well. The first decision is whether to explore an idea more deeply. Consider some combination of the following criteria: Does what we hope to do fit our strategy? -
A Disciplined Approach to Evaluating Ideas
3 Jan 2012 | 10:37 am"Make sure you ask the right questions at the right time." That's one memorable piece of advice from a leader at a global innovation powerhouse. Unfortunately, it is a piece of advice that is heeded too infrequently inside large companies. At many companies, the idea evaluation process revolves around detailed Excel spreadsheets, comprehensive PowerPoint documents, and an orchestrated sequence of pre-meetings leading up to a decision meeting. This kind of disciplined approach works very well when companies have knowledge that lets them be precise in their analysis, and executives have the…
-
Peter Bregman
-
How to Start the Big Project You've Been Putting Off
9 Feb 2012 | 10:30 amI want to write a screenplay. I wanted to write one last year, but other work took more time than I expected, and I kept pushing "write screenplay" off my to-do list. I know I'm not alone in struggling to make incremental progress on long-term projects or goals. How do you get started when you have "all the time in the world"? Maybe you have a project with no deadline, like my screenplay. Or maybe you have a deadline that's months away — like preparing a speech, developing a business plan, or designing a training program. Perhaps you have a habit of procrastinating on projects with… -
The Biggest Myth in Time Management
24 Jan 2012 | 2:17 pmBrad* is as hard a worker as anyone I know. He's not just busy, he's keenly focused on getting the right things done. And it pays off — he is the largest single revenue generator at his well-known professional services firm. A few days before Thanksgiving, Brad flew from Boston to Los Angeles with his family. He was going to work for the first few days and then relax with his family. During the flight, he decided not to use the plane's internet access, choosing to talk and play with his children instead. A five-hour digital vacation. When they landed, Brad turned on his BlackBerry and… -
Do People Really Want You to Be Honest?
10 Jan 2012 | 11:49 amMy wife Eleanor and I were walking up a mountain road, enjoying a rare moment of being alone together. As we rounded a bend, we saw a friend, Nancy,* not too far ahead. When we caught up with her she suggested we walk together. I've known Nancy for 35 years. We're close friends and both Eleanor and I love spending time with her. But, in that moment, we didn't want to walk with her. We wanted time to ourselves. We also didn't want to slow to her pace. Which is the excuse we used, explaining that I wanted to keep my heart rate in an aerobic zone. It was true and, somehow, felt less offensive… -
Your Problem Isn't Motivation
4 Jan 2012 | 9:40 am"Peter," my friend Byron emailed me a few days ago. "I haven't been diligent about working out over the past five years and I'm trying to get back in the gym and get myself into a healthier state. I've found that on my quest for a Mind, Body, Spirit balance, my body has been neglected. I need to fix it, and it's VERY hard for me to get motivated. Any insight?" It's the kind of question that's on many of our minds in the midst of New Year's resolution season. Something you should know about Byron: He recently started a business and he's constantly developing his skills through training… -
The Power of Workplace DIY
20 Dec 2011 | 11:16 amPlural Investments*, a hedge fund started several years ago, had a problem. They needed art on the walls of their New York City offices. It was a small problem of no strategic importance, one that could be solved quickly and effortlessly by simply buying a few paintings. But sometimes, problems lacking strategic importance never get solved because, well, they're just not that important. Which is what happened at Plural. The agenda item "Art in the office" kept getting pushed off in favor of work more critical to the business. Still, it remained a problem because no one liked having blank…
-
Dan Pallotta
-
The Real Virtual Reality
26 Jan 2012 | 12:34 pmI usually go for a walk in the morning and listen to music or a dharma talk. Occasionally I listen to nothing (or so it would appear by the absence of earbuds), but then I find the chatter of my mind so nauseating that I have to do something to stop it. This morning I was more present than usual. I noticed things in the real world that in the past two years of walking I have noticed not once: that the fire hydrants on our street are red. That the street next to ours has old-fashioned black Victorian lampposts. That the asphalt on which I have walked for many dozens of hours is not one… -
An Executive Pay Witch Hunt
20 Jan 2012 | 10:57 amNew York governor Andrew Cuomo has turned what should have been a simple, targeted criminal justice investigation into a destructive witch hunt of all New York charities. Such populist opportunism at the expense of the good name of the humanitarian sector has become epidemic. Elected officials consistently conflate smart investments in the talent, organizational strength, and long-term planning necessary to address massive social problems with fraud. Why? Because they lack a fundamental understanding of how long-term social problems get solved and because the humanitarian sector has been too… -
I Don't Understand What Anyone Is Saying Anymore
5 Dec 2011 | 9:57 amListen to Dan Pallotta explain why we still use jargon, even though we hate it. I'd say that in about half of my business conversations, I have almost no idea what other people are saying to me. The language of internet business models has made the problem even worse. When I was younger, if I didn't understand what people were saying, I thought I was stupid. Now I realize that if it's to people's benefit that I understand them but I don't, then they're the ones who are stupid. There are at least five strains of this epidemic. Abstractionitis We have forgotten how to use the real names of real… -
Stop Thinking Outside the Box
7 Nov 2011 | 9:37 amThe exhortation to think outside the box has become ubiquitous in business. So much so that it has become the new box inside of which everyone thinks. It pays lip service to the notion of transformation without really understanding the difference between transformation and change, and often without tolerance for the real thinking that must occur for an idea to be truly outside the existing paradigm. But worse than that, the advice is backwards. You cannot possibly think outside the box unless you understand the nature of the box that bounds your current thinking. You must come to know that… -
You Should Be Able to Get Rich in Charity
28 Sep 2011 | 9:40 amThere, I've said it. There should be no limit to the amount of money a person can earn making the world a better place, so long as the money is commensurate with the value they produce. If a person is a value-generating machine, and produces additional commensurate value for every additional increment of money they receive — and you can measure that value — then never stop the machine. And never let anyone else stop the machine. Let it keep producing value. Keep measuring it. And keep paying, without limit. To limit the production of value in the service of social progress is the…
-
Sylvia Ann Hewlett
-
Understanding Female Talent in Emerging BRIC Markets
30 Jan 2012 | 8:46 amJulia Jia was the first girl from her small village in Shandong Province to go to university. Now 30, she works for Louis Vuitton China's retail department and would like to have a career in luxury goods, perhaps in sales development or public relations. "Of course, I want to be in top management," Jia says, echoing the high-flying aspirations that have catapulted so many Chinese women into the business elite. Then in a seeming contradiction, she adds that she worries about work/life balance. "I would feel frustrated working 60 to 70 hours a week," she confesses. "If there were a conflict… -
Brazil's Women Shun the Private Sector
19 Dec 2011 | 12:56 pmBlame it on the bossa nova. For decades, the stereotypical Brazilian woman was the "tall and tan and young and lovely" inspiration for the international hit song, "The Girl from Ipanema." Today's garota de Ipanema, however, is more likely to be carving out a career than prowling the praia. Brazil's metamorphosis into the world's sixth largest economy has introduced a vast array of educational and professional opportunities inconceivable a generation ago. Women comprise 60% of the country's million-plus university graduates, leading the BRIC countries, the U.K., and the U.S. in the… -
Getting Japanese Women Back on Track
14 Nov 2011 | 12:54 pmThis post was written with Laura Sherbin, a senior vice president and the director of research at the Center for Work-Life Policy. Japan's economic health is threatened. Not just by an ongoing recession and March's disastrous earthquake and tsunami, but by an aging population that is decimating the workforce. If ever a country needed a breakthrough idea for productivity, it's now. In fact, a solution exists: Japan's underutilized and under-leveraged women. According to a 2010 study by Goldman Sachs, "If Japan could close its gender employment gap...Japan's workforce could expand by 8.2… -
Women in Emerging Markets Need Safer Commutes
14 Sep 2011 | 3:45 pmThe millions of women who have poured into the workforce in emerging markets over the past decade are used to overcoming obstacles but few are more difficult, infuriating, and demeaning than their daily commute. Corporations hoping to boost their bottom lines in these expanding markets may think that their obligations to their employees are limited to improving the workplace environment. But what if their female talent can't get to work in the first place? That's a real problem, according to our new book, Winning the War for Talent in Emerging Markets: Why Women are the Solution. Horrible… -
The Lure of China's Public Sector
7 Sep 2011 | 12:01 pmIt's generally assumed that the top graduates of China's universities will want to work for multinational corporations and that foreign employers can have their pick of the best and brightest. But that's no longer the case — especially for some of China's smartest women. More than 6.4 million university graduates entered the job market in 2010, up from one million in 1999. The number of high-skilled, high-paying jobs has not kept pace. As a result, the "iron rice bowl" — the Chinese nickname for a government job with guaranteed security and benefits — is looking increasingly…
-
Bill Taylor on HarvardBusiness.org
-
Are You Learning as Fast as the World Is Changing?
26 Jan 2012 | 11:00 amTom Kelly, general manager of IDEO, the world-renowned design firm, likes to quote French novelist Marcel Proust, who famously said, "The real act of discovery consists not in finding new lands but in seeing with new eyes." What goes for novelists goes for leaders searching to craft a novel strategy for their company, a new product for their customers, or a better way to organize their employees. In a world that never stops changing, great leaders never stop learning. Today, the challenge for leaders at every level is no longer just to out-hustle, out-muscle, and out-maneuver the competition. -
Average Is Over. What's Your Extra?
19 Dec 2011 | 8:05 amI approach a book by New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman with a mixture of wariness and anticipation. Wariness because Friedman's books tend to go on for many pages longer than they need to, and many of those pages contain his trademark blend of Davos Man self-congratulation and cheesy metaphors. Yet I still have a sense of anticipation because in every one of Friedman's books there are a handful of insights that are so clear, so sharp, so flat-out right that they frame how you look at the world going forward. That Used to Be Us, Friedman's newest book (written with Johns Hopkins… -
Just Because You Can Doesn't Mean You Should
6 Dec 2011 | 1:52 pmAs we come to the end of a bitter, divisive, downright ugly year in business and society, it's hard to pick the one big story that defines the climate of the times. This summer's rancorous debt-ceiling talks come to mind, as do the collapse of the feckless Italian government and the rise of Occupy Wall Street and its satellite movements around the country and the world. But if I had to pick one small story that provides a huge "teachable moment" for business leaders going forward, I'd choose Bank of America's late-September decision to charge customers a $5 monthly fee to use their debit… -
Don't Let What You Know Limit What You Imagine
29 Nov 2011 | 2:03 pmOne of the most perplexing features of these troubled times is that so many capable people in so many fields look so lost and ineffective. Whether it's the stubborn inefficiencies of the health-care system, the ever-rising costs of the higher-education system, even the slow-motion collapse of the US postal system, leaders with unrivaled expertise and decades of experience can't seem to develop creative solutions to dire problems. Why are so many smart executives so ineffective? One answer may be that all this experience is itself a problem. In her underappreciated book, The Innovation Killer,… -
The Values Proposition: Do Small Things with Great Love
24 Oct 2011 | 9:18 amThe world confronts vast uncertainty, from unrest in the social climate to accelerating shifts in the climate itself. The economy faces huge challenges, from public-debt crises in Europe to the overhang of mortgage debt in the U.S. The business community faces an ongoing series of stops and starts, from the loss of an icon like Steve Jobs to the rise of new-economy giants like Amazon and Facebook. There is a temptation, amidst the turmoil, for pundits to conclude that the only sensible response is to make bold bets — new business models that challenge the logic of an industry, products…
-
Anthony Tjan
-
Business Needs More Judo, Less Karate
24 Jan 2012 | 11:19 amConsider two hypothetical restaurants: type one and type two. Restaurant type one: Imagine yourself wandering the streets of a new city. You could be on Ocean Drive in South Beach, or Piazza Navona in Rome. You're thinking about dinner, and you come across a restaurant conveniently located on a busy stretch of street. Outside, it displays its panoply of meal choices in wax replica splendor, or "freshly cooked" under Saran wrap. On the sidewalk, an aspiring tan model flanks a manager-host, who wears a loud tie to go with the even louder voice he uses to solicit passersby. "Would you like to… -
Make Time for Time
22 Dec 2011 | 9:00 am"Donner du temps au temps," the late French President François Mitterrand used to say. "Give time for time." The notion being that you need to make time in order to appreciate the ultimate gift we have been given: time on this earth. Every day, we make conscious and less conscious choices on time allocation. Some uses of our time are routine — dropping off kids, eating meals, or going for a daily run. In between those routines, we look to our agendas to see what we are meant to be doing, whom to meet, when and where to go next. Most of us will spend more than one-third of our lives and… -
Don't Send That Email. Pick up the Phone!
1 Nov 2011 | 11:30 amAround this time last year, I wrote about how we need to get back to allowing conversation to occur without texting, emailing, browsing, Tweeting, Facebooking, or doing whatever else zeros and ones can do these days on smart phones, iPads, notebooks, etc. I am as guilty as the next person of falling for the perception that any response latency is unacceptable. As 2012 fast approaches, this needs to go on top of my New Year's resolution list: focus on the live conversations at hand, rather than parallel conversations on the Blackberry screen. But the bigger need is just for more live… -
The Challenge of the Average Employee
4 Oct 2011 | 8:13 amMost businesses have a normal distribution of talent — a limited number, say top 10 percent, of high potential, rock star performers, a bottom decile of underperformers, and a thick middle of 80 percent of folks who get the day-to-day stuff done. In well-managed businesses, there are clear feedback mechanisms to ensure that the bottom of the talent pack gets managed out efficiently and objectively. While at GE, Jack Welch popularized the notion that it was good to fire the "bottom 10" of his managers every year. On the other end of the spectrum, the better companies manage the top-end… -
The Power of Nuance of the Heart
12 Sep 2011 | 11:12 amIn the wake of his recent retirement, much has been written about Steve Job's peerless leadership and how he transformed not just his company, Apple, but the way we interact and live with media and technology. However long Apple manages to stay on top, there is no doubt that Jobs, with his angular genius, relentless quest for perfection, and industry-changing products, will go down as one of the greatest iconoclasts of business. But this is less a piece about Steve Jobs or Apple than it is a question followed by a short rumination. Is there a single trait that distinguishes the world's great…
-
Rita McGrath
-
Crowd-Sourced Labor: Will It Trump Permanent Employment?
1 Feb 2012 | 10:50 amA few weeks ago, I wrote up some of the trends that I'm going to be watching in 2012. One was the interesting phenomena of access to assets replacing ownership of assets in more and more realms. Car-sharing services such as ZipCar, room-sharing services such as AirBnB, and project-based programming services from companies like odesk are upending a lot of our assumptions about what it takes to run a business. Indeed, owning anything may soon be seen as an industrial-age relic in a lot of cases. The trouble with assets is that owning them creates inflexibility that can cause problems when… -
Industry Analysis Is Dead. What's Next?
19 Jan 2012 | 11:54 amOne of the most widely held beliefs in strategy is that variations in performance can often be explained by what industry a company competes in. A lot of our most cherished tools — five-forces analysis, the BCG portfolio matrix, and even SWOT analysis — rest on this assumption. But evidence is all around us that, although industries matter, they matter in different ways and with different effects than we may have thought. To take one example that crossed my desk recently, consultancy Accenture has developed a point of view on what they call the "Age of Aggregation." Among the… -
How Many Customers Did You Lose Today?
7 Dec 2011 | 12:36 pmMy theme this month appears to be tone deafness among business designers. Cue Bank of America! But genuinely, one of the most vexing dilemmas for senior executives is being plugged in to what is actually going on in the front lines of their business. It's all too easy to miss critically important customer experience information when one is engaging in the day-to-day grind that constitutes an executive's job. All the same, not being attuned to the way your business is perceived by customers can lead to a lot of damage. Here's a recent example. My husband and I were traveling from Edinburgh to… -
Bank of America: A Case Study in Tone Deafness
2 Nov 2011 | 9:33 amYou would think that savvy, sophisticated companies would have an easy time figuring out whether a move they are considering would blow up on them, wouldn't you? And yet, in the last few weeks we've seen some amazing examples of firms that seem to be tone deaf about how their customers feel about them. Take Bank of America. A month ago, it famously introduced a fee for using its debit cards, to a withering storm of protest. One customer was sufficiently enraged to gather 200,000 signatures asking the bank to reverse its decision. Oops. Yesterday, the bank announced plans to do just that. But… -
Groupon's Business Model Is Leaking
13 Oct 2011 | 12:54 pmRemember late last year when Google offered $5.3 billion to buy out Groupon? When the daily deals site rejected the generous offer from the search giant in favor of pursuing an IPO, it unleashed a flood of commentary, from this site and others. Many were skeptical; I wrote a blog post for HBR in the aftermath of the decision questioning the business stability of Groupon's model. Others contended that the deals site — at one time speculated to be valued at $15-20 billion — had nowhere to go but up. But in hindsight, spurning Google's offer is starting to look like a bad decision…
-
Andrew Winston
-
Walmart Broadens ROI for Green Power
7 Feb 2012 | 1:01 pmAt the recent GreenBiz Forum in New York, I was surprised by an on-stage interview with Fred Bedore, an executive from Walmart. I've followed the greening of the retail giant fairly closely for years, so I wasn't expecting a lot of new information from Bedore, Walmart's Senior Director of Business Strategy and Sustainability. But amidst a seemingly scripted set of responses on Walmart's supply chain and operational greening efforts, the discussion took an interesting turn. When addressing the company's aspirational goal of using 100% renewable energy, Bedore said two noteworthy things. First,… -
Apple's Greatness, and Its Shame
31 Jan 2012 | 10:21 amIs there such a thing as too much profit? A disciple of Milton Friedman would say "never." The idea that companies should only maximize shareholder value has had a stranglehold on the business world for decades. It's time to rethink this assumption. Last week, Apple reported breathtaking earnings. In the fourth calendar quarter of 2011, Christmas shoppers snapped up 15 million iPads and 37 million iPhone 4Ss. The world's most innovative company brought in $46 billion in revenues, $13 billion in profit, and an eye-popping $17.5 billion in cash flow. Apple is the only company competing with,… -
Ecosystem Economics: Navigating the Water-Food-Energy Nexus
26 Jan 2012 | 11:02 amWhen we talk about natural resource constraints on business — such as shortages in water or increases in the cost of energy or agricultural products — we tend to forget how deeply intertwined these commodities are. In the business community, just as in a natural ecosystem, an individual organism (in this case a company) is vulnerable to changes in the availability of these systemic inputs. The risks are greater than we realize because the availability of any of these key resources deeply affects the availability of the others. For example, it takes 95 liters of water to produce… -
Top 10 Green Business Stories of 2011
20 Dec 2011 | 9:42 amYes, it's December again somehow: time to look back on what we've learned and oversimplify into a handy list. Here's my take on the 10 big stories in sustainability and green business this year: The usual sustainability drivers got stronger Ok, this one is cheating a bit, but on a fundamental level, the top themes in green business haven't actually changed too much (see the 2010 list). So, rather than take up valuable list real estate with these perennial favorites and big-picture drivers, I'll quickly list them in one big bucket of mega-trends: The rise of the consumer around the world,… -
Water's Economics as Muddy as Ever
18 Nov 2011 | 9:34 amIt's hard to put into words how dry and hot Texas was this past summer. "Off the charts" is both figuratively and literally accurate: the data for the last 100 years shows a tight regression of temperature and water availability in Texas...except for the 2011 drought, which is far off the line (three degrees hotter with an inch less rainfall than any previous year). The economic cost of the drought has been incredible; Texas lost $5.2 billion in agricultural production alone. With agriculture making up 9 percent of the state's economy, and water shortages already threatening growth in the…
